Morrigan

Morrigan, also known as Morrigu, is the Celtic goddess of war and destruction. She is typically depicted as being armoured and armed: wherever war occurs, there is Morrigan. She is reputed to have hovered over the battlefield in the form either of a crow or a raven. Her name is pronounced as More Ree-an.

Morrigan has three aspects: Macha, Nemainn and Badb.

The first part of her name is consonant with the Old English maere, part of which still persists within the modern English word "nightmare"; the second part is rigan meaning "queen".

There have been attempts to link the Arthurian witch, Morgan le Fay, with Morrigan. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote the first stories that describe Morgan le Fay in "Vita Merlini" ("The Life of Merlin") written during the 12th century. [.. we need to research this fairly thoroughly to disambiguate it... sjc ]

maybe link to / mention the book The Hounds of the Morrigan, work of Children's literature by Pat O'Shea.