Manannán Mac Lir, Son of the Sea
Creative Ancestor Profile
Hello lovelies,
I begin this Creative Ancestor Profile by admitting that I don’t have a plan, a neat little spreadsheet of Creative Ancestors scheduled for you. It’s more like standing at the threshold of a door and seeing who knocks, who is eager to walk through from the Otherworld into our consciousness. Manannán Mac Lir has been knocking on my door for what in hindsight seems like an eternity, but I never heard his rap until recently. Today, the door is ajar…
Son of the Sea
Manannán Mac Lir is a god of salty waters, the son of the obscure sea god, Lir. The Isle of Man is said to be named after him or in the reverse, he is named after the island, ‘A renowned trader who dwelt in the Isle of Man. The best pilot in the West of Europe.’1 He is often compared to the Welsh, Manawydan fab Llŷr who appears in the Mabinogi. Besides his name, Manawydan holds no deep association with the sea but he does with magic, an art his Gaelic fellow, Manannán, is a master of.
Some of Manannán’s familial ties (he has many!) include his wife Fand, an avian shapeshifter, her name is thought to mean, ‘tear’ or ‘teardrop of beauty’. He is also said to be the husband of An Chailleach Bhéara, ‘The Hag of Beara’, who to this day in her rock form, gazes out to sea awaiting his homecoming, for what could mean a return of our otherworldly consciousness, a turning of the tide. ‘Ebbtide to me as to the sea,’ she laments across the waves. Mannanán is sometimes the husband or in other tales, father of the old sun goddess and fairy queen Áine, as well as father to Niamh Cinn-Óir, ‘Niamh of the Golden Head/Hair’, a protagonist in one of Ireland’s most well-known tales. He is foster-father to the shining God Lugh whom he raises in the Otherworld, gifting Lugh the mystical knowledge he needs to fulfil his destiny before facilitating his return to Ireland.
In these glimpses, we can sense how important Manannán is as he features time again, appearing in all four cycles or branches of Irish mythology. He is considered by some scholars to be older than the Tuatha Dé Danann, the goddesses and gods themselves. His association with the Cailleach is noteworthy here as she embodies our Great Mother, she created this land by dropping rocks from her apron and is as old as time.
Manannán is said to take residence in many dwellings beyond the sea, all of them mystical islands of the Otherworld. From Emain Ablach, the paradisical island of apple trees, what is known as ‘Avalon’ in Arthurian Legend, to the fairyland of Mag Mell, and Tír Tairngire, the ‘Land of Promise’. He gallops across the waves in his chariot drawn by his horse, Énbarr meaning ‘the one or unrivalled mane’.2 The white foam waves I can see from where I live, from where I write these words, are the horses of Manannán.
Silver Branch Perception
Two momentous tales that feature Manannán Mac Lir are Imram Brain, the ‘Voyage of Bran’, and Echtra Cormaic i Tír Tairngirí, ‘Cormac's Adventure in the Land of Promise’. In each tale, a magical silver branch appears as an invitation to journey to the Otherworld. In the Voyage of Bran, the king (Bran) ventures out of his fort away from the collective energy and is lulled to sleep by a ceol sídhe, by ‘fairy music’. When Bran awakes, he discovers, “a branch of silver with white blossoms” close by.
He takes the branch (this indicates that something within Bran has answered the call from the Otherworld) and returns to the royal house. When he enters, “a woman in strange raiment,” appears in front of the court singing melodious poetry that invites Bran to journey to Tír na mBán, the ‘Land of Women’, one of the many names for the Otherworld in Irish mythology. And so off Bran goes with his crew of 27 men (3 x 3 x 3)…
“When he had been at sea two days and two nights, he saw a man in a chariot coming towards him over the sea.” The ‘man’ Bran sees here is Manannán Mac Lir who chants: