CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
Contribution: Fabiana Elias Albino
amelie_poulain2003@yahoo.com.br
AINE (1)
With the Goddess Aine we
wander into the realms of
the unfettered powers of femininity. The Goddess Aine
was one of
the female deities that suffered
from repression at the hands
of the Christian monks. In Ireland around
500 BC it is fairly well attested that several
sites in Munster and Connaught were dedicated to the worship of Aine.
Her popularity even spread to the Western Isles of
Scotland. Some accounts give her as the
daughter of Manannan Mac Llyr, God of the
hidden paths in the realms of
the western ocean, while others
say that she was no other
than the great Morrigu herself.
In my personal opinion the latter
fits easiest in instinctive feeling.
We can see
Aine in triple aspect in the powers
attributed to her. Firstly as the Maiden in her ability
to reward her devotees with the
gift of poetry
or with unfortunate
madness. There is a stone that belonged
to Aine high on her mountain,
Cnoc Aine, which could bestow
either poetry to the worthy or
madness to those she rejected. Also,
it was said
that all the mad dogs
in Ireland would congregate around this stone. It is not hard with
her connection with poetry and
hounds to see her Maiden aspects
to be those of the Goddess
Bride, who in the form of
a Maiden was the muse of
poetry and had the name
Cu Gorm
(grey hound).
Next, as a Mother deity Aine is associated
with lakes and wells with
great powers of healing. Tobar-Na-Aine
(Well of Aine) was credited
with life-restoring powers. Also, in the Irish legends
we find in her son Earl
an archetype of Lancelot in the later Arthurian legends, while Aine herself is the Lady of
the Lake.
She is in several tales strongly associated with the Yew
tree which shows her as a Goddess of Life and
Death. In all her aspects it is clearly shown that
Aine was no deity to offend, for in spite of all
her beneficent attributes, if crossed she could
have coined the phrase "Hell hath no fury
like a woman scorned". There are many tales of her
revenge and her infinite patience
in its pursuit. In one story she
was offended by an Irish
High King whereupon she caused a great
battle to ensue in which he was
killed. It was said that
at his death
her mocking laughter could be heard over the
din of battle.
The attribute of Aine which
made her a great enemy of
the early Church was undoubtedly
her sexuality. If ever a Goddess was depicted as the Arch Rival of the institute
of matrimony then it was surely
Aine, whose promiscuity and freedom of spirit
could not be encompassed by man, thus
a threat to the self denial of
chastity of these womanless monks.
Finally, in her third aspect of
the dark Goddess, she has
the ability to appear to mortal men as a woman of great
beauty known as the leannan sidhe,
which means "Fairy Lover". In this form her
chosen subject would be totally
spellbound into what could only
be described as a fatal attraction, as the outcome was almost
certain to result in the death of
the chosen one.
This belief in fairy lovers still persists today among the more remote places of
Celtic countries. It is said that
a certain sign of this occurence
could be seen in the nocturnal
emissions of young men known
as wet dreams. If steps were not
taken to protect the victim they
would lose the will to live
and so die
in a wave of ecstasy. It can also be seen
where Graham Stoker drew some of his ideas
from on the
nature of vampires. He wrote
his book Count Dracula while staying
in his castle in the Scottsh Highlands
where belief in lovers from the
land of the
Dead were commonplace at that time. Of course
I should like to point out that
the reason for these phantom lovers
killing the loved one was
so that they
could be together in the Otherworld realms and this was
not restricted to the male gender as fairy lovers could
also be males. How would you
feel, I wonder, if the male warriors
among you found yourselves being smiled at
by a beautiful woman dressed in green garments with eyes as green
as emeralds and hair as red as blood.
[Copyright - S. McSkimming/L. MacDonald
from: GODS OF THE CELTS 1992 -Dalriada
Publications]
AINE (2)
Áine is a very powerful
goddess of the Irish tradition.
Áine is the daughter of Manannan
Mac Lir and is seen on the
sea from time to time. A large stone in Ireland, Cathair Áine, is reputed to attract wild dogs
from many counties around. These dogs are then seen running
madly into the sea at
Áine's
call. She is seen in a boat with her father
Manannan and sister Aoife going
around Inishowen. Áine is often viewed
as a goddess of sustenance, healing and fertility. Belief in Áine, and sightings of
her have continued down the ages. During the Irish Potato
Famine, for example, Áine was seen
on the top
of a hill
where she offered food to those who were
starving. Clearly the care of
Áine transcends the ages and does not wane with
time.
Áine is the spark
of life that
the Irish understand as traveling through the body
during a 24 hour period. What this
"vital spark" was
is not known. It is perhaps related to native forms of
Irish medicine that have been
lost.
Days of the year that are set aside to honor Áine are the Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday, following Lúnasa. On these
days some folk would climb to the top of
Cnoc Áine with torches. They
would circle the barrows there
anti-clockwise in a dance, and
then descend the hill
taking the ashes from the
hay torches with them to be
sprinkled over their fields for a better harvest.
However, Áine has a dark side.
She was once
raped by a King Ailill Olom who
coveted Áine's beauty. During
the rape Áine fought back and
bit Ailill's ear off earning
him the name
"Aillil Bare-Ear".
After the rape Áine swore vengeance
on Ailill and eventually contrived his death.
This story is about what happens
when a ruler decides to
rape the Land rather than enter
into a marriage with Her. Áine
knows the energies of a righteous
vengeance quite intimately.
She said:
"Ill have
you been to me, to have done me violence
and to have killed my father.
To requite this I too will do you
violence and by the time we
are done I will leave you with
no means of reprisal."
To me this is a warning
about what the Land will
eventually do to us all if we continue on the path
of resource rape, and environmental poisoning that our current society
follows. Áine will protect herself.
The "Paps of
Áine" are a set of two breast-like mountains in southern Ireland that have
been sacred to Her for as long
as memory reaches. The Paps are inhabited
by the Sidhe
and is a place of great brí.
In Colorado, our group considers the Spanish
Peaks, or Wahatoya, to be a place sacred to Áine. The Wahatoya
are, in form and appearance, very similar to the Paps in Ireland.