The Morrigan: The Nightmare Queen

The Morrigan functions today largely as the supreme dark Celtic goddess, associated with violence, sex, shape-shifting and sorcery: the scary side of female power. This talk is designed to search for her in her medieval Irish roots, in order to explain her modern reputation and also to see if she was once a rather different and more complex figure. It locates her as originally one of five different Irish war goddesses, each with their own distinctive characteristics, of whom she was the most unusual. By doing so it also shows why she has survived as a modern celebrity while the others have been forgotten, but also how those others have contributed to her modern image.