Ireland
This biography, written by Dr Sharon Blackie, has been republished with permission from the Dangerous Women Project, created by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.
Typically, her attributes include tribal/territorial goddess (she is associated with Armagh, Ard Mhacha, in Ulster) and fertility goddess – but she is also a battle goddess. And as is so often the case with these complex divine women, there are three different versions of Macha in the early texts.
In one story, Macha appears as a typical Otherworldly bride, turning up out of the blue at the door of Cruinniuc, an unsuspecting farmer, and bestowing good fortune and prosperity on him. But one day, at a fair, disobeying Macha’s instructions, he boasts to King Conchobar of Ulster that his wife can run faster than any of the king’s horses. In spite of the fact that she is heavily pregnant, Conchobar forces Macha to come and prove herself: to race against his horses. She wins easily, but at the finishing line she collapses and goes into labour; as soon as her twins are born she dies. But before she does, she curses the men of Ulster to experience labour pains at the hour of their greatest need.
In a second story, Macha Mong Ruad (‘red mane’), daughter of Áed Rúad, is the only queen in the List of High Kings of Ireland. She defends her right to her father’s throne against male rivals who deny her because she’s a woman. She marries one of them, defeats the other in battle, and pursues the latter’s sons into the wilderness of Connacht. Surprisingly, since she’s disguised as a leper, the men seem to find her attractive and, one by one, they follow her into the woods to sleep with her. But Macha overcomes each of them and takes them back as slaves to her territory, where she forces them to build her a fortress: the great Emhain Mhacha. This Macha, clearly, is keeping the Sovereignty firmly for herself.
In a third set of references to her, Macha is a woman of the Tuatha Dé Danann, one of three daughters of Ernmas – the others being Morrígu, the dangerous and powerful goddess who appears often as a raven or crow, and Badb. In the Yellow Book of Lecan, she is referred to as ‘one of the three morrígna’, ‘raven women who instigate battle’. In the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, the Morrígan ensures victory for the Tuatha Dé Danann by sleeping with the Dagda, one of their leaders.
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Elva Johnston. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Macha, tutelary goddess, gave her name to one of the most important of all Irish royal sites, Emain Macha (‘the twins of Macha’) in Co. Armagh, now known as Navan Fort. While Emain Macha was a prehistoric site of great religious significance, it was remembered by the early medieval Irish as the royal capital of the pagan Ulstermen, ruled over by Conchobar son of Ness and protected by the greatest of all heroes, Cú-Chulainn. It is the locale for many of the sagas of the Ulster cycle. The Irish believed that the naming of a place carried a symbolic charge, and so it proves with Emain Macha.
The tale of the treatment of Macha foreshadows the downfall of the Ulster heroes. This short saga, ‘Noínden Ulad’ (‘Debility of the Ulstermen’), has been dated to the ninth century and was integrated into the narrative complex surrounding the epic ‘Táin Bó Cuailnge’. The tale describes how the widower Cruinniuc, living in the wilderness, is visited by a beautiful otherworldly woman who decides to become his sexual and domestic partner. This brings great fortune, and a confident Cruinniuc attends a fair, presided over by the king. The latter’s horses win the chariot race, causing Cruinniuc to boast that his wife can run even faster. The upshot is that the woman, heavily pregnant, is forced to compete against the horses. Otherwise, Cruinniuc will die. Macha names herself and warns the Ulstermen that their mistreatment of her will not go unpunished. Sure enough she is victorious, but gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl, at the end of the race, the event that marks the place as Emain Macha. As she cries out in childbirth, Macha curses every man within earshot to suffer labour pains for five days and four nights or five nights and four days. This debility lasts for nine generations and undermines the glory of all the Ulster heroes, except Cú Chulainn.
This narrative may appear odd but is, in fact, full of significance. Macha, like many an otherworldly woman, is a dispenser of sovereignty. Sovereignty, however, depends on the perfect balance of male and female. Men possess it, but women represent it. In this case, the suggestion is that the sovereignty of the Ulstermen is somehow flawed for, with the exception of Cú Chulainn and his descendants, their masculinity is questioned. They suffer the pains of labour; yet they give birth to nothing.