The Morrigan is a goddess of battle, strife, and
fertility. Her name translates as either "Great Queen"
or "Phantom Queen." The Morrigan is also known as Morrigu,
the Celtic goddess of war and strife. The Morrigan appears as
both a single goddess and a trio of goddesses. Other deity's who
form the trio are Macha, Anann, and Badb. Macha fed on the heads
of her enemies, Anann was a mother goddess (the Paps of Anu were
named after her), and Badb, a goddess of war who took the form
She frequently appears in the guise of a crow. She
helped defeat the Firbolg at the first battle of Mag Tuireadh
and the Formorians at the second battle of Mag Tuireadh. During
the second battle, the Morrigan said she would go and destroy
Indech son of De Demnann and "deprive him of the blood of
his heart and the kidneys of his valor" and she gave two
handfulls of that blood to the hosts. When Indech later appeared
in the battle, he was already doomed.
The Washer at the Ford is another guise of the Morrigan.
The Washer's usually to be found washing the clothes of men about
to die in battle. In effect, she is choosing who will die.
She appeared to the hero Cu Chulainn (son of Lugh)
and offered her love to him. When he failed to recognize her and
rejected her, she told him that she would hinder him when he was
in battle. When Cu Chulainn was eventually killed, she settled
on his shoulder in the form of a crow. His misfortune was that
he never recognized the feminine power of sovereignty that she
By some accounts, she is the consort of the Dagda,
while Badb and Anann are sometimes listed as consorts of Neit,
an obscure war god who is possibly Nuda the Sky Father in His
According to Druidic beliefs, Morrigan was the dominant
goddess of Europe called the Great Goddess. She is a bird goddess,
an earth goddess, and her breasts not only nourish the living
they also regenerate the dead. Her breasts were believed to form
the hills in County Kerry (the Paps of Anu).
She is the Irish Morrigan, goddess of death and
guardian of the dead. She has in these early Celtic aspirations,
a birds head (often a crow, raven or vulture) and breasts, and
on the vessels depicting her there is a symbol for the number
three. Sometimes these lines are connected and depict a triple
energy that flows from her body, as she is giver and sustainer
of life. She is understood to be a shapeshifter, and a triple
goddess, a three part person.
Finally in the Arthurian vision: many scholars trace
Morrigan and her two sisters, Macha and Modron, to Morgan Le Fay.
She was the most beutiful of nine sisters, living on the Isle
of Avalon. She was Fata Morgana Le Fay. Lancelot suffers at the
hands of Morgana in the Valley of No Return, where he must face
trials and tests in the shape of dragons and spectral knights,
a wall of fire and a gigantic knight with an axe. In the same
volume, Morgana plots to murder Arthur, and give his power to
Accolon of Gaul, and she almost succeeds in this, since she had
given Accolon Excalibur, but during the battle he loses control
of it and the sword flies back to Arthur. So in an overview, Morgana
is a villainess and uses illusion to try and destroy Arthur although
she fails. Some tales say Arthur was taken to Avalon by Morgana,
and that as transporter, she is neither good nor evil.
tomb shrine stands in Newgrange Ireland for the Morrigan. In it's
three stone cells, three stone basins engravings of triple snake
spirals, coils, arcs and brow ridges. Her signs appear on spindle
whirls, altars, sacrificial vessels, vases, pebbles, and pendants.
She is the chevron and V, the inverted triangle, the earth element.
She is the triple source of power needed to regenerate cycles,
to take one from life to death and from death to life. Figurines
that pair sprouting seed and vulvas, fish in the ocean, and the
female body as a passageway. Vultures and owls are associated
with her. Spirals, crows, and ravens. Lunar circles and snake
coils. Female figures lock to form circles and fairy rings. Her
followers do energetic ring dances, dangerous to an intruder who
tries to break in. Her circles transmit energy by the increased
power of stone, water, mound of circling motion. She is the moon's
three phases, maiden, nymph and crone. The moons, new, waxing
and old. She is the source of life giving death and transformation,
regeneration and renewing.
Rituals for the Morrigan:
Many devotees of the Morrigan have a permanent shrine
set up in Her honor. They use such items as a bowl of brine and
blood, a raven or crow feather, or even a piece of red cloth (to
symbolize the Washer at the Ford). Some people use menstrual blood
which is very appropriate. Blood, especially menstrual blood,
is a symbol of both life and death, fertility and war.
Rituals should be kept simple. Find something that
symbolizes the Morrigan and meditate on it. When you feel Her
presence, you may wish to offer Her something of value. This can
be as simple as some ale or as difficult as spilling your own
If we see her as guide and protectress then she
will grant us the clear vision of her ravens. Her healing will
be cleansing, not easy maybe, because as the earth rots away and
transforms all that is dead, or as fire consumes and transmutes
static energies, or as the scavengers pick clean, so her cleansing
is to the bone. Not so easy, but what she transforms is cleansed
to the bone.