Aine in EotC
Excerpt from The Encyclopedia of the Celts by Knud Mariboe
AINE
(aw-ne) A love-goddess, daughter of the Danaan Owel; Ailill Olum and Fitzgerald her lovers; mother of Earl Gerald; still worshiped on Midsummer Eve; appears on St. John’s Night, among girls on the Hill. # 454: A goddess who seems to have functioned as a type of Sovereignty in south west Ireland. She gave her name to a sidhe dwelling in Munster, Cnoc Aine. She is variously described as the wife or daughter of Manannan mac Lir. – Later folk tradition tells of Gearoid Iarla (Earl Gerald of Desmond, 1338-98) who encountered Aine bathing in a river and raped her. The first earl of Desmond was called ‘Aine’s king’ and Gerald himself ‘the son of fair Aine’s knight’. Gerald was said to have disappeared in the form of a goose, after a lifetime building up his reputation as a magician. This legend shows how active the myth of Sovereignty was persisting right into the medieval era. # 100 – 454 – 505 – 548 – 562
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The original Encyclopedia is no longer online at celt.net, and this appears to be a mirror but with some broken links (the footnotes on entries, for example, are not linked to the sources). It’s a shame the original is no longer online, it was a wonderful source of info and a treasure to mine the sources for more info.
This entry, however, is pretty simplistic and lacking in many details, and could have used some further research and additions. I think the original author may be deceased, so no more updates to the Encyclopedia are taking place. I’d like to see some nonprofit group get access to the original files and have the ability to fill in the encyclopedia with more detailed entries… that would be the ideal.
