Monaghan Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore
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an inscription found at some remove from the
river also mentioned Souconna.
south Cosmological concept. In the spiritual
geography of Ireland, NORTH represented the
DIRECTION opposed to the solar cycle, because
from the northern hemisphere the SUN moves
always toward the south from dawn to noon.
Thus south is deosil in Irish, a word that also
means to move in a way congruent with the
natural order. The southwestern
PROVINCE of
MUNSTER takes on some of the mythological
significances of its direction, representing poetry
and song; it is also considered the province most
connected with women and the feminine.
Sovereignty (Sovranty, Lady of Sovereignty,
Flaith) The goddess of the land was envisioned
in Celtic Ireland as bride of the king, wedded to
him at his INAUGURATION. The figure of
Sovereignty is varied: It can be the unnamed
loathy HAG who offers NIALL a drink at her
sweetwater well, then demands a kiss in recom-
pense; it can be ÉRIU, titular goddess of the
island; it can be fierce and willful MEDB, who
weds one king after another.
If the figures vary, the concept they embody
remains stable: that the king’s duty is to maintain
the land’s FERTILITY through righteous behavior.
This meant that he had to offer HOSPITALITY to all
who came, to rule wisely, and to honor the sacred
vows and taboos (see BUADA and GEIS) that came
with his office. Should he fail to do so, his reign
would be forfeit—if not his life, as was the case for
CONAIRE, who, despite years of successful ruler-
ship, broke his sacred vows and died a horrible
death as a result. The hag who came to him at DA
DERGA’s hostel to proclaim his death may be a
punitive form of the goddess of Sovereignty.
See also KINGSHIP.
Sources: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image in
Celtic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,
p. 10; O’Brien, Marie Cruise. “The Female
Principle in Gaelic Poetry.” In S. F. Gallagher,
ed. Woman in Irish Legend, Life and Literature.
Irish Literary Studies 14. Gerrards Cross,
Bucks: Colin Smythe, 1983, pp. 26–37.
sow See PIG.
spéir-bhean (spear-ban, sky woman) Irish
heroine. A late (16th–18th century) version of
the goddess of SOVEREIGNTY through whose
right a king could rule in Ireland, the spéir-bhean
was depicted by BARDS of the time as a beautiful
young woman, possibly from the OTHERWORLD,
who wandered the roads searching for the land’s
true leader. Her name was sometimes given as
CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN, sometimes is ROISIN
DUBH or Dark Rosaleen. Sometimes she
appeared as the Shan Van Vocht (Sean-bhean
Bhocht), the “poor old woman,” who recalls the
HAG who turned young again when kissed by the
rightful ruler. The most famous version of the
spéir-bhean is found in William Butler Yeats’s play
Cathleen ni Houlihan written for the revolutionary
leader Maude Gonne.
Source: Clark, Rosalind. The Great Queens: Irish
Goddesses from the Morrígan to Cathleen Ní
Houlihan. Irish Literary Studies 34. Gerrards
Cross: Colin Smythe, 1991.
spells Ritual action. The use of verbal MAGIC
has a long history in Celtic lands, for BARDS were
believed to have the power to transform the
physical world by the sheer power of their
speech. In folklore this belief was translated into
the idea that rhyming spells can bring
HEALING
(when the words are used to bless) or pain (when
cursing is intended). Sometimes brief cere-
monies accompanied the repetition of the
rhyme—dipping stones in water, rubbing parts
of the body—but these were less important than
the rhyme or recitation itself.
See CURSE.
Source: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft and
Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, p. 57.
424 south
spiral Mythological motif. Celtic art is
renowned for its interlacing spirals, which espe-
cially deck the metalwork (shields, jewelry, and
tools) found in their lands throughout the dura-
tion of the culture. The motif continued to appear
as late as the Christian Middle Ages, when such
masterworks as the Book of Kells, with its ornate
spiraling ornamentation, were created. Though
the spiral is associated today with the Celts, it is
possible that they adapted it from the imagery left
them by the people of the MEGALITHIC CIVILIZA-
TION, who carved great spirals across their stone
monuments. Many pre-Celtic spiral designs, like
the triple spiral of Ireland’s Newgrange (see BRÚ
NA BÓINNE), are complex artworks that suggest a
spiritual importance. Whether and how the spiral
was transmitted from pre-Celtic to Celtic people
has not yet been studied.
