ÉTAíN

:''For the French town, see Etain''
In Irish mythology 'Étaín' (sometimes spelt 'Edain', 'Aideen', 'Éadaoin') is the heroine of ''The Wooing Of Étaín'', one of the oldest and richest stories of the Mythological Cycle.
She is the daughter of Ailill, king of the Ulaid. When Midir of the Tuatha Dé Danann falls in love with and marries her, his rejected first wife Fuamnach becomes jealous and casts a series of spells on her. First Fuamnach turns Étaín into a pool of water, then into a worm, and then into a beautiful butterfly. Midir does not know that the butterfly is Étaín, but it becomes his constant companion, and he has no interest in women. Fuamnach then creates a wind that blows the butterfly away and does not allow it to alight anywhere but the rocks of the sea for seven years.
Eventually it lands on the clothes of Aengus, who recognises it as Étaín, but he is at war with Midir and cannot return her to him. He makes her a little chamber with windows so she can come and go, and carries the chamber with him wherever he goes. But Fuamnach hears of this and creates another wind which blows her away from him for another seven years. Eventually the butterfly falls into a glass of wine. The wine is swallowed (together with the butterfly) by the wife of Étar, an Ulster chieftain, in the time of Conchobar mac Nessa. She becomes pregnant, and Étain is reborn, one thousand and twelve years after her first birth.
When she grows up, Étaín marries the High King, Eochaid Airem. Eochaid's brother Ailill Angubae falls in love with her, and begins to waste away. Eventually he admitts to Étaín that he is dying of love for her, and she agrees to sleep with him to save his life. They arrange to meet, but Midir casts a spell which causes Ailill to fall asleep and miss the assignation. However, Étaín meets a man there who looks and speaks like Ailill but does not sleep with him because she senses that it is not actually him. This happens three times, and the man who looks like Ailill reveals himself to be Midir, and tells her of her previous life as his wife. She refuses to leave with him unless her husband gives her permission. She then returns to Ailill to find him cured.
Midir then goes to Eochaid in his true form and asks to play ''fidchell'', a board game, with him. He offers a stake of fifty horses, loses, and gives Eochaid the horses as promised. Midir challenges him to more games, for higher stakes, and keeps losing. Eochaid, warned by his foster-father that Midir is a being of great power, sets him a series of tasks, including laying a causeway over Móin Lámrige, which he performs reluctantly. He then challengs Eochaid to one final game of ''fidchell'', the stake to be named by the winner. This time, Midir wins, and demands an embrace and a kiss from Étaín. Eochaid agrees that he will have it if he returns in a month's time. A month later Midir returns. He puts his arms around Étaín, and they turn into swans and fly off.
Eochaid and his men begin digging at the mound of Brí Léith where Midir lives. Midir appears to them and tells Eochaid his wife will be restored to him the following day. The next day fifty women who all look like Étain appear, and an old hag tells Eochaid to choose which one is his wife. He chooses one, but Midir later reveals that Étaín had been pregnant when he had taken her, and the girl he has chosen is her daughter. Eochaid is horrified, because he has slept with his own daughter, who became pregnant with a girl. When the girl is born she is exposed, but she is found and brought up by a herdsman and his wife. She later becomes the mother of the High King Conaire Mor.
A slightly different version of this story is told in ''The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel''. Here she is the daughter of Étar, and marries the High King Eochaid Feidlech. They have a daughter, also called Étaín, who marries Cormac, king of Ulster. She bears him a daughter, Mess Buachalla, but no sons. Cormac abandons Mess Buachalla, but she is found and brought up by a herdsman. When she grows up she marries the High King Ederscel and becomes the mother of Conaire Mor.
In genealogical tracts she is said to have been the wife of the Ulster prince Cormac Cond Longas. T. F. O'Rahilly indentified her as a sun goddess.

