The Morrígan (An Mhór-Ríoghain)

A goddess of battle and sovereignty who appears as one figure, as three, and as a crow over a field.

She is not a goddess of war in the sense of fighting it. She decides it. She appears over armies as a crow, she washes the armour of men about to die at a ford, and where she goes the outcome has already been settled.

Her name is read either as great queen or as phantom queen, depending on how the first element is taken, and the texts do not settle it. She is often a trio rather than an individual, usually given as Badb, Macha and Nemain, though the lists vary and Anand appears in some of them. The three are sometimes sisters, sometimes aspects of one being, and the sources are not consistent because they were never meant to be.

Her best scene is with Cú Chulainn. She comes to him as a young woman and offers herself, and he refuses her, being busy. She tells him she will hinder him when he is at his most pressed, and she does: as an eel at the ford, as a wolf, as a heifer. He wounds her each time. Later she appears as an old woman milking a cow with three teats, and he blesses her without recognising her, which heals the wounds he gave her.

When he finally dies, propped against a standing stone so that he will not fall, it is a crow landing on his shoulder that tells his enemies it is safe to approach.