Source: Meehan, Aidan. Celtic Design: Spiral
Patterns. London: Thames and Hudson, 1996.
spontaneous speech See DÍCHETAL DO
CHENNAIB
spriggans Cornish folkloric figures. These
ghosts of the ancient race of GIANTS were trans-
formed into FAIRIES, who served as bodyguards
to other fairies. They were mischievous, though
not usually dangerous, preferring to scare off
those who might intrude upon fairy gatherings
rather than, for instance, murdering them. Like
many fairies, they were inveterate thieves, slink-
ing about the countryside stealing BUTTER and
other valuables.
spring Mythic site. WELLS and springs can be
difficult to distinguish, for they both serve simi-
lar purposes in myth and legend as well as being
similar freshwater sources. Both were viewed as
having HEALING powers, even at a distance, so
that water brought from a holy well or sacred
spring could help someone unable to travel
there. Especially potent were thermal springs or
“hot springs,” where early people could relax in
naturally warm (indeed, sometimes scaldingly
hot) waters; even into Roman times the great
thermal spring at BATH was visited by throngs
seeking cures for physical and emotional pain.
Many scholars have proposed that pre-Celtic
peoples also used these sites, so rituals there may
have derived from a mixture of religions. Earlier
peoples may have seen the sites as openings to
the womb of the earth mother, but the Celtic
heritage seems clear in the connection, found
throughout the Celtic world, of water with
abundance, fecundity, and health.
spring equinox Calendar feast. The Celts did
not mark the two EQUINOXES, when daylight and
darkness are of equal length, nor the SOLSTICES
in winter and summer, as most other peoples of
the world do; rather, they marked the points in
between, in their great festivals of SAMHAIN
(winter), IMBOLC (spring), BELTANE (summer),
and LUGHNASA (autumn). Yet there are vestigial
celebrations in Celtic lands that suggest that ear-
lier dwellers had marked time in the more con-
ventional way; orientations of STONE CIRCLES
and such megalithic monuments as the BRÚ NA
BÓINNE
in Ireland show that equinoxes and sol-
stices were important to those earlier dwellers.
Sreng Irish hero. Less renowned than NUADA,
his opponent in single combat in the first bat-
tle of MAG TUIRED, Sreng was a warrior of the
FIR BOLG who, sent to meet the invading
TUATHA DÉ DANANN, realized that his people
would be unlikely to beat their magically
armed foe. His own people refused to listen to
his counsel, so Sreng fought with the Tuatha
Dé king Nuada, cutting off his arm and caus-
ing him to lose his
KINGSHIP.
stag Mythic animal. The horned male of the
DEER held a significant place in the iconography
of the god
CERNUNNOS, who wears antlers in
many sculptures and reliefs.
standing stone Mythic site. Hundreds of pil-
lar-like stones still stand throughout all the
standing stone 425
ancient Celtic lands, sometimes in groups (see
STONE CIRCLES) and sometimes alone. Erected
by pre-Celtic people of the MEGALITHIC CIVI-
LIZATION some 6,000 years ago, such monu-
ments are evidence of an early civilization with
great engineering skills and an apparently deep
religious sense. See also DOLMEN.
Starn Irish hero. Two obscure figures carry
this name. One was a brother of the invader
PARTHOLÓN; the other, son of NEMED, was father
of the poet TUAN MAC CAIRILL. Neither plays
much role in myth.
St. George British saint and folkloric hero.
The cross on the British flag today is an emblem
of this saint, said to have been a soldier from the
Holy Land who suffered martyrdom by the
Romans. What such a figure has to do with
England has baffled many; some believe that,
like ST. MICHAEL and ST. PATRICK, St. George
took the place of an earlier mythological hero
who protected the land by slaying DRAGONS.
Many scholars argue that St. George stands
to England as St. Patrick to Ireland: as the sym-
bol of Christian dominance over ancient pagan
ways. Patrick killed the goddess-demons CORRA
and CAORANACH, while George slew the dragon
that haunted the wilder places of Britain, where
the old ways remained strong the longest. As
with St. Michael, George’s churches often stand
in ancient holy spots. The image of George
killing the dragon may have been an icon of the
victory of Christianity over Celtic paganism.
St. Michael Scottish and British saint and
folkloric hero. In Christian cosmology, Michael
was one of the archangels of heaven who,
tempted by the bright angel Lucifer to oppose
the divine will, refused and remained at God’s
side in a great angelic battle. His appearances in
Christian legend are numerous, for he witnessed
the burning bush with Moses and spoke with
Abraham. This angel-saint plays a significant
role in British and Scottish folklore, perhaps
standing in (as ST. PATRICK may in Ireland) for an
earlier mythological hero figure. He was a spe-
cialist at removing threatening DRAGONS from
the land, an honor he shared with ST. GEORGE;
the dragons have been variously interpreted as
indicating residual pagan influences beaten
down by Christianity, or earlier mythic beings
who were bested by a Celtic god or hero. Many
sites or churches dedicated to St. Michael were
built on ancient sacred sites, notably the tower
atop the TOR in GLASTONBURY, further support-
ing the theory that his legends are influenced by
Celtic or even pre-Celtic material.
