Fairies

A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metephysical, preternatural or supernatural. Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term fairy offers many definitions. Sometimes the term describes any magical creature including goblins or gnomes, at other times, the term only describes a specific type of more ethereal creature.

Fairies are generally described as human in appearance and having magical powers. Their origins are less clear in the folklore, being variously dead, or some form of demon, or a species completely independent of humans or angels.
Much of the folklore about fairies revolves around protection from their malice, by such means as cold iron (iron is like poison to fairies, and they will not go near it) or charms of rowan and herbs, or avoiding offense by shunning locations know to be theirs. In particular, folklore describes how to prevent the fairies from stealing babies and substituting changelings and abducting older people as well.

Folk beliefs:
1. That fairies were dead or some sub class of the dead such as a banshee which is sometimes described as a ghost.
2. Another view was that fairies were an intelligent species, distinct from humans and angels such gnomes and sylphs.
3. An belief was that they were a class of demoted angels. One popular story held that when the angels revolted, God ordered the gates shut, those still in heaven remained angels, those in hell became devils and those caught in between became fairies. Others held that they had been thrown out of heaven, not being good enough but they were not evil enough for hell. This may explain the tradition that they had to pay a tithe to Hell.
4. A belief was that fairies were demons entirely. This belief became much more popular with the growth of Puritanism. The hobgoblin once a friendly household spirit became a wicked goblin. Dealing with fairies was in some cases considered a form of witchcraft and punished as such in this era.
5. A less common belief was that fairies were actually humans; one folktale recounts how a woman had hidden some of her children from God, and then looked for them in vain, because they had become the hidden people, the fairies.
6. Many of the Irish tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann refer to these beings as fairies, though in more ancient times they were regarded as goddesses and gods. The Tuatha Dé Danann were spoken of as having come from islands in the north of the world or, in other sources from the sky. After being defeated in a series of battles with other otherworldly beings and then by the ancestors of the current Irish people, they were said to have withdrawn to the sídhe (fairy mounds), where they lived on in popular imagination as fairies.

Banshee

The Banshee comes from the Irish bean sí (woman of the fairy mounds) is a feminine spirit usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the Otherworld.
In legend, a banshee is a fairy woman who begins to wail if someone about to die.
The story of the banshee began as a fairy woman keening at the death if important personages. In later stories, the appearance of the banshee could foretell death. The banshee can appear in a variety of guises. Most often she appears as an ugly frightening hag but she can also appear as a stunning beautiful woman of any age that suits her.
Although not always seen, her mourning call is heard usually at night when someone is about to die and usually around woods.
The banshee may also appear in a variety of other forms such as that if a hooded crow, stoat,hare and weasel - animals associated with witchcraft in Ireland.
Banshees normally dressed in white or grey, often having long pale hair which they brush with a silver comb. This comb detail is also related to the centuries old traditional romantic Irish story that, if you ever see a comb lying on the ground in Ireland, you must never pick it up or the banshees having placed it there to lure unsuspecting humans, will spirit such gullible humans away.

Leprechauns

A leprechaun is a type of fairy usually taking the form of an old man, clad in a red or green coat, who enjoys partaking in mischief. Like other fairy creatures, leprechauns have been linked to the Tuatha Dé Danann (mound-dwellers) of Irish mythology. The leprechauns spend all their time busily making shoes, and store away all their coins in a hidden pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If ever captured by a human, the leprechaun has the magical power to grant three wishes in exchange for their release.

Random Facts about Leprechauns:
1. All Leprechauns are male.
2. They spend most of their time making or mending shoes.
3. Their obsessive dancers in particular dancing a jig
4. Historically Leprechauns actually wore red not green
5. Notoriously foul-mouthed
6. Prefer spending time alone
7. In some legends, Leprechauns carry a gold coin for each year they've aged.
8. If a Leprechaun is captured they can't lie.
9. Leprechaun and the Clurichaun are often confused. Clurichaun are tiny drunken fairies who often play tricks on dishonest drunks. However they are not cobblers, do not have a pot of gold, and can not grant wishes.
10. You obtain a leprechaun's pot of gold by capturing him and not taking your eyes off him until you get your gold. This may be the origin of the leprechaun's trickery. Fairy law requires the leprechaun to be honest with you if captured, but only for as long as you look him in the eye. It does not forbid tricks, only lying, but as soon as you look away the leprechaun can vanish, lie to you, or anything else he can dream up. 

