by Morgan Daimler

For this month’s Morgan Verifies, I’d like to look at a particularly tricky bit of internet lore, which is widely shared on social media but has no actual basis in mythology or older folklore. I’ve run across several social media pages now who wax eloquent about the Morrigan as a spirit of fate who chooses who lives and who dies and who position her as the hand that weaves a person’s destiny. And if that is an idea that resonates with you, I am not telling you to throw it out entirely, but I do think it’s important to understand that this is a very new idea and not something found in older sources.

In mythology, the Morrigan does have ties to battle and to victory, but not necessarily as the one who chooses who wins or loses. Rather, what we see is a much more active thing: the Morrigan encouraging the side she supports to act and shaping circumstances to favour them. In the Cét-Cath Maige Tuired [the first battle of the plain of pillars] she and her two sisters, Badb and Macha, go to the Fir Bolg and use battle magic to weaken them and then during the final confrontation she raises up pillars on the field so that her own army cannot retreat but must fight to the end. In the Cath Maige Tuired [battle of the plain of pillars], she is the voice that gets Lugh to step up and fight for the Tuatha De Danann; she gives the Dagda advice on how to prepare for the battle, and she uses magic to weaken one of the enemy kings. In the Táin Bó Cúailgne, when she sets herself against Cu Chulainn, she does so by attacking him in animal forms when he is fighting a warrior who is his equal in battle, setting the odds against him and favouring his opponent (although his opponent fails in the end). She doesn’t so much grant victory as she helps earn it by inspiring courage in those she sides with and by actively weakening the other side.

The Morrigan and her sister Badb are connected to omens of death like the Bean Nighe [washer woman], but even in that role they are not choosing who dies or who lives but acting as a warning that death will come to the person if they don’t turn aside. They wash the bloody armour or clothes of those about to die in battle, but they are not causing that death to happen, merely forewarning that it will happen. The Morrigan is also a goddess of prophecy, and her connection to death omens seems to be rooted in this – she knows the future and is particularly attuned to those doomed to die in battle. But it is important to note here that she isn’t acting as a goddess of fate who creates a person’s destiny but rather as a voice predicting that destiny, which I think is an important distinction.

How did this particular bit of misinformation get started? Scholars have suggested a comparison between the Morrigan and the Norse Valkyries, and although that comparison focuses more on their connections to battle, delighting in slaughter, and victory, people have assumed from that the two groups, Morrigans and Valkyries, are effectively the same; people then conflate characteristics of the Valkyries onto the Morrigan. There is definitely a lot of very interesting overlap between the two groups and some striking similarities, but the two are not identical across cultures. The Valkyries, for example, serve the god Odin – they take warriors he wants and bring those souls to his hall in Asgard; in contrast, the Morrigan is a force in her own right who is not acting at the direction of anyone else. This conflation of the two groups has led people to assume that if something is true of the Valkyries, then it also applies to the Morrigan and, from there, to begin describing the Morrigan as a goddess who chooses who lives or dies. The increasing use of AI by many social media pages has increased this issue by incorporating the idea and sharing it widely as fact.

Ultimately, the Morrigan’s connection to fate and to choosing the end of a person’s life is a newer belief; her ties to fate in mythology are nuanced and complex rather than clear-cut. It is also worth mentioning here that the Irish concept of fate, or dán, is different from what may be found elsewhere and is understood more as an impersonal force rather than a personified being. Your fate is not in the Morrigan’s hands but rather in your own; she can grant success (in battle), but she does so by helping you achieve it, not by handing it to you.

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