St. Michael’s feast day on September 29,
called Michaelmas, is close enough to the
autumnal EQUINOX that harvest festivals have
collected around that day; in the Scottish islands
a special harvest-bread called struan or struan
Michael was until recently served as part of the
ritual festivities. In Ireland “Michael’s portion”
was an offering at harvest time.
stoat Irish mythological animal. This small
red-brown Irish land mammal, which looks rather
like a weasel, was viewed anthropomorphically
and thought to have human characteristics such as
living in families and holding rituals for their
dead. They were dangerous, for their saliva could
poison a full-grown man; they were also mischie-
vous and prone to thieving. It was not good luck
to encounter a stoat when setting out on a jour-
ney, even a short one, but one could turn the luck
to good by greeting the stoat as a neighbor.
Source: Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Irish Superstitions.
London: Gill & Macmillan, 1995, pp. 32 ff.
stolen bride See FAIRY KIDNAPPING.
stone Mythic motif. The mysterious pre-Celtic
people of Ireland, Britain, and Brittany were
astonishing stonemasons, building structures that
lasted almost 6,000 years; they also carved their
426 Starn
art onto the stones, leaving an unreadable but
provocative record of their beliefs. The Celts,
who moved into these lands thousands of years
later, saw no similar depth of symbolism in stone.
They did, however, adapt the impressive sites—
see BRÚ NA BÓINNE and STONEHENGE—to their
own rituals, including the important one of kingly
INAUGURATION. At Tara the impressive boulder
called the LIA FÁIL was said to roar or shriek when
the true king sat upon it; at Ireland’s center the
STONE OF DIVISIONS was said to map the four
provinces of the island.
Adapting earlier stone structures to ritual use
was made easier by the fact that the Celts saw the
world in a pantheistic way, believing that
NATURE was animated by divinity and was there-
fore sacred. Stones, like TREES and running
WATER, therefore were significant evidences of
divine power.
stone circles Mythic site. Hundreds of stone
circles, ranging from tiny to enormous, dot the
islands and peninsulas of the traditional Celtic
lands. Built by the people of the MEGALITHIC
CIVILIZATION thousands of years before the Celts
emerged into the historical records, the stone
circles were often kept as sacred spaces, being
left relatively undisturbed while fields and towns
were built around them. (In the case of AVEBURY,
the town was built within the stone circle, one of
the largest in Britain.) Although there were peri-
ods in historical times when the stones were
moved or destroyed, in general folklore (often
mislabeled “superstition”) preserved them, for
the archaeological sites were believed to be the
habitations of the FAIRY race.
Source: Harbison, Peter. Pre-Christian Ireland:
From the First Settlers to the Early Celts. Thames
and Hudson, 1988, p. 94.
Stonehenge British mythological site. On
the Salisbury Plain rises one of the ancient
world’s most famous monuments, Stonehenge.
For hundreds of years, the great STONE CIRCLE
was wrongly associated with the Celts, who lived
in the area thousands of years after the erection
of the stones in ca. 4000 B.C.E. The builders
lived so far before historical time that we have
no information about who they were, what lan-
guage they spoke, or what they believed, but the
similarity of Stonehenge to other such monu-
ments (notably Carnac in Brittany and BRÚ NA
BÓINNE in Ireland) has led scholars to speak of
the MEGALITHIC (“big stone”) CIVILIZATION,
named for their monumental constructions.
Like other great megalithic monuments,
Stonehenge was built with reference to the stars.
It is carefully aligned to permit a particular illu-
minating moment on the morning of the sum-
mer SOLSTICE; both Carnac and Newgrange at
the Brú na Bóinne were aligned to the moment
of sunrise on the winter solstice. Whoever the
builders were, whatever their beliefs, they pos-
sessed impressively accurate information about
the solar system.
Although its original myth and meaning are
lost, Stonehenge in historical times attracted
many legends. The third-century B.C.E. writer
Apollonius claimed that it was a temple to
APOLLO and called the worshipers there
Hyperboreans (“beyond the wind god Boreus”).
