Fand- Celtic GodDeity"Pearl of Beauty"

Woman of the Otherworld

Fand was a woman of the síd and wife of Manannán mac Lir, the sea god. Her story is preserved in the Serglige Con Culainn, the Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulainn.

The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulainn

Fand and her sister Lí Ban appeared to Cú Chulainn in the form of two birds linked by a golden chain. When Cú Chulainn cast a stone at them, they revealed themselves and struck him with horsewhips, leaving him in a wasting sickness that confined him to his bed for a year. Fand had quarrelled with Manannán and left him, and now she was beset by enemies in the Otherworld. She sent Lí Ban to offer Cú Chulainn a bargain: if he would come to fight on her behalf, she would give herself to him as a lover. Cú Chulainn first sent his charioteer Láeg to assess the situation, and Láeg returned with such reports of Fand's beauty that the hero agreed. He crossed into the Otherworld, defeated Fand's enemies, and remained with her for a month.

The Confrontation and the Cloak of Forgetfulness

When Cú Chulainn did not return from the Otherworld, his wife Emer came to the trysting place with armed women, intending to kill Fand. The two women confronted each other, and what followed was not violence but a contest of grief. Each recognised the other's love for Cú Chulainn and acknowledged the other's worth. Fand yielded, declaring that Emer was a worthy woman and that she would return to Manannán. At that moment Manannán appeared to reclaim her, shaking his cloak between Fand and Cú Chulainn so that they could never meet again. The druids then administered a drink of forgetfulness to both Cú Chulainn and Emer, and Fand returned to the sea god's realm, the brief affair erased from mortal memory.