This week’s prompts come from Irish mythology. This was quite a challenge for me than the post on Greek Myths as I knew basically nothing about it before I started. (Now also have a list based on Norse Myths and Bulgarian Folklore!) I used Wikipedia a lot and a helpful website called Bardmythologies.com. I encourage you to check this site out and read all of the myths, they are truly fascinating. Two books also came in handy during my research that I would like to highly recommend. One is The Book of Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland compiled by W. B. Yeats and the other is Heroic Landscapes: Irish Myth and Legend by Rod O’Donoghue. The latter takes a more academic approach to the mythology.Irish Mythology is broken down into four cycles: The Mythological Cycle, The Ulster Cycle, The Fenian Cycle, and The King Cycle. There are varying degrees of documentation for the different cycles with the Mythological having the least. All of them are filled with amazing tales that are sure to inspire more than a few new stories for you. 1) Tuatha De Danann Myth The story of the Tuatha De Danann is long and interwoven with many other peoples on Ireland. I will give a summary here because it is fascinating and could inspire a great many stories.First there was a group called the Formorians. They were raiders and sea pirates who, through years of stories, became sea gods. (O’Donoghue argues that they started as gods and were demoted to pirates.) They were depicted as “ugly, dark and demonic, sometimes seen as giants or elves and were witnessed with goat or horse heads or other terrible features.” (Bardmythologies.com) They are the quintessential “bad guys” of the Mythic Cycle of Irish mythology. Every group of people who came to Ireland, which included every group of people who inhabited the place, were accosted by the Formorians. They attacked and exacted taxes from their Island of Tory off the north coast. They had a great battle with the Partholonians, who eventually disappeared altogether. Then they fought the Nemedians. These people were not entirely eradicated but instead, the survivors of the final battle scattered and founded the next two main invaders of Ireland, the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha De Danann. The name Tuatha De Danann is typically consdiered to mean Tribe of the goddess Danu, but nothing is known of this goddess. After the Nemedians fled, one of the groups went to the north. They picked up worship of the goddess and all of their magical abilities there (or according to some in Greece). While visiting the four great cities of the north they collected four magical items: “From Falias they got the Lia Fáil, the stone of destiny, which roared when a rightful king took his seat upon it. From Gorias they brought the claíomh solais, or sword of destiny. From Murias came the cauldron of the Daghda, which could feed a host, however large, without ever being emptied. From Finias came the Sleá Bua, a magic spear.” With these and their new goddess, they returned to Ireland. When they arrived the Fir Bolg, who had gone to Greece, been enslaved there and escaped, had already arrived and established themselves. They divided the country into five provinces, the fifth one being the administrative center and often considered a more metaphorical or magical place. The Fir Bolg greeted the newcomers, “a group of beautiful, tall, fair people” who arrived in a mist, amicably but soon betrayed them and tried to attack. The Tuatha De Danann were victorious but allowed the Fir Bolg to keep the province of Connaught. But the king of the Tuatha De, Nuada, was removed after he lost his hand in the battle and the new king, Bres, was half Formorian. He allowed the Formorians to impose taxes and oppress the Tuatha De by other means. This led to an epic battle between the Tuatha De Danann and the Formorians. The Tuatha were victorious and Nuada was given a silver arm and put back on the throne. Eventually the Tuatha De were themselves defeated. After being afraid of a visiting king’s praises of Ireland they murdered him. His grandsons, the Sons of Mil, came and after betrayal, magic storms, and fierce fighting, were the victors. The Tuatha De Danann were forced out and it is often said they went to the otherworld with their magic and rule there as kings of the fairies or are the fairies themselves Writing Prompt The Tuatha De Danann story has so many points that can be used for stories. You could make a whole series out of this little history. The epic sea storms they conjured to destroy the Sons of Mil, the silver-armed king, the four magic objects, their eventual defeat and retreat to the land of the fairies would all make wonderful tales. For our purposes, try starting with the arrival of the mist shrouded Tuatha De Danann. Imagine being the Fir Bolg watching them materialize. You just established your own kingdom after being routed from your homeland by the Formorians, demonic sea gods, then being enslaved by the Greeks. Now, when you thought things were going to go your way, a new player arrives and you aren’t sure if they mean well or not. If their magic is benevolent or malevolent. I used this prompt to write the story Legacy. Check it out to see how I turn inspiration into story. 