Later stories claimed that the great magician
MERLIN built Stonehenge in a single day, bring-
ing the stones by magical levitation from
Ireland; they were called the
GIANTS’ DANCE
because they had earlier been carried off
through enchantment from Africa by Irish
giants. Another story credits the
DEVIL with
building the stone structure, all in one night,
chuckling at the surprise of the local population
when they awoke to find the massive building
where, the evening before, there had been only a
flat plain. A monk, overhearing the Devil’s brag-
ging, interrupted him, whereupon the Devil
threw one of the huge stones at him—which
nicked his heel before falling to the ground,
thereafter to be known as the Heel Stone. These
legends hide a bit of truth. Although it is
unlikely that teleportation was the means of
transit, it is true that the stones come from a dis-
Stonehenge 427
tance, some having been carried—perhaps rolled
on logs—from as much as 26 miles away.
Despite scholarly agreement on the lack of
connection between Celts and Stonehenge, the
local antiquarian and man of letters John Aubrey
argued, in the 17th century, that the site was a
DRUID temple. In recent years the Order of
British Druids (established in 1781) has claimed
the right to celebrate their rituals within the
stone circle. Robed in white in the pale dawn,
the group may indeed be reenacting the pres-
ence of Celtic peoples within the circle at that
time, but with no documentary evidence of
Celtic use of the site, such a reconstruction can
only be considered imaginative theater.
Sources: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions of
British Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,
Inc., 1972, p. 84; Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth
Goddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.
London: Blandford, 1997, p. 99; Whitlock,
Ralph. The Folklore of Wiltshire. London: B. T.
Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 76.
Stone of Divisions (Aill na Mireann, Ail na
Múenn, Catstone, Navel Stone) Irish mytho-
logical site. Upon the flanks of the sweeping hill
UISNEACH, mythic center of Ireland, a huge
boulder lies, left there by the retreating glaciers
some 10,000 years ago. It rests about halfway
down the hill, a half-mile away from the sum-
mit, from which almost all of Ireland can be
seen on a clear day.
Locally called the Catstone, although there is
no legend or myth to explain the name, the great
glacial erratic is more formally known as the
Stone of Divisions, because its shattered face is
believed to include a map of the four provinces of
Ireland. With a good imagination one might,
indeed, see MUNSTER, CONNACHT, ULSTER, and
LEINSTER mapped in the cracks of the rock. Local
legend has it that the stone marks the grave of the
goddess ÉRIU, for whom Ireland is named. The
stone is also sometimes called the Navel Stone of
Ireland. The phrase would seem to indicate that
it marked the point where the land was once con-
nected to an immense mother, but little legend
exists to further describe this phrase.
In the BOOK OF INVASIONS, the arriving
MILESIANS encountered three goddesses in
turn, each standing on a mountain; each
obliged them to promise that the land would be
named after her (see BANBA, FÓDLA). Upon
arriving at Uisneach, their poet AMAIRGIN
decided that the land should bear Ériu’s name,
as it does to this day.
Source: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:
Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 196–199.
St. Patrick (Patrick, Patricius, Pádraig, Pátraic,
Cothraige) Irish saint and folkloric hero. It is
interesting that no contemporary author from the
fifth century C.E. mentions this name, for that is
when the great St. Patrick was said to have been
converting Ireland; Gildas and Bede, two impor-
tant historians of the era, make no reference to a
man named Patrick, which has caused some com-
mentators to doubt that he ever existed. Although
that is a minority opinion, most writers agree that
folkloric and mythological motifs gathered
around an historic figure, so that anything written
about Patrick must be viewed with great caution
in terms of its historicity.
According to the various Lives written in
early Christian times and the two autobiogra-
phies reputed to have been written by the saint
himself, Patrick was born in Britain to a family
of well-off Romanized Celts. Even such a gen-
teel upbringing was insufficient protection
against sea pirates, who kidnapped the lad and
sold him into slavery in Ireland (traditionally, in
ULSTER). For six years, until he was 22, Patrick
was a farm worker, apparently learning the lan-
guage of his captors. Then he escaped and made
his way to the Continent.
There, he experienced a vision in which he
was instructed to return to Ireland in order to
convert the inhabitants to Christianity. Legend
does not record what kind of training he
428 Stone of Divisions
received for this mission, but it tells much about
his arrival in Ireland. Proselytizing among his
former captors, Patrick used his knowledge of
Irish religion in order to explain the mysteries of
Christianity. The best known of his evocative
explanations is his use of the SHAMROCK, proba-
bly the common clover, to show how the
Christian divinity can have three persons (father,
son, holy spirit) while being still one god; in this,
Patrick employed the familiar Celtic motif of
triplicity in an innovative fashion (see THREE).
