50 Fun Facts About Celtic Mythology

Which branch of Celtic mythology has the largest surviving body of written myths?

Irish. Rome never conquered the island, so its old tales lived on until Christian monks began writing them down in the early Middle Ages, while the myths of the Gauls survive only in scraps.

Epona, a Gaulish goddess adopted by the Roman army, was the protector of which animals?

Horses. Her name comes from the Gaulish word for horse, and the Romans who took up her cult set her image in a shrine in the stable and garlanded it on feast days.

Who were the Tuatha Dé Danann's great enemies, beaten for good at the second battle of Mag Tuired?

The Fomorians. These seaborne raiders had ground the Tuatha Dé down with heavy tribute and menial work, until the gods rose up and drove them from the island for good.

Niamh of the Golden Hair carried a mortal hero across the waves to which land, where 300 years passed like three?

Tír na nÓg, the Land of Youth. Homesick, he rode back under strict orders never to set foot on the ground, only to learn that everyone he had known was long dead and half forgotten.

The Lia Fáil, said to roar under a rightful king, stood at which royal site?

The Hill of Tara. The Tuatha Dé Danann were said to have carried the stone with them from the northern city of Falias, as one of the four magic treasures they brought to their new home.

Which invaders, ancestors of the Gaels, drove the Tuatha Dé into the sídhe?

The Milesians. The two sides agreed to divide the country, and the newcomers took the half above ground while the Tuatha Dé took the half below, living on inside the mounds.

Which king of the Tuatha Dé Danann lost his arm and, being blemished, his throne?

Nuada. The healer Dian Cécht fitted him with a working arm of silver, which earned him the name Airgetlám, 'silver hand', and let him take back the throne.

One end of the Dagda's great club killed; what did its other end do?

Revived the slain. The club was so huge that he dragged it behind him on wheels, and the track it left was said to be deep enough to mark the boundary of a province.

The Dagda is said to dwell in which ancient monument?

Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange). In one telling his son Aengus tricked him out of it, asking for the mound for 'a day and a night' and then arguing that all of time is made of days and nights.

Besides 'great queen', the name Morrígan is also translated as which kind of queen?

Phantom. This reading ties the first part of her name to the 'mare' in 'nightmare', an old word for a spirit that torments sleepers, which suits a goddess who foretells death and doom.

In which bird's form does the Morrígan typically appear?

Crow. As the badb, or scald-crow, she haunted battlefields to stir up the fighters, and when Cú Chulainn spurned her love she came at him in mid-duel as an eel, a wolf and a heifer.

In Gaelic folklore, whose wailing outside a house warns that someone in the family is about to die?

The banshee. She was said to follow only the old families and no others, so a household she wailed for could count her as an honour, a sign of ancient and noble stock.

Whose baleful eye could destroy an army, until his own grandson Lugh killed him?

Balor. In the old battle saga it took four men to hoist his eyelid by its ring, and Lugh's sling stone drove the eye out through the back of his head, where it turned its power on his own army.

Which month is still called Lúnasa in Irish, after the harvest festival founded by Lugh?

August. Lugh was said to have founded the festival as funeral games for his foster-mother Tailtiu, held every year at her tomb on the first day of the month.

Lugh's epithet Samildánach means what?

Equally skilled in many arts. Turned away at the king's door because every craft already had its master, Lugh asked whether the court had one man who was builder, smith, harper, poet and champion at once, and was let in.

Cú Chulainn was doomed after three crones tricked him into breaking his taboo against eating which meat?

Dog. His name means 'Hound of Culann', so the meat of his namesake was forbidden, yet custom also forbade him to refuse a meal, and the roast the crones pressed on him sapped his strength.

Which tragic heroine, foretold to bring ruin on Ulster through her beauty, eloped with the warrior Naoise?

Deirdre. King Conchobar had her raised in seclusion to be his own bride, and after he lured the lovers home and had Naoise killed, the old saga has her take her own life.

Manannán mac Lir, a Gaelic god long linked with the Isle of Man, is the lord of what?

The sea. A medieval glossary tried to explain him away as a mortal trader from the Isle of Man, a pilot so good at reading the weather that people took him for a god.

What was Cú Chulainn's birth name?

Sétanta. As a boy he killed the savage guard hound of the smith Culann in self-defence, then offered to guard the house himself until a pup could be reared, and so became 'Culann's Hound'.

Forced to run a race while pregnant, Macha cursed the warriors of Ulster to suffer what in their hour of need?

Labour pains. She won, bore twins at the finish line and laid the curse as she cried out, which is why the young Cú Chulainn has to hold off Queen Medb's army alone while the men of Ulster lie helpless.

What is the Irish term for Cú Chulainn's terrifying battle frenzy?

Ríastrad. In it his feet and knees turned backwards, one eye sank into his head while the other bulged out, and he could no longer tell friend from foe, so his enemies called him the Distorted One.

Who trained Cú Chulainn in arms and gave him the spear Gáe Bulg?

Scáthach. The spear was cast from between the toes, went in as a single wound and then burst into barbs that had to be cut out of the body, and she taught the trick to no pupil but him.

In which country did Cú Chulainn train for war under a famous warrior-woman?

Alba (Scotland). Tradition places his teacher's fortress on the Isle of Skye, and while he was there he fathered Connla, the son he would one day kill in single combat.

Which foster-brother did Cú Chulainn kill in single combat at a ford?

Ferdiad. He refused to face his old comrade until Queen Medb had him plied with drink, promised him her daughter's hand and threatened to set poets mocking him as a coward.

Who is Cú Chulainn's wife?

Emer. She bore his many affairs until he fell for Fand; then she came after her rival with fifty women armed with knives, and Fand went back to her own husband.

Queen Medb of Connacht invades Ulster in the Táin to steal which bull?

