Need some advice on Morrigan

[Medea]

The Morrigan: The Story of the Fiercest Goddess in Irish Myth

As I was scrolling through this website it has quite a bit of detailed knowledgeable information you might want to take a look at blessed Be
Medea

[MeganB]

This does have some decent information, but I just caution being careful with some websites like this. For example, The Irish Road Trip says this:

The story goes that the Morrigan fell in love with Cuchulainn and that she tried to seduce him one day before he entered battle, but for one reason or another, he said no, despite the Goddesses immense beauty.

But that’s not quite what happened, according to the written story of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, which is where this tale comes from. The Táin Bó Cúailnge says this:

Then it was that the Morrigan daughter of Aed Ernmas came from the fairy dwellings to destroy Cuchulain. For she had threatened on the Cattle-raid of Regomaina that she would come to undo Cuchulain what time he would be in sore distress when engaged in battle and combat with a goodly warrior, with Loch, in the course of the Cattle-spoil of Cualnge. Thither then the Morrigan came in the shape of a white, hornless, red-eared heifer, with fifty heifers about her and a chain of silvered bronze between each two of the heifers. The women came with their strange sorcery, and constrained Cuchulain by geasa and by inviolable bonds to check the heifer for them lest she should escape from him without harm. Cuchulain made an unerring cast from his sling-stick at her, so that he shattered one of the Morrigan’s eyes.

Then the Morrigan came thither in the shape of a slippery, black eel down the stream. Then she came on the linn and she coiled around the two feet of Cuchulain. While Cuchulain was busied freeing himself, Loch wounded him crosswise through the breast. [Then at this incitation Cuchulain arose, and with his left heel he smote the eel on the head, so that its ribs broke within it and he destroyed one half of its brains after smashing half of its head.]

The Morrigan next came in the form of a rough, grey-red bitch-wolf [and she bit Cuchulain in the arm and drove the cattle against him westwards, and Cuchulain made a cast of his little javelin at her, strongly, vehemently, so that it shattered one eye in her head.] During this space of time, whether long or short, while Cuchulain was engaged in freeing himself, Loch wounded him through the loins. Thereupon Cuchulain’s anger arose within him and he wounded Loch with the Gae Bulga (‘the Barbed-spear’), so that it passed through his heart in his breast.

Source

and then this of Cuchulain healing her:

Then it was that the Morrigan, daughter of Ernmas, came from the fairy dwellings, in the guise of an old hag, engaged in milking a tawny, three-teated milch cow. And for this reason she came in this fashion, that she might have redress from Cuchulain. For none whom Cuchulain ever wounded recovered there from without himself aided in the healing.

Cuchulain, maddened with thirst, begged her for a milking. She gave him a milking of one of the teats. “May this be a cure in time for me, old crone,” quoth Cuchulain, and one of the queen’s eyes became whole thereby. He begged the milking of another teat. She milked the cow’s second teat and gave it to him and he said, “May she straightway be sound that gave it.” [Then her head was healed so that it was whole.] He begged a third drink of the hag. She gave him the milking of the teat. “A blessing on thee of gods and of non-gods, O woman!” [And her leg was made whole thereby.] Now these were their gods, the mighty folk: and these were their non-gods, the folk of husbandry. And the queen was healed forthwith.

Source

If we go back to the story of the Cattle-raid of Regomaina (linked here if you’d like to read it – it’s a pre-cursor to the Táin Bó Cúailnge), we can see that The Morrigan was actually kinda pissed off at Cuchulainn. He interrupted her taking a cow from the fairy mounds out to breed with another cow, he held a spear over her head and threatened to kill her, and she predicted everything that happened in the Táin Bó Cúailnge.

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While some areas may have their folklore, and it’s possible that some stories say The Morrigan fell in love with the Cuchulainn, my experience with Irish folklore and mythology, and the deities themselves, tell me otherwise.

I don’t say all this to discourage anyone, please know this! I simply say this as a reminder to do well-rounded research and always go back to the primary source of information when possible