The shamrock speech was said to have
occurred on “Easter,” although the pre-Patrician
Irish Celts would not have celebrated that
Christian feast. Rather, they were celebrating the
springtime festival of BELTANE, which involved
lighting fires on hilltops across the land. As the
people waited expectantly for the fire to blaze
from the top of TARA hill, home of the high king,
they were surprised instead to see a light from an
inconsequential little hill nearby. The druids
rushed to SLANE to see who dared such a sacrilege
and found Patrick there over his offending fire.
Most of Tara’s court was, according to leg-
end, easily converted, but some of the DRUIDS
did not wish to give up their power to the new
hierarchy of priests and monks. Thus there are a
number of legends in which Patrick was said to
engage in combat with the druids—legends that
are filled with un-Christian imagery suggestive
of the Celtic worldview. In one such story,
Patrick was challenged to a magical combat by a
druid, who enchanted a garment that Patrick
was to wear. Patrick did the same, and the druid
died horribly after putting on his garment, while
Patrick’s associate escaped unharmed (the great
saint did not, apparently, risk putting on the
enchanted garment himself). Some druids con-
tinued to threaten Patrick, but he passed
through their midst without their seeing him.
He could read in the dark by the light of his own
glowing fingers; rain never touched him no mat-
ter how severe the storm. Such magical events
are clearly legendary rather than historical. The
insertion of a druidical prophecy claiming that
Patrick would come to convert the land seems a
later interpolation designed to support the
claims of the new religion.
In several legends Patrick directly confronts
the pagan world that his religion replaced. In
one such story, he encountered the princess of
CONNACHT one morning at the holy spring of
OGALLA, where they had come to bathe. The
girls, EITHNE and FEDELM, mistook Patrick and
his monks for druids and began to discuss reli-
gion with them. Learning that Patrick served a
new god, the girls asked questions that give
insight into the religious expectations of the
Celts at the time, asking, for instance, where his
god lived, whether in the earth or the sky or the
sea? Satisfied by Patrick’s answers, the girls
accepted baptism and then died instantly, to
assure themselves of remaining unstained by sin.
In a similar tale, Patrick encountered OISÍN and
Caoilte, members of the heroic FIANNA who had
been stolen away and carried to the OTHER-
WORLD. (Variants of the tale say Patrick met
only one, usually the poet Oisín.) He debated
with them which religion held more promise,
showing Christianity to be the more hopeful
worldview, and thus converted the pagan sages.
Such literary texts are useful in gaining insight
into what values and ideals Celtic Ireland held,
as well as those brought from abroad by the
proselyting Christians.
Also legendary were Patrick’s combats with
various Otherworld powers. He split the
HAG
GARRAVOGUE into four parts with his staff; he
battled the water monster called
CAORANACH,
sending her to a watery death (or perhaps not,
depending on the legend consulted); he fought
with the demon CORRA atop the mountain now
called CROAGH PATRICK in his honor; he smashed
the idols of CROM CRUACH. And, in the most
familiar legend, he drove the snakes out of
Ireland (see SERPENT). That last is entirely fabri-
cated, as there were no snakes in Ireland at the
time of his coming; this has been typically inter-
preted as indicating the driving forth of pagan
Celtic divinities from the land.
Many sites in Ireland that are now devoted to
reverence of St. Patrick were originally pagan
St. Patrick 429
sites that were SAINED or converted with the com-
ing of Christianity. The most prominent of these
is Croagh Patrick (locally known as “the Reek,”
from a word meaning “mountain”), the pyramidal
mountain where Patrick is reputed to have fought
with the demon Corra before flinging her into the
sea at the mountain’s base. Ruins have been found
on Croagh Patrick’s summit suggesting that reli-
gious observance there stretches back into the
neolithic period, some 6,000 years ago. Today it is
the best-known Patrician site in Ireland. On Reek
Sunday in late July (see LUGHNASA), thousands of
pilgrims climb the steep path to the summit, some
of them barefoot, some on hands and knees.
St. Patrick’s feast day of March 17 is cele-
brated as a holiday in many countries where Irish
influence has been strong. It was not traditionally
a day of national importance in Ireland itself until
recent times, being more typically an ethnic cel-
ebration of descendants of the Irish diaspora.