Niamh & Óisín

Óisín was regarded in legend as the greatest poet of Ireland, and is a warrior of the fianna. His is the son of Fionn mac Cumhaill and of Sadhbh and is the narrator of much of the Fenian Cycle. His name literally means 'young deer' or fawn and the story is told that his mother, was turned into a deer by a druid, Fear Doirich. When Fionn was hunting he caught her but did not kill her, and she returned to human form. Fionn gave up hunting and fighting to settle down with Sadhbh, and she was soon pregnant, but the druid turned her back into a deer and she returned to the wild. 7 years later Fionn found her child, naked, on Benbulbin.

In Óisín in Tir na nÓg, his most famous adventure tale, he is visited by a fairy woman called Niamh Chinn Óir (Niamh of the Golden Hair or Head, who announces she loves him and takes him to Tir na nÓg (the land of young). Their union produces Óisín's famous son, Oscar, and a daughter, Plor na mBan (Flower of Women). After what seems to him to be 3 years Óisín decides to return to Ireland but 300 years have passed there. Niamh gives him her white horse, Embarr and warns him not to dismount because if his feet touch the ground, those 300 years will catch up with him and he will become old and withered. Óisín returns home and finds the hill of Almu, Fionn's home, abandoned and in despair. Later, while trying to help some men who were building a road in Gleann na Smól  lift a stone out of the way on to a wagon, his girth and he falls to the ground, becoming an old man just as Niamh had forewarned. The horse returns to Tir na nÓg.

Fionn Mac Cumhaill

Fionn mac Cumhaill known in English as Finn McCool, was a mythical hunter-warrior. The stories of Fionn and his followers the Fianna, form the Fenian Cycle, much of them narrated by Fionn's son, the poet Óisín. Fionn is actually a nickname meaning blond, fair , white or bright. His actual childhood name was Deimne literally sureness or certainity and several legends tell how he gained the nickname when his hair turned prematurely white.

He was the son of Cumhall leader of Fianna and Muirine, daughter of the druid, Tadg mac Nuadat. Cumhall abducted Muirine after her father refused him her hand, so Tadg appealed to the High King, Conn of the Hundred Battles, who outlawed him. The Battle of Cnucha was fought between Conn and Cumhall, and Cumhall was killed by Goll mac Morna, who took over leadership of the Fianna. Muirne was already pregnant, so her father rejected her and ordered his people to burn her, but Conn would not allow it and put her under the protection of Fiacal mac Conchinn, whose wife, Bodhmall the druidess, was Cumhall's sister. In Fiacal's house she gave birth to a son, whom she called Deimne.

Muirine left the boy in the care of Bodhmall and a warrior woman, Liath Luachra, who brought him up in secret in the forest of Sliabh Bladma, teaching him the arts of war and hunting.  As he grew older he entered the service – incognito – of a number of local kings, but when they recognised him as Cumhal's son, they told him to leave, fearing they would be unable to protect him from his enemies.

The young Fionn met druid and poet Finneces and studied under him. Finneces had spent seven years trying to catach the 'Salmon of Knowledge', which lived in a pool on the Boyne: whoever ate the salmon would gain alll the knowledge in the world. Eventually he caught it, and told Fionn to cook it for him. While cooking it Fionn burned his thumb, and instinctively put his thumb in his mouth swallowing a piece of the salmon's skin.  imbued him with the salmon's wisdom. He then knew how to gain revenge against Goll, and in subsequent stories was able to call on the knowledge of the salmon by sucking his thumb.

