Oonagh: Queen of the Sidhe

Oonagh appears in a tale of the hero Fin MacCoul as his wife. He was on his was to visit her one day but was worried about a giant called Cucullin. He knew they must fight but Cucullin's reputation worried him. Oonagh, who was part fairy, agreed to help him. she went to consult her sister Granua who agreed to distract him. She invited him to Cullamore, but Fin was still worried and off his food. Oonagh told him not to worry. Taking nine threads of different colours, she plaited three braids with three colours in each. She put one round her right arm, one round her heart, the third round her right ankle, for then she knew that nothing could fail her. Then she kneaded twenty one cakes of bread, hiding iron griddles in twenty of them, and baked them in the fire. She took a pot of milk and made curds and whey, instructing Fin what to do with them. Then they sat to await Cucullin's arrival.

Now while Finn could put his thumb in his mouth and thereby have a great many things revealed to him, all the strength Cucullin possessed lay in the middle finger of his right hand. If he should lose that, he would be no more than an ordinary man.

As he approached Oonagh made up the cradle and bade Finn to lie down upon it, covering him up, telling him he must pretend to be his own child.

Cucullin arrived as expected and knocked on the door, asking whether this was where the great Finn lived. Oonagh politely asked him in and bade him be seated, apologising for the absence of her husband. 'he has left home in a great rage, looking for some buffoon called Cucullin who is after fighting him. I hope he doesn't find him or he will tear him to pieces!'

" I am Cucullin and I have been looking for Fin for twelve months or more!"

at this Oonagh laughed and looked at Cucullin scornfully. "Did you ever set eyes on Fin?" she asked?

Cucullin shook his head. "I thought not," said Oonagh, " for you are a poor looking creature and he will make mincemeat of you. Nevermind, I wonder if you would be good enough to turn the house for me, for there is no one to do it with Fin away"

Cucullin was startled, but agreed. He went outside and picked the house up, and turned it round. Seeing this, Fin in his hiding place broke into a sweat, but Oonagh seemed undaunted. She turned to Cucullin and said that the spring had run dry, and Fin had intended to pull aprt some rocks behind the hill, since there was water there. Would he mind doing that little job for her, since Fin was away?

Cucullin set off and was someowhat surpised to see one solid rock below him. nevertheless, he cracked his middle finger and tore a cleft in the rock, four hundred feet deep. Seeing this Fin began to quake in his boots, but Oonagh seemed xalm enough.

"Well, " she said, "You had better come along in and have a bite to eat." She set before him all the twenty one loaves that she had baked, a churn of butter, half a side of bacon and a pile of cabbge. Cucullin took a bite from one of the loafs and cried in anguish that it had broken two of his teeth!

"My goodness," said Oonagh, "I forgot to say that this is Fin's bread, and that only he can eat it, him and that little child in the cradle there". So saying she gave the one good loaf to Fin who gobbled it down. Cucullin looked amazed and began to think he was lucky not to meet the father if this was but the child.

" Get up my lovely, and show this Cucullin something that wouldn't shame your father," she called to Fin. Accordingly, he got out of the cradle and said to Cucullin "Are you strong enough to squeeze water out of a stone?" Cucullin siezed a stone, but try as he might, he could get no water from it.

"You poor creature!" exclaimed Fin, "I'll show you what Fin's infant son can do, and you can imagine the might of the father!" So saying, he took the stone and slyly exchanged it for the curds, and squeezed them till the whey ran out. "And now," he said, "I am away back to my cradle, for I won't waste time with a man who cannot eat my father's bread or squeeze water from a little stone. You'd best be away before my father comes, for he'd squash you flat in two minutes!"

Cucullin decided that the child was right, and that he had better make himself scare in Fin's part of the country. "Before you go," he said to Fin "let me feel what kind of teeth are able to eat bread like that".

Fin agreed and opened his mouth. "They are quite far back," Oonagh prompted, "You will need to put you hand right in his mouth." Cucullin put his fingers further in Fin's mouth, and seizing the opportunity, Fin bit down hard, severing Cucullin's famous middle finger, leaving him weak as a mortal man. And it was all thanks to the wisdom of Oonagh that Fin was able to defeat Cucullin.

.....author unknown