CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
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                                 AINE
                                 ----

  With the Goddess Aine we wander into the realms of the unfettered powers
  of Femininity. The Goddess Aine was one of the female deities that
  suffered from repression at the hands of the Christian monks. In Ireland
  around 500 BC it is fairly well attested that several sites in Munster
  and Connaught were dedicated to the worship of Aine. Her popularity even
  spread to the Western Isles of Scotland. Some accounts give her as the
  daughter of Manannan Mac Llyr, God of the hidden paths in the realms of
  the western ocean, while others say that she was no other than the great
  Morrigu herself. In my personal opinion the latter fits easiest in
  instinctive feeling.

  We can see Aine in triple aspect in the powers attributed to her.
  Firstly as the Maiden in her ability to reward her devotees with the
  gift of poetry or with unfortunate madness. There is a stone that
  belonged to Aine high on her mountain, Cnoc Aine, which could bestow
  either poetry to the worthy or madness to those she rejected. Also, it
  was said that all the mad dogs in Ireland would congregate around this
  stone. It is not hard with her connection with poetry and hounds to see
  her Maiden aspects to be those of the Goddess Bride, who in the form of
  a Maiden was the muse of poetry and had the name Cu Gorm (grey hound).

  Next, as a Mother deity Aine is associated with lakes and wells with
  great powers of healing. Tobar-Na-Aine (Well of Aine) was credited with
  life-restoring powers. Also, in the Irish legends we find in her son
  Earl an archetype of Lancelot in the later Arthurian legends, while Aine
  herself is the Lady of the Lake.

  She is in several tales strongly associated with the Yew tree which
  shows her as a Goddess of Life and Death. In all her aspects it is
  clearly shown that Aine was no deity to offend, for in spite of all her
  beneficent attributes, if crossed she could have coined the phrase "Hell
  hath no fury like a woman scorned". There are many tales of her revenge
  and her infinite patience in its pursuit. In one story she was offended
  by an Irish High King whereupon she caused a great battle to ensue in
  which he was killed. It was said that at his death her mocking laughter
  could be heard over the din of battle. The attribute of Aine which made
  her a great enemy of the early Church was undoubtedly her sexuality. If
  ever a Goddess was depicted as the Arch Rival of the institute of
  matrimony then it was surely Aine, whose promiscuity and freedom of
  spirit could not be encompassed by man, thus a threat to the self denial
  of chastity of these womanless monks.

  Finally, in her third aspect of the dark Goddess, she has the ability to
  appear to mortal men as a woman of great beauty known as the leannan
  sidhe, which means "Fairy Lover". In this form her chosen subject would
  be totally spellbound into what could only be described as a fatal
  attraction, as the outcome was almost certain to result in the death of
  the chosen one.

  This belief in fairy lovers still persists today among the more remote
  places of Celtic countries. It is said that a certain sign of this
  occurence could be seen in the nocturnal emissions of young men known
  as wet dreams. If steps were not taken to protect the victim they would
  lose the will to live and so die in a wave of ecstasy. It can also be
  seen where Graham Stoker drew some of his ideas from on the nature of
  vampires. He wrote his book Count Dracula while staying in his castle in
  the Scottsh Highlands where belief in lovers from the land of the Dead
  were commonplace at that time. Of course I should like to point out that
  the reason for these phantom lovers killing the loved one was so that
  they could be together in the Otherworld realms and this was not
  restricted to the male gender as fairy lovers could also be males. How
  would you feel, I wonder, if the male warriors among you found
  yourselves being smiled at by a beautiful woman dressed in green
  garments with eyes as green as emeralds and hair as red as blood.





  [Copyright - S. McSkimming/L. MacDonald from: GODS OF THE CELTS 1992
  Dalriada Publications]
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