Donn Cuailnge. Medb wanted the brown bull because her own white-horned one had gone over to her husband's herd, leaving him the richer of the two, and when the two bulls finally met, neither survived the fight.

The oldest partial text of the Táin survives in which manuscript?

Book of the Dun Cow. Legend says its vellum came from the hide of a pet cow belonging to St Ciarán of Clonmacnoise, the monastery where the book was compiled around 1100.

How did the dying Cú Chulainn make sure he would face his enemies on his feet?

Tied himself to a stone. His enemies still hung back until a bird settled on his shoulder, and even then the sword that dropped from his dead hand cut off the hand of the man who came to behead him.

How did Fionn mac Cumhaill gain his wisdom?

Eating the Salmon of Knowledge. He was only cooking it for a poet who had long tried to catch it, but he burned his thumb, put it in his mouth and got the gift meant for his master.

What are the names of Fionn's two hounds?

Bran and Sceólang. They were his own kin: their mother, a woman of his family, had been turned into a hound by magic while she was carrying them, and they were born as pups.

Which landmark is said to be the handiwork of Fionn mac Cumhaill?

The Giant's Causeway, laid as stepping-stones to Scotland. In one telling the rival giant who crossed it found Fionn tucked up in a cradle, took fright at the size of the 'baby' and tore up the stones as he fled home.

Fionn's son, the poet who narrates much of the Fenian Cycle, is called what?

Oisín. The story goes that a druid turned his mother into a deer before he was born, and that Fionn first met his son seven years later as a wild boy found on a mountainside.

Which Fianna warrior eloped with Gráinne, the bride promised to the aging Fionn?

Diarmuid Ua Duibhne. He ran only because Gráinne laid a binding taboo on him, and the pair were hunted for so long that dolmens all over the country are still called their beds.

Which animal gave Gráinne's lover his death wound during a hunt on Ben Bulben?

A boar. Fionn could have saved his old rival, since water drunk from his hands would cure any wound, but twice he let it trickle through his fingers, and the third time he came too late.

The goddess Brigid, daughter of the Dagda, was patron of poets and which two crafts?

Healing and smithing. A ninth-century glossary gives her two sisters, also called Brigid, one a healer and one a smith, and many scholars read the three as a single goddess in triple form.

Saint Brigid's feast on 1 February was originally which Gaelic festival?

Imbolc. It marked the first day of spring, at the start of the lambing season, and many historians think the saint's feast took over both the date and the lore of the goddess whose name she shares.

Samhain, which opened the Gaelic winter, is widely seen as a root of which modern holiday?

Halloween. Samhain began at sunset on 31 October, and its bonfires, its disguises and its house-to-house visits in exchange for food are thought to have fed into the later holiday, which emigrants carried to America.

Which festival on 1 May opened the Gaelic summer with cattle driven between bonfires?

Beltane. Every hearth in the district was put out and relit from the festival bonfire, and people as well as cattle walked between the fires or leapt over the embers.

At Samhain the burial mounds were said to open as portals to where?

The Otherworld. With the way open, the aos sí were thought to walk abroad, so food and drink were left out to win their goodwill, and a place was laid at table for the family's dead.

Into what were the Children of Lir transformed by their stepmother Aoife?

Swans. Aoife relented just enough to leave them their human speech and the sweetest singing voices ever heard, so their own father found them by hearing birds talk on the lake.

What became of the Children of Lir when their 900-year spell broke?

Aged and died. A king seized them to carry them off by force, only to see them change into four frail, white-haired old people with moments to live.

What sound frightened the Children of Lir at Inis Gluairé near the end of their long enchantment?

A church bell. A holy man was ringing it for morning prayer, and their sister calmed her frightened brothers by telling them it was the very sound foretold to end their enchantment.

Which Mabinogi heroine rides a horse that no pursuer can catch?

Rhiannon. However hard Pwyll's riders spur they never gain on her ambling mount, until he simply asks her to stop, and she tells him he should have asked sooner for his horse's sake.

Who first published the full Mabinogion, printing the Welsh text beside an English translation?

Lady Charlotte Guest. An English earl's daughter who married the owner of the Dowlais ironworks, she learned Welsh as an adult and made the translation while raising ten children.

In the medieval Welsh tale Culhwch and Olwen, which famous king helps his young cousin win a giant's daughter?

King Arthur. The giant sets a string of impossible tasks because he is fated to die once his daughter marries, and Arthur's men, among them the future Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere, carry them out.

Which Mabinogion character appears in all Four Branches?

Pryderi. He is snatched from his cradle on the night he is born in the first tale, survives a ruinous war in the second, sees his kingdom emptied by a spell in the third and dies in single combat with Gwydion in the last.

In the Fourth Branch, Gwydion and Math make Lleu a wife out of what?

Flowers. They conjured Blodeuwedd from the blossoms of oak, broom and meadowsweet, and when she plotted her husband's murder Gwydion turned her into an owl, to be shunned by every other bird.

In the Second Branch, Branwen is married to the king of which land?

Ireland. Banished to the palace kitchens by her husband's court, she tamed a starling, taught it to speak and sent it over the water with a letter bound under its wing to fetch her giant brother.

The Mabinogion's Macsen Wledig, who finds his bride in a dream, is based on a real what?

Roman emperor. Magnus Maximus was a general proclaimed emperor by his troops in Britain; in the tale he falls for a woman seen in a dream and sends envoys across the world until they find her at Caernarfon.

Later Welsh folklore remembered Gwyn ap Nudd, lord of Annwn, as the king of which beings?

The fairies. In one legend a saint climbs Glastonbury Tor to Gwyn's glittering court, refuses the food he is offered and flings holy water over the company, leaving nothing but the bare hillside.