A life before the queen
Leahy places a supernatural prologue before two versions of Étaín's courtship. Midir's jealous wife Fuamnach transforms Étaín and drives her away with magical winds. Angus shelters the transformed woman, but a second attack sends her into a drinking vessel. A woman swallows her and later gives birth to a daughter named Étaín. The enormous interval assigned between her two births makes ordinary biography inadequate to explain her identity.
As a young woman she becomes wife to Eochaid, king of Ireland. His brother Ailill falls desperately in love with her and conceals the cause of his wasting illness. When Eochaid travels, Étaín remains to care for the sufferer. Her offer to help begins with his vulnerability, rather than a desire to abandon her marriage.
Source: The Courtship of Etain — Leahy translation · Prologue in Fairyland; Courtship of Etain, Egerton and Leabhar na h-Uidhrí versions: marriage and Ailill’s illness
The man who misses his appointments
Once Ailill confesses his love, Étaín agrees to a meeting outside the royal residence. He repeatedly sleeps through the appointed time. Another man arrives in his likeness, but she challenges the substitution. He identifies himself as Midir, her husband in the former life, and explains that he has manipulated both Ailill's desire and his sleep. Ailill recovers without the intended encounter.
The surviving accounts then diverge. In Leahy's Egerton version Midir carries Étaín away from a public gathering, together with her attendant Crochen. Eochaid's search succeeds when his druid locates her at Brí Léith. The king attacks the dwelling and retrieves her. The narrative does not require a wager to explain this abduction.
Source: The Courtship of Etain — Leahy translation · Egerton version: three appointments, Midir’s disclosure, Fremain gathering, Dalan’s search and recovery
A wager in the other account
The Leabhar na h-Uidhrí account makes a sequence of board games central. Midir first lets Eochaid win valuable stakes and difficult public works. He then wins an unspecified return, demanding an embrace and kiss from Étaín. The king fortifies his hall, but Midir appears inside and carries her through its roof opening; the watchers see two swans departing.
Leahy supplies portions of this account in square brackets, including a concluding recovery. Those supplements should not be mistaken for continuous manuscript wording. The versions share the disturbance caused by an earlier marriage, but arrange the queen's removal and restoration differently. Their coexistence is more informative than treating one seamless modern plot as the uniquely authentic story.
Source: The Courtship of Etain — Leahy translation · Leabhar na h-Uidhrí version: board-game stakes, public works, guarded hall and swans; bracketed concluding supplement
- Period / witness
- Medieval Irish prose and verse preserved in medieval and early modern manuscript witnesses; Leahy translation 1905–1906.
- Recording context
- This entry concerns the literary version named in its passages, transmitted by Christian-era Irish manuscript culture and translated by A. H. Leahy. Legendary settings are not dates of composition or evidence for a single pre-Christian canon.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
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These references support the explanation above. Rights and edition notes are recorded individually.
The Courtship of Etain — Leahy translation ↗
Anonymous Irish literary narratives; translated and arranged by Arthur Herbert Leahy (1857–1928) · Volume I, 1905; Project Gutenberg eBook released May 2004 and updated 29 June 2026
Edition & rights note