Sources: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,
Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle Bhéaloideas
Éireann, 1982; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. The Hero in
Irish Folk History. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan,
1985, pp. 5 ff.
stray sod (lone sod, fod seachran) Irish folk-
loric motif. While the idea of being lured off
your intended path by
FAIRIES usually entails the
fairy placing a GLAMOUR spell upon a site, in
Ireland the fairy people had a simpler, more
portable expedient. They put a stray sod—a little
piece of enchanted grass—on the path and then
watched as people became
PIXY-LED or helplessly
confused as to their location. It was possible to
hide a stray sod in plain sight, even in the middle
of a road. When a passerby’s foot struck the sod,
all the surroundings became unfamiliar. Trapped
this way, a traveler could wander for hours, grow-
ing ever weaker and more exhausted, until the
mischief-making fairy put everything right again.
stream Irish and Scottish mythological site.
All flowing WATER was sacred to the Celts; most
RIVERS were named for goddesses, who were
imagined as generously watering the land. In a
diminished way, streams and brooks had the same
HEALING quality. Most significant was the cross-
ing or joining of THREE streams; as anything
occurring in threes was significant to the Celts,
such sites were considered magically potent. In
Scotland, as the sun rose, if you filled cupped
hands with water from the point of meeting, you
could have good luck and good health, as long as
you spoke the following invocation: “I will wash
my face, in the nine rays of the sun, as Mary
washed her Son, in the rich fermented milk.”
Source: Ross, Anne. Folklore of the Scottish Highlands.
London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 53.
Strid British folkloric site. Near Bolton Abbey
in West Yorkshire is a narrow pass in the River
Wharfe called the Strid. There, on BELTANE
morning, a woman was said to appear, riding a
white HORSE; she was thought locally to be the
goddess of the watershed, VERBEIA. Those who
crossed the river afterward were warned to be
careful, for the goddess’s appearance often
prophesied death from drowning.
Source: Clarke, David, with Andy Roberts.
Twilight of the Celtic Gods: An Exploration of
Britain’s Hidden Pagan Traditions. London:
Blandford, 1996, pp. 96 ff.
stroke (Elf-stroke, fairy stroke) The full or
partial paralysis that we now know to be caused
by an interruption of blood to the brain or a clot
therein was believed, in the past, to be punish-
ment for offending the FAIRIES, who would
“stroke” the offender in punishment. Those who
lapsed into coma were believed to have been
taken AWAY and CHANGELINGS put in their place.
Cutting down FAIRY TREES, plowing through
FAIRY MOUNDS or otherwise interfering with
fairy business could bring on stroke. Many sites
of legendary importance were protected for gen-
erations by this belief.
430 stray sod
struan See CAKE.
Sualtaim mac Roich. (Sualtam mac Roy,
Subaltach, Sualtach) Irish hero. Foster father
of the great ULSTER hero CÚCHULAINN, Sualtaim
was given the princess
DECHTIRE in marriage
after she became pregnant by drinking water in
which a magical WORM was swimming. Sualtaim
plays little part in myth, except to warn the court
of
EMAIN MACHA about the advance of queen
MEDB’s armies in the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.
Unfortunately he turned so quickly on his horse,
the Grey of MACHA, that his own shield lopped
off his HEAD—which continued to call out warn-
ings until the men of Ulster awakened from
Macha’s curse and protected their land.
Súantrade Irish hero. The music of this leg-
endary harper was so sad that people died of bro-
ken hearts just hearing it.
submerged city Mythic theme. The image of
a city under the water of a lake or the sea is com-
mon to Celtic lands: Ireland’s INCHIQUIN lake
and LOUGH GUR both were said to have cities on
their rocky bottoms; in Wales we find tales of
the Lowland Hundred in Cardigan Bay; in
Brittany the magical city of YS rested in the sea
off Pointe la Raz. Some of these were FAIRY
cities, for which the OTHERWORLD is sometimes
called Land Under Wave; some were originally
surface cities that sank, either because of the
decision of their residents to withdraw from this
world, or because they were cursed by an evil
power. As there are in fact sunken settlements in
the areas covered by the Irish and North Seas
and the Atlantic Ocean as the glaciers retreated,
there may be some historical memory embedded
in these apparently fanciful tales.
Sucellus (Sucellos) Continental Celtic god.
The name of this important Celtic god seems to
mean “the striker,” and in his arms he carried the
symbol associated with his name, a great
HAM-
MER or MALLET like the one that a similar god,
the DAGDA, carried in Ireland. Found across
Gaul, sometimes in connection with the goddess
NATOSUELTA, he was not renamed by the invad-
ing Romans for one of their gods, although he
was sometimes associated with their woodland
god Silvanus. Sculptors showed him as a mature
bearded man with a fine head of curly hair, gaz-
ing benevolently at the viewer. He wore native,
not classical, clothing—a tunic and a cloak.
