Fáelad, Part One
Werewolf motifs in fénníocht
Perhaps the most common image of the fénnid in the early literature is that of the wolf. One of the words for fénníocht was fáelad, or "wolfing", as for example in the passage from Togail Bruidne Da Derga:
Trí .lll. fear doib in tan bádar oc fáelad i Crích Connacht occa múnud, condad-acca muicid Maine Milscothaig íat, ocus nín-acca riam a nísin. Luid for teichead.
There were one hundred and fifty of them when they were wolfing in the course of their instruction in the territory of the Connachtmen. One of Maine Milscothach’s swineherds saw it and he had never before witnessed such a thing. He fled.
The Cóir Anmann ("Fitness of Names") gives the example of one Laignech Fáelad, who went "wolfing" in wolf shape. We are told that the díberga/fíanna howled before attacking ("fo-carthar a ndord n-impiu" = "they raised a war-howl around it"), suggesting that they may have seen themselves as transforming into wolves when in battle. (As an aside, that word for "war-howl", "dord", is also used in the name of the battle-chant of the Fíanna, An Dord Fíansa. This is yet another indicator that "díberg" and "fíanna" meant the same thing.) There is a Luchdonn mentioned in connection with Teamhair Luachra, whose name seems to be from "luch-thonn" = "wolfskin", precisely parallel to the Old Norse úlfheðinn = "wolfskin", the name for one of the varieties of frenzied, mystic warriors among the Norse.
Díberga were said to style their hair in a wolfish fashion, variously known as cúlán (something like "dog-hair", and commonly translated as "wolf locks") or dluí fulla ("hair of vagrancy"). This tonsure is mentioned in the same early law that effectively outlawed the druids: "there are three persons in the tuath who are maintained by the maintenance of a bóaire – neither their dignity, nor their nemed-status, nor their rights, nor their tonsure increase their sick-maintenance: druid, díbergach, and satirist".
In her article "Aspects of díberg in the tale Togail Bruidne Da Derga" (Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie v. 49-50, pp. 950-964), Máire West specifically calls the díberga/fíanna bands "fierce hunter/warriors in lycanthropic cults".
More to come...
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