Irish Mythology

 The Morrigan is the ancient Irish goddess of battle, prophecy, death, sovereignty, and magic.
Essentially the name "The Morrigan" is mostly understood to be a title pertaining to three related goddesses in Irish mythology, Badb and Macha and Morrigan. The latter figure "Morrigan" we can't know for sure what her actual personal name is, some sources would seem to indicate Anu as being the most seemingly likely. However there are also connections to Danu and Bríg/Brigit. (Source: Morgan Daimler) 

 Brigit was the daughter of the Dagda in Irish mythology. The patroness of smithwork and poets. Associated with the fires of creativity and inspiration, and also with the waters of healing. An alchemist, and a prodigy of flame and wave. Brigit invites us to see in a new light.

"The word "Brigit" carries enormous potential and it is important to spell out what the word means. The word derives from the Indo European word 'brig' and means 'Exalted' or 'High One'. It is cognate with the Vedic word, 'brihatí' that relates to the word 'Brigantí', Latinised as Brigantia. Brigantia is said to have been the goddess of the Brigante tribe, and Cartimandua was the queen of this tribe in the first century C.E...

Embodied in the figure of Brigit, is our old European indigenous wisdom traditions. Many European wisdom traditions were preserved in rural and agricultural communities, and speak of a stream of wisdom, rooted in consciousness...

Brigit's most prolific images and sites are the Wells scattered all over Europe. These Wells, such as that at Faughart often appear on top of mountains and hills, suggesting the bubbling source of life itself...

Brigit may be patroness of Smithcraft but her anvil was that of the soul; her alchemy, that of the spirit."

--- Condren M, 2010, Brigit, Matron of Poetry, Healing, Smithwork and Mercy: Female Divinity in a European Wisdom Tradition', Journal of the European Society of Women in Theological Research 18 (2010) 5-30
 

 In Ireland the time of Bealtaine was associated with releasing the cattle back onto the pasture and for this reason always brings the figure of Flidhais to mind for me.

Flidhais is connected with cattle and deer and is a somewhat elusive and mysterious figure as she features very little in Irish mythology, yet holds much allure.

In the Lebor Gabala Erenn Flidais is the owner of magical cattle, and also had a herd of deer that gave milk like cows (Keating, 1857). One of which magical cows was called Maol, and in the Driving of the Herd of Flidais Maol could feed 300 men from one milking (Leabar na h-Uidre, nd).

In this tale we also encounter Flidais's sexual adeptness as only she could satisfy her lover Fergus; without her it would take 7 women to do the same (Ó hÓgáin, 2006).

Dáithí Ó hógáin states that her name is associated with milk and milking, and her epithet is foltchaoin meaning "soft haired" (Ó hÓgáin, 2006).

She was mother to possibly six children, referenced in Lebor Gabala Erenn and the Metrical Dindeshenchas.

In the Driving of the Herd of Flidais she is the source of the conflict; married to Aillil Fionn she falls for Fergus Mac Roich and asks that he take her away from her husband, and thus a bloody battle ensues. Perhaps implied in the Banshenchus when it states: "Flidais...Though slender she destroyed young men. She decreed hard close fighting." (Banshenchus, nd).

Flidais is at one point referenced as a healer in the Driving of the Herd of Flidais, where she tended to and healed the men wounded in battle (Leabhar na h-Uidre, nd).

From what we can gather of Flidhais she presents as both domestic and wild, maternal and sexual, and ultimately a goddess of nourishment and sustenance. Modern Celtic pagans often associate Flidais with the woodlands and with wild animals, although in mythology she is equally connected to domestic animals (Daimler).

As always I'm cherry picking from the shoulders of giants!

The Ogham in my drawing reads, "Nourishing" and "Wildness". 

 "It is again a time of seasonal change and the Cailleach has stepped through the veil and into our world. The fields are bare and the wind carries a colder edge, speaking of what is to come and what must always return."- David Halpin, Circle Stories (Facebook).

The figure of the 'wise woman', the 'hag', the Cailleach, or the 'Red Woman' are part of an oral tradition which has its roots in pre-Christian Ireland, and gaelic Irish and Scottish tradition. Some would even consider the Cailleach as being a neolithic goddess and a figure that is said to have created and left her name in many forms on the landscape, both natural and manmade landscape features. In Ireland some such places include, the cairns at Loughcrew, Cailleach Beara's House at Slieve Gullion, the hag's chair at loughcrew and in the south west of Ireland the Beara Peninsula, to name a few...

"This personage is regarded in traditional cosmology as the personification in divine female form of the physical landscape, within which human life is lived and also of the cosmic forces at work in that landscape. These forces can range from the power of wind and wave, seen at their most dramatic in fierce winter storms, to pastoral and nurturing fertility forces in plant and animal life orders within the landscape. They can also be the geotectonic forces whose workings have left the physical landscape as it presents itself to human consciousness and human life." - Gearóid Ó Crualaoich