Sometimes Sucellus wore a crown of leaves or
was joined by a hunting dog.
His hammer has been variously interpreted.
It was so important to his identification that
sometimes the hammer alone, with no human
form, stood for the god. It was not usually con-
nected with lightning, as with other hammer
gods such as the Greek Zeus and the
Scandinavian Odin. Rather, the hammer has
been interpreted to mean the power of vegeta-
tion, driving itself up through the earth; thus
Sucellos is described as a FERTILITY god or a
god of the wildwood. Perhaps because his ham-
mer could reawaken life, he was also seen as a
god of healing.
Source: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image in
Celtic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,
pp. 46, 75.
Suibhne (Sweeney, Mad Sweeney, Suibne,
Suibne mac Colmain, Suibhne geilt) Irish
hero. When Suibhne, a king of a small region of
ULSTER, went to war to support the king of the
province, he did so with a cloud hanging over
him, for he had recently mistreated a monk, St.
Rónán, who cursed him. The saint traveled to
the battlefield to attempt to make peace, but
Suibhne again insulted him, this time also
killing one of Rónán’s clerics, and the saint
cursed him again.
When the battle started, it was fierce and
horrible. Whether because of Rónán’s curse or
because of the horror of war, Suibhne went mad
and abandoned his post on the battlefield.
Suibhne 431
Thinking himself a bird, he climbed a YEW tree.
Each time he was found by his supporters, he
fled again, always finding another tree in which
to make his home. Finally he arrived at a
monastery, thought to have been at Rosharkin in
Co. Antrim or Gleann na nGealth (the Glen of
the Lunatics) in Co. Kerry, where a relative dis-
guised himself as an old woman—the only one
Suibhne trusted—and finally brought the king
back to his throne. Then the old woman came to
him and reminded him how high he used to
jump when he was mad. Suibhne tried it again
and lost his wits again. He lived for a time with
another madman, Alladhán (also called Fear
Caille), who tried to leap into a waterfall and
drowned; after that, Suibhne partly recovered
his sanity. When he reached his old palace, he
would not go in for fear of capture and went
away lamenting his life. He wandered across
Ireland until he reached a monastery in Co.
Carlow, where he spoke with the resident saint,
MOLLING, and was in the process of dictating his
adventures to a scribe when, in a jealous fury, the
husband of the monastery’s cook stabbed him
with a spear.
Suibhne is not listed on any of the rosters of
historical kings, so it is believed that he was an
Irish version of the figure known in Welsh
mythology as MYRDINN WYLLT, “wild Merlin.”
The magician, well known in the story of King
ARTHUR, went mad as a result of the massacre he
witnessed in the battle of Arfderydd. Like
Suibhne, he hid out in the woods, living off wild
foods and making prophecies.
During his mad days, Suibhne spoke in sen-
suous poetry, and thus he is an attractive figure
for poets; both the American poet T. S. Eliot and
the Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney have
used him as a poetic persona, while the mid-
20th-century Irish poet Austin Clarke wrote a
long poem entitled The Frenzy of Suibhne.
Source: Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Myth, Legend and
Romance: An Encyclopedia of the Irish Folk
Tradition. New York: Prentice-Hall Press, 1991,
pp. 394–395.
Suideachan Irish mythological site. On the
slopes of the MUNSTER mountain Knockadoon
can be seen AÍNE’s “birth chair,” a rock outcrop-
ping that was said to be an entry to the OTHER-
WORLD. There this goddess or FAIRY QUEEN sat,
arranging her long golden hair with a golden
COMB. As recently as a century ago, sightings of
Áine on her chair were not uncommon, although
those who witnessed her appearance were likely
to drown thereafter or to go to insane from the
vision of her unearthly beauty. The chair was
sometimes said to be the possession of an other-
wise mysterious figure called the FAIRY HOUSE-
KEEPER, suggesting an identity between the two
magical feminine figures of haunted LOUGH GUR.
Sul (Sulis, Sulis Minerva) British goddess. At
the small city of BATH in central southwestern
England, hot springs bubble forth at the rate of a
million gallons a day. They were called by the
Romans AQUAE SULIS, “the waters of Sul,” and the
site was a significant center for commerce and
HEALING, a combination of Lourdes and the Mayo
Clinic where people came to pray and bathe in the
steaming waters, hoping to be cured of their ills.
