Etain and the Triple Transformation

Etain and the Triple Transformation

Etain and the Triple Transformation

Regarding the curious triple transformation of Etain by Fuamnach a few things must be said. Just as a sorceress associated with the Vanir, Gullveig, is burned in relation to the Norse Lunar Cycle, so the sorceress Fuamnach, wife of Midir and foster mother of Aengus, is said to be burned in relation to the parallel Irish Cycle. While Gullveig is stabbed along with being burned, Fuamnach in one account is said to be burned, but in another is said to be beheaded. Instead of herself undergoing three deaths and rebirths, however, Fuamnach instead causes Etain, the other wife of her husband, to undergo three successive transformations: a pool of water, a worm, and a large purple or crimson fly, perhaps a dragonfly or butterfly. In the form of this fly Etain is then drunk in a lady's golden cup and reborn as a girl, seemingly without a recollection of her old life. If this triple transformation is a parallel to the triple rebirth of Gullveig, it is a strange variation indeed and can be said to be exceedingly different. It would be understandable if one denied the parallel at this point. Yet the various other connections pulling these two myth cycles together forces us to investigate whether the meaning of the Irish triple transformation connected to the wicked sorceress can have anything in common with that of the Norse. 

While we have argued that Gullveig's triple rebirth may have a meaning connected to the moon and indeed to the production of the mead itself (as if Gullveig is the malefic lunar influence that must be purified to process and perfect the mead that comes from the moon or the lunar waters, or as if she is even the catalyst of the mead production in some way), so also Etain's transformations clearly can be read in terms of lunar significance. An in-depth comparison of Etain's changes and journeys with the cycles of the moon has been done by Ronald Hicks in his “Cosmography of Tochmarc Etain.” We will point simply to the fact that Etain's three forms can have clear lunar meanings. The pool of water relates her to the element that the moon rules: “The moon is in the waters” says Rig Veda 1.105; while Eliade says “All the lunar divinities preserve more or less obvious water attributes or functions” (Patterns, 159). The moon itself is considered a great pool of sacred liquid in the Vedic conception. The worm is lunar in a similar manner as the snake is, and especially in its capacity for transformation, which Etain's worm has indeed. The worm that transforms itself into a fly or butterfly is one of many possible perfect lunar symbols. As Eliade explains, everything that goes through a cycle of rebirth, transformation, or periodic regeneration has the potential to be seen as a lunar symbol, whether they be snails, bears, serpents, spirals, etc. He states that the lunar influence has in particular the “magic power of 'change,'” and summarizes the lunar cycle of symbols by saying: “the whole pattern is moon-rain-fertility-woman-serpent-death-periodic-regeneration,” a sequence that is not far at all from what we see in the case of Etain. The fact that this fly is a purplish color could also relate it to the nocturnal sky, and it is noteworthy that later in the tale both Midir and Etain are said to wear purple, possibly making it a lunar color. Etain seeming to forget who she is and to go and live a new life after her last transformation could parallel Gullveig becoming “Heithr” after her final rebirth and seemingly being made into a new and placid form under this new name. Finally, while we have argued that Gullveig-Heithr may be related as well to the sacred mead, it is interesting indeed that Etain is at last swallowed in a golden cup when in her final transformation. Etain is in fact connected to drinks at three points: she herself is drunk in the golden cup, she is serving drinks when Midir comes to take her from Eochu, and finally Eochu says that the thing that will most distinguish her when she is among the other identical women is her skill and grace in pouring drinks. Among many other things, Etain is a goddess of drinks.

The fly that Etain transforms into deserves yet further examination. This is a wondrous and enchanted fly with rare qualities. We read that:

“It was as big as a man's head, the comeliest in the land. Sweeter than pipes and harps and horns was the sound of her voice and the hum of her wings. Her eyes would shine like precious stones in the dark. The fragrance and the bloom of her would turn away hunger and thirst from any one around whom she would go. The spray of the drops she shed from her wings would cure all sickness and disease and plague in any one round whom she would go. She used to attend Midir and go round about his land with him, as he went. To listen to her and gaze upon her would nourish hosts in gatherings and assemblies in camps. Midir knew that it was Etain that was in that shape, and so long as that fly was attended upon him, he never took to himself a wife, and the sight of her would nourish him.”

This fly spreads a liquid spray that cures all illnesses and simply looking upon it removes hunger and gives nourishment. Though the water-worm-fly sequence is strange to our modern sensibilities, and quite different in form from what we find in the case of Gullveig, it seems far from outlandish to suggest that this fly can be read as an esoteric symbol related to the moon and even to the sacred lunar liquid derived therefrom, which gives immortality and a transcendent kind of nourishment.

Hicks goes so far as to claim that Etain is a moon goddess and not a sun goddess. He points to the fact that she is depicted with a silver basin, and that she is called Be Find, or “white (or bright) lady” in the later portion of the tale. We agree that Etain becomes a part of the moon and can be said to be a moon goddess from the point of her union with Midir. But we believe, as we have shown, that she does originate as a sun goddess, whose light then unites with the moon in a great union of the solar and the lunar (this being a prototype of human marriage in the Vedic case, the marriage of Soma and the goddess Surya), and triggering as a result of this union the transformations of the sacred liquid, which may themselves correspond to lunar cycles, as well as to the steps with which the sacred liquid is processed for sacrifice and consumption. 

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Works Cited:

The Wooing of Etain

Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion

Ronald Hicks, “Cosmography of Tochmarch Etain"

The Rig Veda