The Wooing of Etain

Midir of Bri Leith, lord of one of the great sidhe mounds of Ireland, saw Etain, the most beautiful woman in all the land, and desired her above all things. He sent Aengus, god of love and his foster-son, to negotiate the bride-price with Etain's father, Ailill. For a year Aengus labored, clearing twelve plains and making twelve rivers flow to the sea, until at last Etain was won.

Midir brought her to his home beneath the mound, and for a time they knew happiness. But Midir had a first wife, Fuamnach, a woman of great power who had been fostered by the druid Bresal Etarlam. Her jealousy burned colder than iron in winter.

"I will not share his love," Fuamnach swore. "If I cannot have him wholly, she shall have nothing at all."

With a rod of scarlet quicken-tree, Fuamnach struck Etain and transformed her into a pool of water upon the floor of the house.

The water became a worm, and the worm became a fly of surpassing beauty, the size of a man's head, with eyes like precious stones and wings that hummed with the sweetest music in Ireland. The fragrance of this fly banished hunger and thirst, and the dew that dropped from her wings healed the sick.

Midir knew the fly was his beloved Etain, and he kept her always near him, soothed by her music and her presence. But Fuamnach would not rest. She raised a wind, a magical tempest that blew Etain from the sidhe and drove her across Ireland for seven years. She could not alight upon tree or cliff or earth, only upon the rocks of the sea and the ocean waves.

At last she found shelter in the house of Aengus at Brugh na Boinne, who built her a grianan, a sun-chamber of crystal, and carried it with him wherever he went. For seven years more she knew peace.

Fuamnach learned where Etain sheltered and came to Brugh na Boinne with honeyed words of reconciliation. When Aengus left to summon Midir for the reunion, Fuamnach raised her wind again. This time Etain was blown through the roof-window of a house in Ulster, where she fell into a cup of wine held by the wife of Etar, a warrior of that province.

The woman swallowed the fly with her wine, and in time gave birth to a daughter whom they named Etain. This was Etain reborn into mortal flesh, with no memory of her divine existence. She grew to be the most beautiful woman of her generation, just as she had been before.

A thousand years passed in the Otherworld like a single night, but Etain walked now in the world of mortals, knowing nothing of the god who still loved her.

Aengus, discovering Fuamnach's treachery, tracked her down and took her head.

Eochaid Airem became High King of Ireland, and the nobles would not accept him until he took a wife. He sent messengers throughout the land to find the most beautiful woman in Ireland, and they found Etain at her father's home in Ulster, washing her hair at a spring. Her comb was of silver and gold, her basin of silver with four golden birds upon its rim.

Eochaid married her and loved her, and for a time there was peace. But his brother Ailill Anglonnach also fell sick with love for her, wasting away because he could not speak of it. When Eochaid left on a royal circuit, Etain discovered Ailill's illness and agreed to meet him at a house outside the fortress, believing she could cure him with her presence.

Three times she went to the tryst, and three times she found not Ailill but a stranger who looked exactly like him. On the third meeting, the stranger revealed himself as Midir, who had enchanted Ailill to arrange these meetings. He begged Etain to come away with him to the Otherworld, but she refused, for she had no memory of their former love and would not leave her husband without his consent.

Midir came to Tara in his true form, shining with otherworldly beauty, and challenged the High King to a game of fidchell, the royal board game. They played many games, and at first Eochaid won, demanding impossible labors: causeways built across bogs, forests cleared, rushes spread over bare hills.

Then Midir proposed one final game, with the stakes to be named by the winner. Eochaid agreed, and Midir won. His prize: to put his arms around Etain and take one kiss from her.

Eochaid granted him a month's delay. He ringed Tara with his warriors, every door barred, every window watched. But when Midir came, he appeared in the center of the hall, seized Etain, and rose through the smoke-hole as two swans linked by a golden chain.

For nine years Eochaid made war upon the fairy mounds of Ireland, digging into them with iron tools, demanding his wife's return. At last he breached Bri Leith itself, and Midir appeared with fifty women who all looked exactly like Etain.

"Choose," said Midir, "and take her home."

Eochaid chose, and took her away. But when they had been home for some time, Midir came to him again.

"You did not choose Etain," the god said. "You chose her daughter, whom she bore me in the Otherworld. And this daughter has borne you a daughter in turn. Your wife is your own granddaughter, and you have committed a great wrong."

The child born of this union was exposed to die, but survived to become Mess Buachalla, whose son Conaire Mor would be High King. And Etain, whether mother or daughter, passed from the stories of mortals, returning at last to the world beneath the mounds.