Faerie Lore and Legends

The Fairy-Go-Round Fairy Fort
Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, Ireland
https://www.fairyfortdingle.com/

During my 2023 December trompings around County Kerry on the Dingle Peninsula I pitstopped at this very cool Ring fort, also known as a “Fairy Fort”.  A tourist-attraction with a petting farm, this privately owned attraction is 10 km west of Dingle in the parish of Kilvickadownig. Its along the world famous Slea Head Drive.  This Ring fort, also known as a “Rath”, “Lios”, or “Fairy Fort” is a circular ancient pre-Celtic settlement and fort that is composed of a circular interior enclosed by a earthen bank and foss. There has been determined to be approximately 3-4 huts and souterrain that would have existed here. The bank rises approximately 4.2 meters above the base of the fosse and 2.5 meters above the interior. The entrance faces due East and is 3 meters width. 

Mythologically this is known as a Fairy Fort. The owners have called it the “Fairy Go Round.”   Historically, pre-Celtic forts and settlements were once attributed to be the circular fortified settlements of the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland known as the Tuatha Dé Danann and Fír Bolg even though archaeologically we know they were built by humans during the Bronze age upwards towards 1000 CE.  Ring forts can be found throughout Northern Europe and are particularly abundant in the Isles like Ireland, England, and Scotland. Myth and legends surround these ruins and many superstitious will avoid them, believing them to be faerie domain and portals to the world of the Fae. Farmers who are superstitious will not farm nor develope near them, never altering the remains. Many believe the grounds are imbued with Druid magic. Even the cutting of the whitethorn trees (fairy trees) near them will often be believed to result in instant death upon whomever did the cutting. Others say that entering these fairy forts during the witching hours of 1 am – 5 am woulld never leave the fort alive. 

 This particular ring fort again is on private property shared with the public for a admission fee. In addition for entertainment of children, there is a animal petting farm on site with sheep, goats, lambs, kids, horses, and donkeys. 

Niamh
by Leaf McGowan, Techno Tink, LLC.

“Niamh of the lovely hair” was the daughter of the Irish Sea God, Manannon Mac Lir. She was the Queen of the Tir na n-Og, the mythological race of Faeries who lived in the Land of the Eternal Youth. She would often ride on her Faerie steed “Embarr” across the waves to the West Coast of Ireland. On one of these trips, she met members of the warrior group known as the Fianna. One of the warriors, a bard named Oisin, she came to have a liking for. He fell for her with love at first sight. She quickly took him on her horse with her back to Tir na n-Og.

She was most notorious for having been the Faerie princess who lured off the great Bard Oisin to Faerieland, where they were married, and she had hoped he would have been fine residing in the Land of the Eternal Youth. After three years in Faerie, He grew weary and tired, missing his family, and asked to return to his land to see them. She set him off on the same white magical steed that she brought him to the land of Faerie on, the horse “Embarr” (which means “Imagination”), and warned him not to step foot off his horse when he returned to the human world. He discovered three years in Faerie was three hundred years in Human.

He accidentally fell off Embarr while trying to help some farmers move a big stone, and Embarr ran home across the waves. Poor Oisin immediately became a blind old man who wandered Ireland searching for his family and Niamh. He could never find the entrance to Tir na n-Og again. Niamh waited and waited for him, but Oisin never returned. She had become pregnant with his daughter, Plur na mBan, a beautiful Faerie princess known as “The Flower of the Lady.”

After many years, Niamh returned to the mortal world to search Ireland high and low for her sweet Oisin. She was too late; Oisin had died and disappeared forever. His tomb is somewhere up in Northern Ireland near the Giant’s Causeway. While searching for Oisin, she meets Brittany’s faeries, who invite her to join them. She didn’t but rather sent them a magical moving picture of herself. This upset Brittany Faeries, who placed her in a deep wood where she wandered for a long time with a light on her forehead, eternally lost. After discovering her escape, she experienced great disappointment and anger with Brittany Fae. She returned to Tir na n-Og, presumably casting a magic spell that took all of Brittany’s faerie children with her in revenge.