Balor

The wind off Tory Island carries salt and the smell of old stone. Somewhere on that narrow spit of rock, nine miles off the Donegal coast, a fortress once stood where no ship dared anchor uninvited. Its lord was Balor, and his name, which may derive from the Common Celtic word for “the deadly one” or “the flashing one,” was enough to keep the fires low and the voices quiet across the whole of Ireland.

Balor was a Fomorian, one of a race of supernatural beings older than the gods who would eventually replace them. The Fomorians emerged from beneath the sea or from the edges of the known world, depending on who tells the story, and they personified everything chaotic and ruinous. Balor was their champion, sometimes called their king, though the medieval Cath Maige Tuired names Indech mac Dé as the Fomorian king proper, with Balor serving as war-leader and lord of the western isles. The distinction hardly mattered on a battlefield. When Balor showed up, the conversation was over.

His body was built to the scale of a siege engine. The sources call him a giant, and later folklore paints a picture that earns the word: an immense figure whose most defining feature sat in the center of his forehead. One eye, venomous and fiery, kept sealed beneath seven thick coverings. It took four warriors just to grip the polished ring set into that lid and haul it open. What happened next came in stages. With the first covering removed, bracken began to wither. By the second, grass turned copper. The third brought heat to the trees. The fourth drew smoke. By the fifth, everything glowed red. The sixth sent sparks. With the seventh, the whole countryside was ablaze. This was not a weapon you aimed. It was a weather event.

The eye had not always been deadly. As a boy, Balor had crept to a window where his father’s druids were brewing a spell of destruction, some toxic concoction whose fumes rose and settled into the child’s eye, leaving it permanently saturated with poison. The Cath Maige Tuired confirms this origin plainly: the venomous power of the brew took root in whatever it touched, and what it touched was Balor’s gaze. On that same day, the druids are said to have delivered the prophecy that would drive every decision Balor made thereafter. He would die at the hands of his own grandson.

Balor’s response was as blunt as it was futile. He locked his only daughter, Ethniu, in a tower of glass and stone on Tory Island, surrounded by guards and attended by twelve women, none of whom were permitted to so much as mention that men existed. No suitors, no visitors, no accidents. It worked for years. Then Balor stole a magical cow.

The Glas Gaibhnenn was a creature of abundance, a cow whose milk never ran dry, owned by or entrusted to a smith named Goibniu and guarded by Cian. Balor, disguised as a red-haired boy in one version, tricked Cian’s brother into abandoning his post long enough to row the animal across the strait to Tory. Cian, furious, sought the help of a druidess called Biróg, who carried him on a blast of wind to the island, smuggled him into the tower dressed as a woman, and left him alone with Ethniu. The inevitable followed. In some versions she bore one son; in others, triplets. Balor gathered the infants and ordered them drowned. Most of them were. But one child survived, pulled from the harbour by Biróg or washed into the arms of the sea god Manannán mac Lir, who raised the boy as his foster-son. That boy was Lugh.

Lugh grew into everything Balor feared. Brilliant, multi-skilled, and impossible to contain, he arrived at the court of the Tuatha Dé Danann and talked his way past the gatekeepers by claiming mastery of every art they could name. He became their leader after King Nuada fell. The Second Battle of Mag Tuired followed, the great reckoning between the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorians on the plain of Moytura. Balor waded into the fighting and killed Nuada himself. Then he called for his eyelid to be raised. The lid rose. Warriors crumbled. The poisonous gaze swept the field.

Lugh stepped forward with a sling-stone. He threw it straight through the opening eye. The stone punched clean through Balor’s skull and came out the back of his head, and the eye, still open, turned on the Fomorian ranks behind him. Twenty-seven of Balor’s own soldiers died beneath his falling body. His severed head, depending on the telling, burned a hole in the earth that filled with water and became Loch na Súl in County Sligo. The lake of the eye.

The power of Balor’s gaze functioned like a force of nature, something closer to drought or wildfire than to sorcery. Some interpreters read him as a personification of the scorching sun, whose lethal heat destroys crops and withers the land. His theft of the Glas Gaibhnenn fits neatly into this: the drought god seizes the cow of plenty, and only storm and sea can undo him. Lugh, in this reading, is the storm that breaks the heat. The folklorist Alexander Haggerty Krappe saw in Balor’s story an older myth still, the same pattern found in the Greek tale of Acrisius, Danaë, and Perseus: a tyrant locks away his daughter, the daughter bears a child anyway, and the child fulfils the prophecy by killing the old man.

For all the devastation Balor could unleash, his limitations were built into the design. The eye required attendants to open it. It could not be aimed quickly. And Balor himself, for all his size and fury, moved like something ancient and cumbersome, a weapon that needed a crew to fire. Against a young man with a sling and the nerve to use it, the deadliest gaze in Irish mythology amounted to one slow blink that came a heartbeat too late.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Balor in Irish mythology?

Balor is a Fomorian giant of Irish mythology who served as the champion and war-leader of the Fomorians during the Second Battle of Mag Tuired. He ruled from a fortress on Tory Island off the Donegal coast and is the central antagonist of the Irish Mythological Cycle. The medieval text Cath Maige Tuired names Indech mac Dé as the Fomorian king proper, with Balor functioning as war-leader and lord of the western isles.

What did Balor’s eye do?

Balor’s single eye carried a venomous, fiery gaze that could wither vegetation, kill warriors, and destroy entire armies. The eye was kept sealed under seven heavy coverings, and it took four warriors to grip a polished ring set into the lid and haul it open. The eye’s power had been instilled in Balor as a boy, when fumes from a destructive brew prepared by his father’s druids drifted up and settled into his gaze, leaving it permanently saturated with poison.

Who killed Balor and how did he die?

Balor was killed by his own grandson Lugh at the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, fulfilling a prophecy delivered by druids on the day his eye was poisoned. Lugh used a sling-stone to strike Balor straight through the opening eye, driving the stone clean through his skull and out the back of his head. The deadly gaze then turned on the Fomorian ranks behind him, killing twenty-seven of Balor’s own soldiers beneath his falling body.

Why did Balor lock his daughter Ethniu in a tower?

Balor locked his daughter Ethniu in a tower of glass and stone on Tory Island to prevent a prophecy that he would die at the hands of his own grandson. Twelve women attended her, and none were permitted to so much as mention that men existed. The plan failed when Cian, carried to the island by the druidess Biróg, reached the tower in disguise and fathered Lugh on Ethniu.

Where did Balor live?

Balor lived in a fortress on Tory Island, a narrow spit of rock roughly nine miles off the Donegal coast of Ireland. From there he ruled as a tyrant over the Fomorians and extracted tribute from the peoples of Ireland through raids, burnings, and the constant threat of his lethal gaze. His severed head, after Lugh killed him, is said in some tellings to have burned a hole that filled with water to become Loch na Súl in County Sligo.

Related Entries

Fomorian, Nuada, Manannán mac Lir, Goibniu, Dagda, Morrigan, Dian Cécht, Cyclops, Polyphemus, Perseus, Danae, Cronus