Here are some stories I have found in my Celtic books.

Where possible I have written the author's name.

Enjoy your reading.

Etain the Fairy

(Anonymous Irish author of the 9th century)

The men could see a woman beside the spring. In her hand glinted a comb of silver with decorative work in gold, and she was about to wash her hair in a bowl of beaten silver with reddish-purple gems glittering on its rim and on its sides four inlaid golden birds could be seen as she turned the bowl. The woman wore the fleece of a fine shaggy sheep dyed purple, and on the shoulders of this cloack were silver brooches worked in twisted filigree with golden ornament. Beneath the cloack she wore, stiff yet smooth, a tunic of green silk with a long hood, embroidered with reddish-gold thread; they could see the interlacing of exotic animals worked into the tunic in gold and silver runnibg over her breasts, shoulders and shoulder blades. The gold gleamed in the sunlight against its green silken background.

Her golden-blond hair was arranged in two long tresses; each tress was made up of four plaits, and at the end of each plait hung a bead. To some men her hair was the colour of the yellow flag iris which grows by summer water; others thought it like ruddy polished gold.

She began to untie her hair for washing, her arms reaching out from the openings in her dress. The arms were straight yet soft, their tops as white as a fall of night snow before the sun rises; the skin of her face was clear and her cheeks blushed red like the foxglove on the moor. Like the black beetle's wing were her eyebrows; like a spray of pearls were her teeth; like the brilliant blue starry flowers of borage were her eyes; of bright red vermilion were her lips. Her soft, smooth shoulders stood high and white; of the purest white were her fingers, long and slender as were her arms; and long, slender and soft as pliable wood were her white sides, like the foam on the wavecrest. Smooth, shiny and sleek were her warm white thighs; her small, firm knees were white and rounded; white shins she had, short and straight. She stood straight and even on her heels, which looked lovely from behind; if a straight rule were placed along her feet, no fault would be found, unless the skin or flesh were made to bulge by pressing too hard.

the bright blush of the rising moon glimmered in her noble face; her smooth forehead was high and dignified; the beams of eroticism shone from her royal eyes; her cheecks bore the dimples of her sport which flushed now with a purple as red as the blood of the frisky calf and now the white brilliance of the snow. Her voice was noble and gentle; she walked as befits a queen, stepping steadily and stately. She was the most perfect woman in the world to behold, as fair and lovely as they could ever hope to see; the men agreed that she must have been a fairy....

from "An Introduction to Celtic Mythology" by David Bellingham

The Woman from the Land of Everlasting Life

(Anonymous Irish author of the 8th century)

Two warriors were walking up on Uisnech: Conn of the Hundred Battles and his red-haired son Connla, one of the Fianna, the hundred and fifty fearless chiefs who led Ireland in the wars. Over the hill came a woman, strikingly dressed so as to make the young Connla exclaim: "Where did you come from, woman?"

"From Tir Na mBeo, the Lands of the Living," she replied, "and not of your world, for there you will find no men looking for a fight, and no one dies. We feast without servants, and bear no grudges. See there." the woman pointed to a barrow on the ridge. "That is where we live, and some call us the fairy hill folk."

"Who is that you are speaking to?" cried Conn, for he could not see the strange woman. she answered for the dumbstruck Connla: "I am young, beautiful and of high family; and I shall never grow old and die. I have fallen in love with your red-haired son and offer him a place in the court of King Boadhagh, who has known no weeping since he came to power in the Plain of Delights. So are you coming, Connla the Redhead, with the jewels of your torque glinting in your eyes of candle flame? You shall have a crown of gold!"

Conn turned to his Driud, Corann, and said: "I cannot fight the magic of this woman, for all the battles I have won since I became king. You have the power of song. Use your skills, Corann, against these unseen forces which will take my handsome son away from me." The learned Druid sang his magical song, and no one saw or heard the weird woman as she wandered off, leaving only an apple in her young man's hand.

For a month Connla could not drink or eat, except of his apple; and yet there beside his bed was the apple, untouched. Connla secretly yearned to see the strange woman again.

It happened on the plain of Archommin. He was with his father, who would not let him out of sight, yet she appeared from nowhere, saying: "I see Connla seated on a high throne, surrounded by the dead, and waiting to join them. Come to the Land of the Living, before it's too late. All the time the immortals are watching you from the hill, waiting for you to join them."

