Celtic Legends
Fairy forts (ráth and lios): the taboo that re-routed a road
Irish fairy forts (ráth, lios) are early-medieval ringforts held to be homes of the good people — and the taboo against disturbing…
Section
Category: <span>Myth & Folklore</span>
Celtic legend, gods, heroes and spirit beings — each story traced to the tradition it belongs to, the text it was first written down in, and its date.
Myth & Folklore
Changelings: the belief, its social history, and its real human harm
The changeling — a fairy left in place of a stolen human — was a folk explanation for illness and disability whose…
Myth & Folklore
Kelpies and the each-uisge: the Scottish Gaelic water-horse
The Scottish Gaelic water-horse comes in two forms: the river-haunting kelpie and the deadlier loch-dwelling each-uisge — a beautiful horse whose sticky…
Myth & Folklore
Selkies: the seal-folk of Orkney, Shetland, Scotland and Ireland
Selkies are the seal-folk of the northern seas — beings who shed their skins to walk as humans, and whose stories of…
Myth & Folklore
The Púca (pooka): the shapeshifting trickster of Irish folklore
The púca is the shapeshifting trickster of Irish tradition — a midnight black horse, a blackberry-spoiler at Samhain, sometimes a household helper…
Myth & Folklore
The Banshee (bean sídhe): the death-messenger and her regional forms
The banshee is the Irish "woman of the fairy mound" whose keen foretells a family death — a messenger, never a killer…
Myth & Folklore
The aos sí (the sidhe): the good folk and the fairy mounds
The aos sí are the Irish "good people" of the fairy mounds — descended in the sagas from the Tuatha De Danann,…
Celtic Legends
Lugh
Lugh Lámhfhada, the all-skilled god (samildánach) who slays Balor in Cath Maige Tuired and fathers Cú Chulainn — with the ‘sun god’…
Celtic Legends
Brigid
Brigid the goddess — daughter of the Dagda, patron of poetry, healing and the forge (Sanas Cormaic, c.900) — and Saint Brigid…
Celtic Legends
The Dagda
The ‘Good God’ of the Tuatha Dé Danann — chieftain, druid and giant — with his club, cauldron of plenty and harp…