Woman of the White
Bé Find — “Woman of the White” or “Fair Woman” — came to the sleeping hero Cú Chulainn with another Otherworld woman and beat him with horsehair rods until he couldn’t move. He lay paralysed for a year. That act opened everything that followed: his journey to the Otherworld, his fight on Fand’s behalf, and his love for her. Without Bé Find’s blow, none of it happens.
She is not the woman Cú Chulainn falls in love with. That is Fand. Bé Find is the one who made the meeting possible.
She is identified in some accounts as Fand’s sister, and in others as Boann — the goddess of the River Boyne — appearing in a different form. The whiteness in her name connects her to the Otherworld women of Irish myth who are always marked by white: white skin, white horses, white clothing.
Key facts about Bé Find
- Names: Bé Find (“Woman of the White” / “Fair Woman”)
- Rules over: Otherworld compulsion of heroes
- Weapons: Horsehair rods
- Animals: Not recorded
- Other Symbols: Whiteness
- Parents: Not recorded
- Siblings: Fand (sister, in some accounts)
- Spouse: Not recorded
- Children: Not recorded
- Greek equivalent: Not recorded
Link/cite this page
If you use any of the content on this page in your own work, please use the code below to cite this page as the source of the content.
Link will appear as Bé Find: https://irishgodsandgoddesses.net - Irish Gods & Goddesses, March 22, 2026