Fionn arrived at Tara, armed with his father's crane-skin bag of magical weapons. He kept himself awake by sticking the point of his own spear into his forehead. The pain would not let him sleep and then Fionn killed the fire-breathing fairy Aillen who would lull the men of Tara to sleep with his music before burning the palace to the ground, every year for 23 at Samhain. After that his heritage was recognised and he was given command of the Fianna: Goll willingly stepped aside, and became a loyal follower of Fionn, although in many stories their alliance is uneasy and feuds occur. Fionn demanded compensation for his father's death from Tadg, threatening war or single combat against him if he refused. Tadg offered him his home, the hill of Allen, as compensation, which Fionn accepted.

Fionn met his most famous wife, Sadhbh, whne he was out hunting. She had been turned into a deer by a druid, Fear Doirich, for she had refused to marry him.  Fionn's hounds, Bran and Sceolan, who were once human themselves, recognised she was human, and Fionn spared her. She transformed back into a beautiful woman the moment she set foot on Fionn's land, as this was the one place she could regain her true form. She and Fionn married and she was soon pregnant. However, Fear Doirich returned and turned her back into a deer, whereupon she vanished. Fionn spent seven years searching for her, but to no avail. Fortunately, he was reunited later with their son, Óisin who went on to be of the greatest of the Fianna.



 

Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick was a Christian missionary, who is generally recognized as the patron saint of Ireland or the Apostole of Ireland. Although Brigid and Colmcille are formally also patron saints.

The legend begins from authentic letters from him which come the only accepted details of his life. The letters state that when he was about 16, he was captured from his home by irish raiders and taken to Ireland as a slave, where he lived for six years before managing to escape and returning to his family.
After entering the Church, he returned to Ireland as an ordinard bishop in the north and west of the island, however little is known about the place in which he worked. By the seventh century, he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland.

Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated on the date of his death, March 17th. His feast day is celebrated both inside and outside Ireland.

In Legend, St. Patrick is credited with banishing snakes from the island of Ireland, by chasing them into the sea after they attacked him during a 40-day fast he was undertaking on top of a hill. However, majority of the evidence suggests that Ireland never had any snakes to begin with. Yet no snakes have migrated here from elsewhere for instance from Scotland.

Children of Lir

Bodb Derg was elected king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, much to the annoyance of Lir. In order to appease Lir, Bodb gave one of his daughters, Aoibh, to him in marriage. Aoibh bore Lir four children: one girl, Fionnuala, and three sons, Aodh and twins, Fiachra and Conn.


Aoibh died, and her children missed her terribly. Wanting to keep Lir happy, Bodb sent another of his daughters, Aoife, to marry Lir.

Jealous of the children's love for each other and for their father, Aoife plotted to get rid of the children. On a journey with the children to Bodb's house, she ordered her servant to kill them, but the servant refused. In anger, she tried to kill them herself, but did not have the courage. Instead, she used her magic to turn the children into swans. When Bodb heard of this, he transformed Aoife into an air demon for eternity.


As swans, the children had to spend 300 years on Lough Derravaragh (a lake near their father's castle), 300 years in the Sea of Moyle, and 300 years on the waters of Irrus Domnann Erris near to Inishglora Island (Inis Gluaire). To end the spell, they would have to be blessed by a monk. While the children were swans, Saint Patrick converted Ireland to Christianity.


After the children, as swans, spent their long periods in each region, they received sanctuary from MacCaomhog (or Mochua), a monk in Inis Gluaire.


Each child was tied to the other with iron chains to ensure that they would stay together forever. However Deoch, the wife of the King of Leinster and daughter of the King of Munster, wanted the swans for her own, so she ordered her husband Lairgean to attack the monastery and seize the swans. In this attack, the silver chains were broken and the swans transformed into old, withered people.


Another version of the legend tells that as the king was leaving the sanctuary with the swans, the bell of the church tolled, releasing them from the spell. Before they died, each was baptised and then later buried in one grave, standing, with Fionnuala, the daughter, in the middle, Fiacre and Conn, the twins, on either side of her, and Aodh in front of her.


In an alternate ending, the three suffered on the three lakes for 900 years, and then heard the bell. When they came back to the land a priest found them. The swans asked the priest to turn them back into humans, and he did, but since they were over 900 years old, they died and lived happily in heaven with their mother and father.