2) Children of Lir Myth During a contest for the next High King of the Tuatha De Danann, two men came to the foreground. Lir of Derravaragh and Bobh Dearg of Munster. Bobh Dearg ended up winning because he was married to a strong woman and Lir was single. So, Bobh offered Lir one of his daughters in hopes of tying them together and preventing an uprising. Lir chose to marry Aobh and they were very happy. They had a daughter, Fonnoula, a son, Aodh, and then twin boys, Conn and Fiachra. But Aobh died in childbirth with the twins and Lir was incredibly sad. He clung to the children and they spent every moment together, even sleeping all in one giant bed. When Bobh Dearg discovered his daughter’s death we was also distraught. He hated the thought of Lir and the children alone so he asked his remaining daughters if one would marry Lir. Aoife volunteered and was excited at the prospect. But when she arrived she found Lir and the children didn’t need her and, in fact, quite ignored her. She became jealous and tricked Lir into letting her take the children to see their grandfather. But on they way she coaxed them into a lake and turned them all into swans. At the last moment she felt pity for the look in the Fionnoula’s eyes and so changed the curse slightly. They kept their voices and human minds. And the spell would break after three hundred years on this lake, three hundred on the sea of Moyle, and three hundred on another lake in Ireland and when a king’s son from the north married a king’s daughter from the south. Aoife was able to stall the discovery of her deed by telling both Lir and Bobh Dearg that the other had the children. But she was eventually found out and “Bobh Dearg transformed Aoife into a demon of the air, and she went shrieking off into the sky to be buffeted and blown about. And when the wind blows hard, sometimes you can hear her shrieking still.” (Bardmythology.com) Lir moved his household to the lake to live with his children and was able to spend the first three hundred years there with them. But then they had to leave. The Sea of Moyle was a terrible treacherous place and they had to find each other again after each storm. Fionnoula held them to her and kept them as safe as she could until the three hundred years were over. On their way to the third lake, they flew over their old homeland and discovered the time of the Tuatha De Danann was over and their father’s estate was naught but stones and grass. During their stay on the final lake, they made friends with a Christian monk who taught them of his religion and had many great conversations with them. They asked him to baptize them and he refused because they were swans. When the wedding from the curse took place they were transformed back into humans but all nine hundred years came back to them and they became decrepit. The monk then agreed to baptize them and Fionnoula asked that they be buried together in the way that they huddled on the Sea of Moyle. Writing Prompt I read a version of this once (well, it claimed to be a version of Hans Christian Anderson’s “Wild Swans” but the principle is largely the same) that was a steampunk take on the myth. It’s called “The Mechanical Wings” by Pip Ballantine. I recommend it. (It also appears in an anthology Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables.) Now, I want you to tell the story from Aoife’s point of view. She watches as her sister is chosen to marry a highly regarded man and lives a very happy life. Then when she dies her father feels so bad he asks that she try to replace her sister. How would she really feel? And what happens to her after she is transformed into a demon? Does she live forever and watch everything else she loved crumble away? Does she join the storm winds on the Sea of Moyle and harass the children-swans for three hundred years? 3) Cuchulainn and Emer Myth Cuchulainn was a legendary warrior from Ulster. Most of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology revolves around him. This story is about how he came to marry his wife. After establishing himself as a great warrior and coming of age, Cuchulainn also turned out to be the most beautiful young man. All of the other men got sick of their wives ogling him so they decided he had to get married. They tried setting him up but he rejected all the women they introduced him to. Finally, he heard of a woman who might be good enough for him. Her name was Emer and she possessed the six gifts a woman should have: beauty, voice, sweet speech, needlework, wisdom and chastity. When he arrived to meet her he began talking in riddles. No one else could understand him but Emer answered in riddles and they carried on their conversations this way. At one point, “Cuchulainn peeked down the top of her shirt and said ‘I see a fine country there with a sweet resting place.’ Emer replied, ‘No man shall rest there unless he can leap over three walls, kill three groups of nine men with one blow, leaving one man in each group alive, and slay one hundred men at each of the fords between here and Emain Macha.’” (Bardmythology.com) Cuchulainn left in high spirits. He had won her affection and she gave him tasks to complete to win her. But Emer’s father didn’t think Cuchulainn was worthy so he disguised himself and convinced the young warrior that he should go train with Scathach, a woman warrior known for training great fighters. He hoped that Cuchulainn would die during training or on the journey. But Cuchulainn did not die. He returned for Emer. In an attempt to protect her, her father put up extra fortifications. In conquering them, Cuchulainn met Emer’s requirements. Her father fell off the wall and died during the assault. The two were happily married. They were each others’ equal in brains and she never got jealous when he went off to war or was with other women because he always returned to her. Writing Prompt This myth begs to be written from Emer’s point of view. Play with...