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, and the sound it made was impossible to resist — sweet, strange, and irresistible in a way that nothing natural could produce. Every person at Tara fell asleep. The High King, the warriors, the guards, the servants — all of them, every time. They had tried for twenty-three years to stay awake and failed every time.
Then, while they all slept, he opened his mouth and breathed fire onto the palace. Tara burned. Every Samhain, Tara burned to the ground. Every year it was rebuilt. Every Samhain it burned again.
The young Fionn mac Cumhaill ended it. He was not yet leader of the Fianna — he was still a young man trying to prove himself. A warrior named Fiacha mac Conga gave him a poisoned spear and told him: hold the blade against your forehead when the music starts. The pain will keep you awake. Fionn held the cold iron to his face. He stayed awake while everyone around him dropped. When Aillen came and opened his mouth to breathe fire, Fionn threw his cloak at the flames to smother them, then drove the spear through Aillen as he turned to flee back to his mound. He cut off the head and put it on a spike on the hill at dawn.
That was how Fionn mac Cumhaill became leader of the Fianna.
Key facts about Aillen
- Name: Aillen; sometimes Aillen mac Midhna
- Origin: The síde — the Otherworld of the Tuatha Dé Danann
- Type: Fire-breathing creature of the Otherworld
- Weapons: Sleep-inducing music; fire breath
- Killed by: Fionn mac Cumhaill — his first great act, which made him leader of the Fianna
- When: Every Samhain night for 23 years
- Where: Tara — seat of the High Kings of Ireland
- Division: Ancient — from the early Fenian Cycle
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