A Chairde, Friends,
For November’s Mythic Ancestor Profile, I was inspired to share ancestors who shapeshift.
Shapeshifting in our tradition is the ability to shift from one form to another, usually from human to animal, most often to wild creatures. Like salt in the sea, our ancestors understood that the same higher creative intelligence infuses all of nature: us, our otherworldly kin, and our more-than-human relatives alike. When your world is animistic, where everything shines with soul, shapeshifting becomes possible, whether physical or symbolic. The animal spirit is alive within you. There is no separation.
For some, the metamorphosis can be driven by the desire of the shapeshifter, and therefore from an embodied place. For others, the change in their form is imposed upon them by an external force. They have no say in their transformation and so, have to make choices in how to navigate this more-than-human territory.
The Irish word for shapeshifter is ilchruthach, meaning ‘many-shaped’ or ‘multiform’. In this way, shapeshifting can also give us permission to express the many shapes of ourselves—to inhabit ourselves at our fullest, most dynamic expression.
I share below summaries of ‘Celtic Shapeshifters’. This is far from exhaustive, as shapechanging cycles as a core theme through our mythos. I can do a second series on this if folks are interested.
‘We are all filled with a longing for the wild. There are few culturally sanctioned antidotes for this yearning. We were taught to feel shame for such a desire. We grew our hair long and used it to hide our feelings… No matter where we are, the shadow that trots behind us is definitely four-footed.’
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves
The Mórrígan
Goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Morrigan or Mórrígan means ‘Great Queen’ or ‘Phantom Queen’; she is the necessary destructive force of the dark feminine. The Mórrígan is a triple goddess with her sisters Macha, meaning ‘plain of land’ or ‘field’, and Nemain, meaning ‘battle-fury’, ‘panic’ or ‘frenzy’. She can transform into Badb, the ‘scald crow’ or ‘hooded crow’, which also means ‘deadly’, ‘ill-fated’, ‘venomous’. As a harbinger of war, the Mórrígan incites battle and determines which tuath—which tribe—will succeed as worthy of the land.