Óengus, God of Love
How love stops time
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A Chairde, Friends,
What floats into your awareness when you read the words, ‘god of love’? What do you see? What do you feel? What do you hear?
Conjure up the image of someone you love or have loved, was there ever a moment when your love for them stopped time? When the love alive inside of you caused time itself to stand still?
This is what happened when Óengus1, the Irish god of love was born. Time stood still.
Time Stood Still
Óengus was born from the union of two powerful deities: the goddess Bóinn and a god known as the Dagda.
Bóinn, whose name translates to ‘White Cow’, is associated with the River Boyne and fertility. The Dagda, one of the most prominent gods in Irish mythology, is sometimes known as Fer Benn, meaning ‘Horned Man’. Together, these deities may represent the primordial archetypes of the divine cow and her consort, the bull.
Bóinn was married to Elcmar (also known as Nechtan in some accounts) when she took the Dagda as a lover falling pregnant with Óengus as a result of their union. To conceal this from Elcmar, the Dagda used his magic to make the sun stand still for nine months so that Óengus was conceived, gestated, and born in a single day. This miraculous birth of the god of love created the illusion of time stopping, as love so often does. Óengus became eternally known as the Mac Óg, meaning the ‘Young Son’, a title earned because his birth defied the passing of time.