Creatures from Myth
The heroes of Irish mythology needed worthy opponents, and the old manuscripts gave them plenty. These are the creatures that appear in the earliest Irish texts — written down by monks from the 7th century onward, drawing on traditions older still.
Unlike the beings of later folklore, these creatures are part of the formal mythological record. You’ll find them in the great tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Ulster Cycle, and the Fenian Cycle — burning halls at Samhain, haunting battlefields, dragging warriors to watery deaths, and demanding the kind of tribute that required heroes to stop them.
In this section you’ll find the monsters and supernatural beings drawn from those early sources. Some of them are terrifying. Some are almost impossible to picture. All of them were considered real by the people who first told these stories.
Creatures from Myth
Ailléan
The Burner of Tara Aillen was a creature from the síde — from the Otherworld of the Tuatha Dé Danann beneath the fairy mounds of Ireland. Every Samhain, on the night when the boundary between the living world and the Otherworld was thinnest, he came to Tara. He played music first. He carried a pipe, […]
Banshee
The Woman of the Fairy Mound The Banshee (Modern Irish: Bean Sí) is a woman of the Sí (older Sidhe) — one of the divine people who went underground into the fairy mounds after the Tuatha Dé Danann lost Ireland to the Milesians. She comes from the same world as Brigid and Manannán mac Lir. […]
Crom Cruach
The Idol of Magh Slécht Crom Cruach was a stone idol that stood at Magh Slécht — the Plain of Prostrations — in County Cavan. People came to bow before it, which is how the plain got its name. The early Irish texts say offerings were made to it at Samhain in exchange for a […]
Ellén Trechend
The Three-Headed Monster of Cruachan Ellén Trechend — three-headed Ellén — came out of Cruachan. Cruachan is the great cave at Rathcroghan in County Roscommon, the entrance to the Irish Otherworld, the place from which the worst things emerge on Samhain night. It is the same site where Medb ruled Connacht, where her mound still […]
Irish Werewolves
Airitech’s Daughters and the People of Ossory Ireland has two distinct werewolf traditions, and both are old. Airitech’s Daughters Airitech was a man of the síde — one of the Otherworld people descended from the Tuatha Dé Danann. His three daughters came out every Samhain as wolves. They were large, fast, and very dangerous — […]
Leprechauns
Attendants and Artisans for the Tuatha Dé Danann The beings today called Leprechauns (Modern Irish: Lúcharachán) first in Irish folklore appear in early Irish literature in an older form known as the Abhaic. In the early material they are not presented as one of the great peoples of Irish myth, but as minor supernatural figures […]
Luchtigern
The Cat Monster of Dearc Fhearna Luchtigern — the Mouse Lord, or Lord of Mice — was a monstrous supernatural cat that lived in Dearc Fhearna, the Cave of the Alders, which is now known as Dunmore Cave in County Kilkenny. The Book of Leinster records that an amazon warrior named Aithbel went into the […]
Na Bocánaigh
The Demons and Battle-Spectres The bocánaigh and bánánaigh are the supernatural demons and battle-spectres of the Irish world. The bocánach is male, the bánánach female. They fill the air above battlefields, screaming and driving warriors to greater fear and greater violence. They appear in the Táin Bó Cúailnge — the great cattle-raid of Ulster — […]
Na Péisteanna
The Water Monsters Every significant lake in Ireland has a monster in it. The péist lives in the deep water and kills whatever comes too close to the shore. Each lake has its own creature, its own name, its own story. The Caoranach of Lough Derg The Caoranach — the mother of demons — was […]
Púca
The Shape-Changer The Púca is a shapeshifter. It can take different forms and its character sits somewhere between mischievous and genuinely dangerous. The word is old — it appears in Irish writings from the 8th century — and the Púca has been part of Irish supernatural life ever since. Its most famous form is a […]