Contents

Condensed Version

External links

Condensed Version

In the hollow hills of Ireland, in the lacy margin where the Atlantic tide touches the shore, on the islands just beyond sight off the western coast, lies a country invisible to most human eyes, a country called Tir na nÓg - the Land of Youth. Life in this Otherworld flows and eddies much like life in Ireland, except that to all of the strife and clamor, love and jealousy of the mortal world is added the shimmering loveliness of the fairy realm. Wars are waged, songs are crafted and sung before the ladies and gentlemen of the court, and the young fall deeply in love, as they do in our world.
Our tale begins in the golden world with the marriage of two people who are hopelessly, blissfully in love: Étaín, the most beautiful and best-hearted woman in all of Tir na nÓg, and her true love, Midir, handsome, clever and fiercely devoted.
But not all the denizens of the Otherworld are without flaw or fault. Midir’s first wife, Fúamnach, is afire with jealousy at the sight of his joyful new bride, and from her rage and envy she concocts a dark spell. With one touch of her wand of scarlet rowan, Étaín is transformed into a splendid golden fly. The humming of her wings is a comfort to all who hear it, and the drops of water which fall from those delicate wings possess the power to cure disease. Midir recognizes his beloved Étaín even in her new form, and the two spend all their hours together.
Not content with merely depriving Étaín of her human form, Fúamnach resolves to split the two lovers forever. She conjures up a lashing wind that drives Étaín out of the house she shared with Midir, out beyond the safety of land and into the wildness of the sea winds. Helpless against the power of the spell, Étaín spends seven years buffeted among the waves and rocks. Sea-spray drenches her wings; loneliness pulls her closer to an ending in the cold grey ocean.
At last, exhausted, she comes to land on the roof of a house in Northern Ireland in which people are feasting. The sight of a warm fire, laughing faces and a hearty meal cheers her heart. Closer and closer she creeps towards the warmth and merriment, hungry for the sound of voices after her long trial. But too close! In her frailty and eagerness she falls into a goblet of wine which is in the hand of a warrior’s wife. That good woman swallows Étaín along with the wine, and thereby conceives a daughter.
Étaín is reborn in Ireland as the daughter of a wealthy chieftain. Beloved by many, she is said to possess the three graces - the gift of love, the gift of generosity, and the gift of kindness. One day while Étaín and her handmaidens are bathing at the well they spy a man approaching them on horseback. He is Eochaid, the king of Ireland, and as soon as his eyes light on Étaín radiant face, he loses his heart to her and asks her to be his Queen. She consents to marry him, and the two live very happily together as King and Queen for quite some time.
But truth will have its way, and dreams come to an end. Slowly the memory of another life and another world come to Étaín, and the silver polish wears away from the life she has created in the mortal world. She stretches her mind, as if waking from a long sleep.
One bright morning the King and Queen walk out into the woods that encircle their castle. No sooner have they stepped in among the trees than a heavy mist falls, obscuring their sight. A man dressed in a scarlet tunic steps from the mist; his hair is shining yellow and his eyes sparkling grey. He bows to Eochaid and asks, “Will we play a game of chess together?” And Eochaid answers, “We will, surely, sir; for I am good at that game.”
The two sit down to play. Eochaid wins the first game and demands as his prize fifty dark grey horses with fifty silver bridles. He wins the second game and demands fifty boars, fifty white red-eared cows, fifty bright cloaks and fifty gold-hilted swords. The stranger wins the third game, and as his prize he demands, “My arms around Étaín and a kiss upon her lips.” Étaín gasps with recognition and turns to look at her two husbands. Eochaid agrees to honor Midir’s demand in a month’s time.
When the fated day arrives, Eochaid arranges all of the best warriors in Ireland in concentric circles around the castle, ring within ring of warriors, and the King and Queen in the center of the house. But Midir walks through the troops without casting a harsh word or shedding a drop of blood and comes to stand in the very room in which the King and Queen are drinking their wine. “I have come for that which we agreed upon,” he says, and with great sadness Eochaid leads Étaín into the center of the room. “You may put your arms around her and take but one kiss.”
Midir puts his arms around Étaín and his mouth upon her mouth. In the twinkling of an eye they fly up through the skylight in the shape of two downy white swans, linked by a chain of gold. They fly all through the starry night, over the sea and through the strange mist that keep the two worlds apart, until at last they reach the beautiful country which is their own true home.

External links

★ The Wooing of Étaín

★ The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel