sídh

sídh (modern spelling: sí), a fairy rath (or fort) where the fairies are said to live. They are also known as aos sí (‘fairy folk’), slua sí (‘fairy host’), and daoine maithe (‘good people’). According to a life of St Patrick in the 9th-cent. Book of Armagh the sídh were the pagan gods of the earth over whom Christianity has triumphed, but according to Gaelic tradition they were the Tuatha Dé Danann, the ancient gods of Ireland residing in the fairy mounds all over the country [see mythology]. They feature most prominently in the mythological cycle in tales such as Cath Maige Tuired or Tochmarc Étaíne; in the Ulster cycle in Táin Bó Cuailnge, Togail Bruidne Da Derga, and many other tales; and throughout the Fionn cycle, where Fionn's own genealogy involves otherworld beings. A number of Anglo-Irish writers in the second half of the 19th cent. began collecting the folklore traditions of Ireland, notably T. C. Croker and Lady Wilde. These were joined by others more in tune with the native culture such as J. J. Callanan, Patrick Kennedy, and Canon John O'Hanlon. The literary revival gave rise to a renewed interest in the fairy-lore of Ireland, which came to be seen as a unique body of almost sacred literature of Celtic origin, encapsulating realities occluded by the advance of a materialistic civilization. The slua sí carry off mortals, most often children, if they are beautiful or otherwise exceptional, leaving a changeling (síofra or síobhra) behind. They also appear on coastlines, as mermaids (murúch, Hiberno-English merrow). Solitary fairies are known variously as the leipreachán, represented as a cobbler; the clúracán, or drunken fairy; the fear dearg (‘red man’, the otherworld colour), or trickster; the fear gorta (‘hunger-man’), a phantom appearing at times of famine; the dallacán, a headless sprite who rides on the death-coach (cóiste bodhar, ‘silent coach’); the leannán sí, a fairy lover, who drives his or her mortal lover to distraction; and the bean sí (banshee), who appears combing her red hair at the deaths of members of certain families. The púca (anglicé ‘pooka’) is the Irish form of the sprite familiar in English folklore as the night-mare.

sídhe, síodh, sí, síd (OIr.), síth (OIr.), s'th (ScG), side (genitive), shee (Manx, anglicized);

The form sídhe, commonly cited in English, is the unreformed Modern Irish genitive singular. Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx words for fairy mound and, by implication, the realm beyond the senses, the Otherworld or, in oral tradition, the fairy world. The fairy mound/sídh is a familiar landscape feature in Goidelic culture: a round, flat-topped, manmade barrow, tumulus, or hillock of ancient origin apparently intended to bury or commemorate a mortal king or ruler. From long-standing oral tradition the fairy mounds/sídhe were thought to mark places where the semi-divine Tuatha Dé Danann fled underground after their defeat by the mortal Milesians. The Dagda himself assigned a sídh to each member, both male and female. In much of earlier Irish written tradition, therefore, the sídh appears to be a palace or at least a fine residence, like Finnachad, the sídh of Lir in Oidheadh Chlainne Lir [The Tragic Story of the Children of Lir]. In early literature such residences, especially when they are named without the prefix sídh-, seem almost more this-worldly than otherworldly: Brí Léith, [Sídh] Clettig, Femen, and [Sídh] Úamain. Hundreds of others are cited in the literature, often bearing the name of their most powerful resident, e.g. Sídh Nechtain, dominated by Nechtan.

In oral tradition the story of the Tuatha Dé Danann's defeat and migration underground became a means of accommodating international fairy lore. The old divinities became the áes síde [people of the fairy mound], invisible to most mortals at most times, Samain and Midsummer's Eve being the chief exceptions. Humans favoured with second sight could perceive them. On occasion persons from this hidden world might intrude into the realm of mortals, such as the woman of the sídh [Irish bean sídhe] or banshee who calls out in the night to foretell death. The sídh was not to be disturbed by grazing cattle, and most farmers would avoid both the sídh and perceived paths to and from it. In Modern Irish the word sídh, meaning ‘fairy’ instead of ‘fairy mound’, combines to make dozens of compounds, e.g. ceo sídhe [fairy mist], ceol sídhe [fairy music], sídh chóra, sídh ghaoithe, and séideán sídhe [fairy wind], poc sídhe [fairy stroke], corpán sídhe [changeling], suan sídhe [fairy sleep].

Bibliography

• Heinrich Wagner, “‘The Origins of Pagan Irish Religion’”, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, 38 (1981), 1–28
• Diarmuid A. MacManus, The Middle Kingdom: The Fairy World of Ireland (London, 1960)
• James A. MacDougall, Folk and Fairy Lore in Gaelic and English, ed. George Calder (Edinburgh, 1910)
• Dora Broom, Fairy Tales from the Isle of Man (Harmondsworth, 1951)
• Daniel Parry-Jones, Welsh Legends and Fairy Lore (London, 1953)
• Tomás Ó Cathasaigh, Éigse, 17 (1978), 137–55