Medb

She Who Intoxicates; The Inebriating One; The One Who Is Like Mead

**Also Known As:** Maeve; Mab

**Pantheon**: Celtic/Ireland

**Title**: Queen of Connacht, Queen Medb, Eternal Lady

**Alignment**: Chaotic - Evil

## Information

Medb, Goddess-Queen, a powerful, wild warrior deity, sponsored and destroyed heroes. No king can rule Ireland unless he has engaged in the Sacred Rite with Medb and satisfied her. Medb takes mortal kings as her consorts, contracting them in sacred marriage, giving them their right to rule, and bestowing prosperity on the land, but only as long as she perceives them fit to rule. (Or until she finds someone more fit.)

Medb makes kings and breaks them, too. She can deprive men of their strength merely by being in their presence. Medb rides around the battlefield in her chariot: her potent presence “unmans” the warriors. She really has no need for that chariot. What do they say about Superman? Faster than a speeding bullet? That’s Medb: she runs with the speed of a superhero, swifter than champion racehorses. No one can catch her unless she wishes to be caught.

Medb is a goddess of sex, fertility, death, and war. She is the essence of the power, promise and abundance of Earth. Her name derives from the same root word as mead. She is a heady, intoxicating presence, a goddess of ecstasy.

Irish myth describes how Medb manifested to Niall of the Nine Hostages as an old crone guarding a well. She gave him water, and he agreed to have sex with her. In his arms, she transformed into a young, gorgeous woman and granted him kingship of Ireland. Fergus is her first husband. She abandoned the second, Conchobar, once she perceived him unworthy to be king. She has several criteria for choosing her third: his courage, fearlessness, and generosity must match hers, and he must not be jealous—this is crucial as she must engage in sacred marriages. Of course, when he’s unfaithful, she kills him.

Irish myths were transmitted orally. The first to write them down were Christian monks who sought to preserve them but clearly disapproved of Medb’s rampant sexuality. (Medb stars in the Ulster Cycle.) They did not represent her as a grand Pagan goddess but as a lustful, violent, warrior woman, the archetypal Fairytale evil queen.

Medb was not forgotten or relegated to storybooks. Too powerful to suppress, post-Christianity, she emerged as a Fairy queen. In Ireland, she remained full-size, but in England and Wales, fierce warrior goddess Medb, under the name Queen Mab, is reduced to a flower Fairy, a tiny miniature spirit who rides a chariot pulled by insects.

Even when tiny, Medb/Mab continues to exert her allure, emerging as the favourite Fairy queen of authors, playwrights, and poets:

* In Mercutio’s famous Queen Mab speech in Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare describes her as the “Fairies’ midwife… no bigger than an agate stone” in an alderman’s ring. “Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut” he writes, evoking ancient Ireland’s hazelnuts of wisdom.
* She stars in poems by Ben Jonson, William Butler Yeats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
* She is a fierce force in Mike Carey and John Bolton’s 2007 graphic novel, God Save the Queen.

**Manifestation:** She frequently manifests with birds on her shoulders, or a bird on one and a squirrel on her other. Some scholars think this indicates her primeval origins as a tree goddess. Medb is an extraordinary shape-shifter, appearing as a female of any age or appearance: from gorgeous goddess to frightening hag.

**Colour:** Red

**Creatures:** Squirrels, birds, cattle, swine, wolves

**Sacred Sites:**

* Cruachan, capital of ancient Connacht and center of her spiritual rites.
* The Hill of Tara, ancient seat of the High Kings of Ireland.
* Medb’s Cairn on Knocknarea Mountain, County Sligo, believed to be a Neolithic passage grave, dated approximately 3000 BCE
* Medb’s sacred pool on Clothrann Island in Lough Ree, now called Quaker’s Island.

**See Also:** Fairy; Flower Fairy; Fairy Queens; Fergus; Macha; Nechtan

## Fate Lore

The queen of Connacht that appears in Celtic Mythology, the Ulster Cycle.

A young girl of affairs who built engagements, marriages and, at times, nothing but carnal relations with many kings and brave warriors. The eternal lady.

The ringleader who caused the greatest war of the Ulster Cycle, she aimed at the life of the brave warrior of Ulster that defied her - Cu Chulainn.

**Height/Weight:** 154cm・41kg

**Source:** Celtic Mythology

**Region:** Ireland

She possesses a goddess-like perfect body from birth.

Pure and tidy. Lewd and devious. Both are her true faces, and it's not like either of them are a lie.
It is just that the "impression" many people catch is the former. She just earnestly, tidily enjoys lewdness, and purely performs deviousness. She loves good men. She really loves strong men!

Not going against her own desires at all, she made many men her own while alive. The owner of the magic sword Caladbolg, Fergus, was one of her lovers. She also really loves treasures, and for that reason she triggered a great war with the entirely of Ulster as her opponent and commanded the Connacht troops while driving her own chariot.

"*I don't hate being antagonized. However, I cannot tolerate the fact that, among the men of Ulster, there is one man - and one alone - who did not become mine even though I thought "I want him"*. *Even though I called out to him, tempted him. That attitude in which, let alone be swayed, simply said 'what the heck are you doing?*" "*I won't forgive him. Won't forgive, won't forgive, won't forgive, won't forgive, won't forgive! Absolutely, not him!*"

"*Cú Chulainn of Ulster! By the name Medb, the lover and ruler of all men, I swear! I'll surely make you succumb to me!*"

Medb has been referred to as the mother of many soldiers, but it is not like she actually gives birth to those soldiers.

After taking in the genetic information of warriors, she reproduces those inside her body. By wounding the tip of her index finger with a blade and having that blood fall on the ground, what was no more than a single drop becomes a great puddle of blood and soldiers are "manufactured" along with the blood foam.
Medb is literally the "queen" and ruler of nameless soldiers.

Even in modern Ireland, there are many witness reports that say "I saw her".

Of course, those are by no means jokes. Even now, Queen Medb lives on the hearts of people as the eternal lady.

## Appearance in Modern Media

From Fate Grand OrderFrom Shin Megami TenseiFrom Kamihime ProjectFrom Blood BrothersFrom Age of IshtariaFrom Rage of Bahamut
## Information Source

Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses by Judika Illes