The Morrigan

Triple Goddess of Sovereignty, Death & Renewal

🪄Your Mythic Ancestors eBook, which you can read online here and download in full on PDF below, is your ever-expanding compendium of Celtic deities and archetypes, exploring their stories, symbols, and creative inspiration. We’re now 72 pages in and I hope you are feeling supported by this rich lineage that you belong to.

A Chairde, Friends,

As I know many of you have been dreaming your creativity to life with the Irish goddesses Bóinn, the Morrigan, and Brigid through your Celestial Creative Flow practice, and the Morrigan also featured in our recent Samhain Retreat, it feels timely to dedicate space to her.

The “Mor-ree-ghan” or Morrigan in English is thought to mean ‘Great Queen’ or ‘Phantom Queen’ in Old Irish. The opening sound is the most important—mór means great, but without the fada (the accent above the o), it changes the interpretation of the meaning to include phantom or nightmare. The most commonly accepted interpretation is, Great Queen.

Who is the Morrigan?

The Morrigan is one of the most renowned Irish goddesses, she seems to inspire greatly for our times. Though her full complexity deserves deeper exploration, today we’ll consider some essential aspects of her nature.

We will explore her as Goddess, Sister, Triple Goddess, Shapeshifter, Mother, and Seer.

Goddess

The Morrigan is a goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann. There are early references in our mythology to her as a variation of the Great Mother Danu, Danand or Anand, which would make her the ultimate matriarch of the Tuatha Dé. This is unlikely in her current form, but for me, I see her as a descendant of the Great Mother archetype (more on this below).

Sister

She is the daughter of an obscure Goddess, Ernmas, who is called ‘Mother of Divinities’, along with her sisters Macha and Badb, and their sometimes sister, Nemain. This makes her a Triple Goddess. Macha means ‘plain of land’ or ‘field’. Badb means ‘scald crow’ or ‘hooded crow’, ‘deadly, ill-fated, venomous’. Nemain means ‘battle-fury, panic, frenzy’; she is often understood as another aspect of Badb. (All very chill in temper!)