For many centuries after the legions left Britain,
the baths were buried under silted-up deposits,
but in the 17th century they were rediscovered by
antiquarians. Today the great columns of the main
bath are open to the sky; from their level, one can
look up to see the medieval cathedral, its base sev-
eral stories above the once-buried Roman baths.
The Romans associated the goddess of the
thermal springs with their healing divinity, MIN-
ERVA or Minerva Medica (“medical Minerva”),
so that she is sometimes called Sulis Minerva; in
a bronze sculpture found in the temple precinct,
Sul is shown as a warrior maiden. More impor-
tant, scores of inscriptions—many written on
lead and deposited in Sul’s waters—reveal how
active the shrine was in ancient times. More than
6,000 coins have been retrieved from the spring,
most of Roman date. As goddesses of WATER are
known in other Celtic lands, it is assumed that
Sul is the local form of that divine category.
432 Suideachan
Sul’s name suggests that she was a SUN god-
dess, for it is connected to words that mean both
“sun” and “eye.” Despite this pointed connec-
tion, some scholars continue to look for a male
sun divinity in the area, even suggesting that all
inscriptions to Sul contain a misspelling of the
word for “pig.” As a sun goddess, Sul would be
connected with such figures as BRIGIT, who in
Ireland was associated with holy WELLS (in that
case, rarely thermal) that were said to have heal-
ing properties. Like Brigit, too, Sul was said to
have been served by a college of priestesses who
tended an eternal flame. Occasionally Sul
appears in the plural (see SULEVIAE); the same
name is occasionally given to Brigit.
Sources: Green, Miranda. “The Celtic/Goddess as
Healer.” In Billington, Sandra, and Miranda
Green, eds. The Concept of the Goddess.
Routledge: London and New York, 1996, pp.
28 ff; Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celtic
and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:
Blandford, 1997, pp. 94 ff.
Suleviae Continental Celtic goddess. Several
dozen inscriptions have been found to this mul-
tiple goddess, whose name seems to mean “the
many Suls,” thus connecting her with the British
healing goddess SUL. Caesar associated this team
of divinities with the Roman goddess MINERVA,
who ruled HEALING.
Summer Land (Summer Country) British
folkloric site. This name is often used to
describe the OTHERWORLD, where the weather is
always fair, flowers bloom endlessly, and fruit
hangs ripe off the trees. It is also used in some
texts to describe the land of MELEAGANT, the
ogre who held queen GUINEVERE hostage until
the fine knight LANCELOT rescued her.
sun Cosmological concept. In the 19th cen-
tury, scholars sometimes spoke of mythology as
a form of poetry, a collection of primitive narra-
tives about the forces of NATURE. Primary
among these forces was the sun, whose presence
at the center of our solar system and impact on
earthly life made it a likely candidate for divinity
in many cultures. So insistent were scholars of
that early period in finding solar connections to
various gods that a backlash began. Today, “solar
mythology” is disdained, and as result anti-
quated attitudes about mythology have
remained unexamined for more than a century.
Primary among these attitudes is the presup-
position that the sun is invariably a masculine
symbol. In fact, dozens of cultures from Japan to
South America, from the arctic to Arabia, have
seen the sun as feminine. Yet examination of
solar mythology generally halted while the
assumption was still made that that the Celts saw
the sun as a male figure—as a god. Many candi-
dates are proposed as the “Celtic sun god,”
including LUGH and LANCELOT, yet there is no
definitive statement in any Celtic-language text
that shows a god being honored as the sun.
There is, however, significant evidence that the
Celts saw the sun as a goddess. Indeed, the name
of one goddess, SUL, means “sun.” In the Irish lan-
guage the word for “sun” has been feminine in
gender since the first recorded usage; this word,
grian, is occasionally used for a minor goddess fig-
ure who may be connected with or the same as the
more prominent heroine GRÁINNE. A few scholars
are hesitantly examining this question, but the
general prohibition against solar mythology
means that it has not been substantively explained.
Sources: Green, Miranda. Celtic Goddesses: Warriors,
Virgins and Mothers. London: British Museum
Press, 1995, pp. 114–115; Green, Miranda.
Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art. London:
Routledge, 1989, p. 37; Hull, Eleanor. Folklore of
the British Isles. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.,
1928, pp. 67 ff; Monaghan, Patricia. O Mother
Sun: A New V
iew of the Cosmic Feminine. Freedom,
Calif.: The Crossing Press, 1994, pp. 61–86.
superstition Cosmological concept. When one
religion is replaced by another, one, either
superstition 433