The Druidess Who Raised Fionn
Bodhmall was the druidess who raised Fionn mac Cumhaill in hiding on the slopes of Sliabh Bladma — the Slieve Bloom Mountains of Laois and Offaly — after his father Cumhall was killed. She was Fionn’s maternal aunt, the sister of his mother Muirne, and she raised him alongside the warrior-woman Liath Luachra.
Her role was the druidic and intellectual half of his formation. She gave him knowledge of the lore of Ireland, of the druidic arts, of the learning a Fianna leader would need alongside his fighting skills. Liath Luachra gave him the physical training. Between them they gave him everything.
The hiding in the Slieve Bloom hills was not comfortable or settled. They moved often to stay ahead of Goll mac Morna and Clan Morna, who had reason to want Cumhall’s son dead. Bodhmall’s druidic skill was as much practical survival — reading who was moving across the landscape, choosing when to move and when to stay — as it was formal education. She kept him alive and hidden for years.
In some accounts she lived to see Fionn grown and established — a very old woman he honoured and provided for. The druidess who saved him lived to see what she had saved.
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