Irish Imbas: Celtic Mythology Collection 003 by Brian O'Sullivan

Author:Brian O'Sullivan [O'Sullivan, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Mythology, Celtic & Irish, upload
Publisher: Irish Imbas Books
Published: 2018-06-01T06:00:00+00:00

Mythological Context: Crows

In ancient, pre-Christian times, many cultures held the belief that birds acted as a kind of intermediary for people to connect with the Otherworld, probably because of their ability to attain the realms that humans could see but could not reach (the Heavens).

As with mythology in other cultures – for example, the Greek God Zeus transforming into a swan – Celtic deities or other talented individuals could also shapeshift to take on the appearance of birds. In Celtic Mythology, some of the most well-known examples include Tuán mac Cairill and the great seer Fionntan, both of whom took the form of eagles; Aonghus, who took the form of a swan; and Derbforgaill, also in the form of a swan when Cú Chulainn brought her down from the skies. The remaining literature also has a number of references to the druids making divinations based on their interpretation of the flight of birds or the cries of the raven.

Because of its conspicuous and somewhat menacing appearance, crows, ravens, and even magpies are believed to have taken on some of the darker aspects of that association with the Otherworld. This darker view was no doubt exacerbated by the fact that, as predators and scavengers, the birds would have been conspicuous feeding on carrion and, after a battle, on the corpses of the dead. Originally, the presence of these dark birds would have been associated with the land goddess fulfilling the natural order or the recurring cycle of nature i.e. the land – through the land goddess – was reclaiming what had originally been produced from it.

Over time however, and with the coming of Christianity, those interpretations were diluted and changed. The later, medieval writers took a much grimmer view of those native beliefs, portraying the crows as representative of a land goddess who obtained a perverse pleasure from battle carnage and the slaughter of humankind.

The most frequently portrayed in this manner was Badhbh, a manifestation of the triplicated mother goddess, Danu. In the literature from early medieval times, Badhbh is depicted as a cruel war goddess who appears in the form of a scaldcrow to announce the death of heroic warriors and other figures. Hovering around the battlefield or flying above the fighting armies, she’s also depicted as releasing terrifying shrieks, taking a kind of demonic pleasure from the enormous loss of life.

It’s because of this portrayal that we find one of Celtic mythology’s most striking images in the medieval account of the death of Cú Chulainn. In that story, although he is dying, the fierce warrior straps himself to a standing stone so that he can remain upright to combat his enemies. Fearful of his great fighting skill, the opposing warriors refrain from approaching him until a carrion crow descends to perch on the stone above his head, a clear signal that the great hero has died.

Traces of these negative aspects of crows and other dark birds continued in local folklore and literature up to relatively recent times and ravens and hooded crows were often seen as a bad omen or a sign of potential misfortune.

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