Cet mac Mágach is attested in the Ulster Cycle death-tales preserved in multiple medieval manuscripts (including material in the Book of Leinster and editions such as Kuno Meyer's The Death-Tales of the Ulster Heroes). He is presented as a Connacht champion who conducts raids into Ulster, participates in competitive boasting at feasts (notably the Mac Dá Thó episode), and whose career of killings and trophy-taking generates narrative causes that lead to his death at the hands of Conall Cernach. Variant genealogical details appear in different versions: some sources present Cet as related to Conall (in some accounts as Conall's maternal uncle).
Medieval narratives supply little systematic physical portraiture; Cet is primarily characterized through deeds. He is repeatedly associated with the taking and keeping of severed heads (one raid is said to have produced twenty-seven heads) and with the theft and later use of the calcified brain-ball of the slain Leinster king Mesgegra. He appears in social contexts of feasting and boast-competitions such as the Mac Dá Thó episode rather than via distinctive personal description.
Cet is depicted as an exceptional human warrior and raider: he is said to have slain many Ulstermen from youth, to have made a winter raid in which he killed twenty-seven men and took their heads, and to have shamed rivals in formal boasting contests. He is also linked to the grisly cultural practice of trophy-taking and to the Mesgegra brain-ball episode in which that calcified trophy (which Cet acquired) is later used as a projectile that wounds Conchobar. The sources portray skill in single combat, raiding, tracking-avoidance until overtaken, and the cultural practice of keeping and using human remains as trophies.
Weaknesses
- conditionbeing tracked in snow
- otherconfrontation by an equal or superior champion (narrative shows defeat by Conall Cernach)
Wards
None recorded.
Abandinus
Abandinus is a locally attested Romano‑Celtic theonym known from a single inscribed bronze feather (votive object) dedicated at Godmanchester (the Roman fort Durovigutum) in Cambridgeshire. Scholars interpret him as a local god or male spirit tied to a specific place and possibly associated with a nearby spring or stream; this association is tentative and based on etymological readings of the name.
Abarta (Ábartach)
Abarta (also Ábartach) is a figure of Irish myth who, in surviving accounts, tricks Fionn mac Cumhaill's warriors by giving them a supernatural grey horse that bears them into the Otherworld. Sources variably identify him as a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann or as a Fomorian; after the incident he is compelled to release the captured warriors and is refused entry to the Fianna.
Abcán (Abhcán)
Abcán (modern spelling Abhcán) is a named dwarf poet and musician of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Irish myth. He appears in a small number of narratives as a musician whose art has soporific power and as the ferryman who brings the goddess Ruad from the Otherworld to the human world.
Abhean
Abhean is a named poet of the Tuatha Dé Danann in medieval Irish literature, described as a poet in particular of Lugh and recorded as having been killed by Óengus before Midir in a poem by Fland Mainistreach preserved in the Lebor Gabála Érenn.
Abnoba
Abnoba is a Gaulish theonym and toponym attested in Roman-era sources and inscriptions: a localized deity associated with woods, springs and the sources of rivers (notably the Danube) and simultaneously the name applied to a mountain or mountain range in the Black Forest/Baar/Odenwald region. Roman altars equate her with Diana, reflecting syncretic cult practice in frontier provinces.
Accolon
Accolon is a mortal knight of the Arthurian court, presented in the Post-Vulgate Merlin tradition and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur as Morgan le Fay's paramour and instrument in a plot to supplant King Arthur; his tale centers on enchanted weapons (Excalibur and its scabbard), love-manipulation, and a tragic duel with Arthur.
Achall
Achall is an eponymous mortal woman in the Ulster Cycle of early Irish literature whose grief-induced death is given as the origin of the hill-name Achall (identified with the modern Hill of Skryne). She appears as a genealogical and etiological figure tied to Tara and later legendary events at the hill, rather than as a recurring supernatural agent.
Achtland
Achtland is a figure from Irish tradition who, according to the surviving account, was a mortal woman famed for rejecting mortal suitors who married a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann and crossed into the síde to become immortal as his wife.
Adar Llwch Gwin
Legendary large, intelligent birds from Welsh tradition said to understand human speech and obey their master's commands; best known for tearing their master Drudwas ap Tryffin to pieces when bound by a literal order in an Arthurian battle narrative. The term later came to be applied to raptors and metaphorically to brave men in medieval Welsh poetry.
Adar Rhiannon
Adar Rhiannon ('birds of Rhiannon') are a set of three magical birds in medieval Welsh narrative (the Mabinogi) whose song can 'wake the dead and lull the living to sleep.' They appear as otherworldly song‑beings tied to the figure Rhiannon and function within tales as providers of enchanted music that sustains and consoles characters.
Aderyn y Corff
Aderyn y Corff (literally 'bird of the corpse') is a bird-like death-porter in Welsh folklore said to call outside the door of a person about to die. Described as an avian portent that may lack feathers or wings and as existing on another plane when not manifesting, it is treated in Welsh ghost lore and sometimes naturalized as a screech owl in modern accounts.
Adhene
A class of Manx fairies (Cloan ny moyrn) described in Isle of Man tradition as a social people of beings said to be "fallen angels cast from heaven but too good for hell," who interact with human livelihoods and families, sometimes benevolent but often mischievous.
Community Record
- [1]Cet mac Mágach. Wikipedia entry 'Cet mac Mágach'wiki
- [2]Aided Cheit maic Mágach / The Death of Cet mac Mágach. UCC CELT edition, part of The Death-Tales of the Ulster Heroes (Aided Cheit maic Mágach)literary
- [3]The Death-Tales of the Ulster Heroes (Kuno Meyer, ed.). Kuno Meyer, The Death-Tales of the Ulster Heroes (edition and translation)literary
- [4]Irish Sagas: Aided Cheit maic Mágach (text and background). Irish Sagas (UCC): Aided Cheit maic Mágach textliterary
- [5]The Death of Cet (modern online text). Modern online reproduction/translation 'The Death of Cet'other
- [6]Mesgegra. Wikipedia entry 'Mesgegra' (for account of the calcified brain-ball episode)wiki