Conn heard the voice and called for his Driud: "You have let her evil tongue off the leash, Corann!" "No!" shouted the woman. "It is your Druid who is the evil one. One day a good man will step ashore and rid our land of such black magicians."

Conn saw thet his son was being taken in by the woman's words. "I can't help it!" cried Connla. "I love my own people dearly, but my longing for this woman overcomes me."

The woman spoke once more: "You long to ride the wave of your desire and tear yourself free from your people. In my boat of crystal we might have reached the fairy hill of King Boadhagh. That is now impossible; but look, in the setting sun I can see another land for you. It is far distant, but we can be there by nightfall. All who travel to that land are made happy; only girls and women live there."

Connla leapt into the crystal boat. Conn and his warriors watched the two rowing into the sunset until their eyes could no longer make them out. They were never seen again

from "An Introduction to Celtic Mythology" by David Bellingham

The Morrigan (Ireland)

(retold by Shanti Fader)

When men go to war, they do not go alone. Overhead circle the black carrion crows, wheeling through the sky and crying out in anticipation of the brave feast to come.

The lady of the crows is the Morrigan, triple goddess of war, death and slaughter. Her hair is as black as their gleaming feathers, her eyes are brilliant and keen, her bearing fierce and prideful. She moves as swiftly as the wind, and in her voice is the crackling of a thousand black wings. She has seen a thousand battles; she has heard the dying wails of a thousand thousand men.

One battle, though, it was the cries of a living man that caught the Morrigan's ear. A young warrior he was, and mighty, and his sword did not rest in its sheath for the entire lenght of the battle. His hair was the color of flame, far brighter than the blood which flowed all about him, and his eyes the hard, brilliant blue of the midwinter sky. His arm was strong and swift, his back straight, his manner proud. a mortal man, and yet he caught the eye of the Morrigan, for she is woman as well as goddess.

The battle ended, as all battles must in time. In a shiver of gleaming black feathers, the Morrigan settled to the ground. Wordlessly, she followed the flame-haired man as he walked away from the slaughter, away from the crows that circled ever lower.

The flame-haired man turned at last, and saw the lady standing behind him, pale as the moon, wrapped in a cloack of purple-black feathers and nothing else. Instantly he was stricken with desire.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Macha," she answered, for that was one of her names. Macha, Babd, Nemain.

"I am Crunniuc Mac Agnomain, of Ulster."

And then there were no more words; the time for speaking was ended. As Macha, the Morrigan went home with Crunniuc, and agreed to become his wife on one condition: that he never boast of her.

Three years passed. Crunniuc kept his promise; Macha was as loyal as she was passionate. She had borne him two sons, and her belly was swollen with a third, when crunniuc was invited to dine with the king of Ulster. As he departed, Macha repeated her warning: "Do not boast upon me."

Alas, promises are often forgotten when wine flows freely, and so it was with Crunniuc. Loudly he bragged about his fleet-footed wife, claiming she could outrun the king's fastest warhorses. Naturally, the king wished to see this marvel, and announced that Macha should race his swiftest horses for all in the land to see. when Crunniuc brought word of this challenge back to Macha, she did not say a word, but clasped her hands across her belly and turned away.

The day of the race dawned. thousands of people had gathered to watch. Macha, still heavy with child, stood silently, proud and terrible, beside the king's horses. The signal was given and the race began. the horses were swift, but despite her swollen and unwieldy body, Macha was swifter still. At first she outpaced the horses easily, but as the race wore on, she grew more and more weary, until at last she stumbled across the finish a hansdbreadth ahead of the fastest horse, and collapsed in a torrent of blood and birth waters.

then the sky turned black. The woman's form was lost in a rush of purple-black wings as hundreds of crows came spiraling down, screaming and cawing. When they lifted back in the sky, there was no sign of the woman Macha, nor of her baby. Instead, from the midst of the murder of crows, alive with their cries and the crackle of their wings, came the voice of the Morrigan:

"Hear me, men of Ulster! For the breaking of your word, for your boastful pride, for the shameful burden placed on a woman heavy with child, I curse you! For five days and four nights, whenever Ulster has greatest need of its men of war, they shall be unmanned, and shall suffer the pangs of childbirth even as Macha suffered!"

And so it was, for nine times nine generations.

from "Parabola" issue Summer 1997