Traditions vary. He is presented as son of Art mac Cuinn (son of Conn Céad Cathach) and his mother is Achtan in many accounts; medieval narratives include a prophetic vision by his mother that prefigures his kingship and prosaic death (a fishbone). Variants relate that in infancy he was carried off and fostered by a she-wolf and reared in caves near Kesh/Keash in Co. Sligo, later found by hunters; other accounts emphasize dynastic succession, judgment at Tara, battle for the throne, or abdication of rival kings. Sources thus present multiple versions of his early life and accession rather than a single canonical origin.
The supplied sources do not give a unified physical portrait beyond epithets and regnal markers. He is called Cormac Ulfada ('long beard') in some listings. Narrative contexts associate him with kingly regalia and monuments at Tara (Banqueting Hall, Cormac's house, Gráinne's Enclosure). The wolf-fosterage motif appears in origin narratives but is a fosterage trope rather than a literal consistent physical description.
Cormac is characterized for jurisprudential wisdom, learned counsel, exemplary judgment, and role as lawgiver and teacher; he is associated with Tecosca Cormaic ('The Instructions of King Cormac'), a gnomic instructional corpus. He is credited as patron-builder at Tara, acts as judge and dispenser of justice, and functions as a political and military actor in regnal narratives (campaigns, alliances, battles). The tradition does not attribute supernatural powers to him; his authority is social, legal, and political rather than magical.
Weaknesses
- conditionmortality; subject to ordinary death (prophesied choking on a fishbone in some accounts)
Wards
None recorded.
Abandinus
Abandinus is a locally attested Romano‑Celtic theonym known from a single inscribed bronze feather (votive object) dedicated at Godmanchester (the Roman fort Durovigutum) in Cambridgeshire. Scholars interpret him as a local god or male spirit tied to a specific place and possibly associated with a nearby spring or stream; this association is tentative and based on etymological readings of the name.
Abarta (Ábartach)
Abarta (also Ábartach) is a figure of Irish myth who, in surviving accounts, tricks Fionn mac Cumhaill's warriors by giving them a supernatural grey horse that bears them into the Otherworld. Sources variably identify him as a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann or as a Fomorian; after the incident he is compelled to release the captured warriors and is refused entry to the Fianna.
Abcán (Abhcán)
Abcán (modern spelling Abhcán) is a named dwarf poet and musician of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Irish myth. He appears in a small number of narratives as a musician whose art has soporific power and as the ferryman who brings the goddess Ruad from the Otherworld to the human world.
Abhean
Abhean is a named poet of the Tuatha Dé Danann in medieval Irish literature, described as a poet in particular of Lugh and recorded as having been killed by Óengus before Midir in a poem by Fland Mainistreach preserved in the Lebor Gabála Érenn.
Abnoba
Abnoba is a Gaulish theonym and toponym attested in Roman-era sources and inscriptions: a localized deity associated with woods, springs and the sources of rivers (notably the Danube) and simultaneously the name applied to a mountain or mountain range in the Black Forest/Baar/Odenwald region. Roman altars equate her with Diana, reflecting syncretic cult practice in frontier provinces.
Accolon
Accolon is a mortal knight of the Arthurian court, presented in the Post-Vulgate Merlin tradition and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur as Morgan le Fay's paramour and instrument in a plot to supplant King Arthur; his tale centers on enchanted weapons (Excalibur and its scabbard), love-manipulation, and a tragic duel with Arthur.
Achall
Achall is an eponymous mortal woman in the Ulster Cycle of early Irish literature whose grief-induced death is given as the origin of the hill-name Achall (identified with the modern Hill of Skryne). She appears as a genealogical and etiological figure tied to Tara and later legendary events at the hill, rather than as a recurring supernatural agent.
Achtland
Achtland is a figure from Irish tradition who, according to the surviving account, was a mortal woman famed for rejecting mortal suitors who married a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann and crossed into the síde to become immortal as his wife.
Adar Llwch Gwin
Legendary large, intelligent birds from Welsh tradition said to understand human speech and obey their master's commands; best known for tearing their master Drudwas ap Tryffin to pieces when bound by a literal order in an Arthurian battle narrative. The term later came to be applied to raptors and metaphorically to brave men in medieval Welsh poetry.
Adar Rhiannon
Adar Rhiannon ('birds of Rhiannon') are a set of three magical birds in medieval Welsh narrative (the Mabinogi) whose song can 'wake the dead and lull the living to sleep.' They appear as otherworldly song‑beings tied to the figure Rhiannon and function within tales as providers of enchanted music that sustains and consoles characters.
Aderyn y Corff
Aderyn y Corff (literally 'bird of the corpse') is a bird-like death-porter in Welsh folklore said to call outside the door of a person about to die. Described as an avian portent that may lack feathers or wings and as existing on another plane when not manifesting, it is treated in Welsh ghost lore and sometimes naturalized as a screech owl in modern accounts.
Adhene
A class of Manx fairies (Cloan ny moyrn) described in Isle of Man tradition as a social people of beings said to be "fallen angels cast from heaven but too good for hell," who interact with human livelihoods and families, sometimes benevolent but often mischievous.
Community Record
- [1]Cormac mac Airt (Wikipedia). Wikipedia: 'Cormac mac Airt' (article summary and quotations as cited in research notes)wiki
- [2]The Instructions of King Cormac Mac Airt: Tecosca Cormaic. UCC CELT edition, Tecosca Cormaic (attestation of instructional literature associated with Cormac)literary
- [3]The Death Of Cormac mac Airt (Annals excerpt). AncientTexts.org, 'The Death Of Cormac mac Airt' (annalistic narrative of prophesied death)literary
- [4]Annála Connacht (Annals of Connacht). UCC CELT, Annála Connacht (annalistic tradition and chronology variants)literary
- [5]Cormac mac Airt (Citizendium). Citizendium entry summarizing tradition and variantsother