Lament of the Mind

victoriousvocabulary:

MORRIGAN

[proper noun]

The Morrígan (“phantom queen”) or Mórrígan(“great queen”), also written as Morrígu or in the plural as Morrígna, and spelled Morríghan or Mór-ríoghain in Modern Irish, is a figure from Irish mythology who appears to have been considered a goddess, although she is not explicitly referred to as such in the texts.

The primary themes associated with the Morrígan are battle, strife, and sovereignty. She sometimes appears in the form of a crow, flying above the warriors, and in the Ulster Cycle she also takes the forms of an eel, a wolf and a cow. She is generally considered a war deity comparable with the Germanic Valkyries, although her association with a cow may also suggest a role connected with wealth and the land.

Etymology: thought to be derived from Irish Mór Ríoghain meaning “great queen” however there is some disagreement over the meaning of the Morrígan’s name. Mor may derive from an Indo-European root connoting terror or monstrousness, cognate with the Old English maere (which survives in the modern English word “nightmare”) and the Scandinavian mara and the Old Russian mara, “nightmare”; while rígan translates as ‘queen’. This can be reconstructed in Proto-Celtic as *Moro-rīganī-s. Accordingly, Morrígan is often translated as “Phantom Queen”.

[Lenka Simeckova]