Caer Ibormeith

Also Known As: Old Irish Cáer Ibormeith; also Caer Ibormeith of Síd Uamuin; the second name is usually read as “yew berry”
Region/Culture: Northern Europe
Mythos: Irish Mythology, Celtic Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Shapeshifters
Mythical Attributes: Caer Ibormeith is a woman of the síd who spends one year as a swan and the next as a woman, changing at Samain, and whose power is greater than her own father’s.
Role in Mythos: She is the dream-woman of the Old Irish tale Aislinge Óenguso, the one Óengus of the Brug sickens for, searches for and finally joins as a swan.
Relation to Humans: She has no dealings with ordinary mortals in the tale, which moves entirely among the people of the síd and the royal court of Connacht. The one effect that reaches human ears is the song she and Óengus sing in flight, which puts everyone who hears it to sleep for three days and nights.

She comes at night and stands at the head of his bed. Óengus, son of the Dagda and lord of the great mound on the Boyne, wakes to find the most beautiful woman he has ever seen within arm’s reach, and when he moves to take her hand and draw her in, she is gone. The next night she returns with a small stringed instrument, a timpán, and plays until he sleeps. In the morning he cannot eat.

This goes on for a year. She plays, he sleeps, she vanishes, and the god of youth wastes away in a house full of people who cannot work out what is wrong with him. The physicians of Ireland are called and fail. Then Fergne arrives, a healer who could read a sickness from a man’s face, and he needs one look. The trouble is not in the body. Óengus is in love with someone who is not there, and has been too embarrassed to say so.

What follows is one of the more patient searches in Irish storytelling. His mother Bóand has Ireland combed for a year for a girl matching the description, and nothing is found. The Dagda is brought in and protests, reasonably, that he knows no more than anyone else. So a message goes south to Bodb, king of the síd of Munster, whose knowledge of the island is famous, and Bodb’s people take another year. At the end of it they send word. She has been seen at Loch Bél Dracon, the lake of the dragon’s mouth, in Cruitt Cliach.

Óengus is driven there by chariot and feasted for three days before Bodb walks him down to the water. Along the shore are a hundred and fifty young women, linked two by two with chains of silver. One stands among them head and shoulders above the rest, with a silver necklace at her throat and a chain of burnished gold. That is the woman from his bedside. Bodb can give him a name, Caer Ibormeith, and a father, Ethal Anbúail of Síd Uamuin in the province of Connacht. He cannot give him the girl. She is not his to give.

So the matter climbs another rung, to Ailill and Medb, king and queen of Connacht, in whose territory the father’s mound lies. They receive the Dagda warmly, feast him for a week, and send to Ethal asking for his daughter. Ethal refuses to come and refuses the request. The response is blunt even by the standards of the tales: Ailill’s household and the Dagda’s men break open the síd and bring its king out a prisoner. Asked again for his daughter, Ethal gives the answer that changes the story. He cannot hand her over, because her power is greater than his.

Caer is no captive on that lakeshore. She spends one year in the form of a bird and the next in the form of a woman, by her own magic, and nobody commands her. At the coming Samain, her father says, she will be at Loch Bél Dracon as a swan, among a hundred and fifty others. If Óengus wants her, he will have to go and ask.

He does. On the day of Samain the lake is white with birds, the air cold and loud with wings, and Óengus stands on the bank in human shape and calls her name. A swan answers and asks who is calling. He tells her. She will come to him, she says, on one condition: that he gives his word she may return to the water afterwards. He gives it. She comes to the shore, he puts his arms around her, and the god of the Brug becomes a swan himself. They sleep that way, two white birds on dark water, and then circle the lake three times, so that his promise is kept to the letter and nobody’s honour is out of pocket.

After that they rise and fly north and east to Bruig Maic ind Óc, his home on the Boyne, singing as they go. The music is so sweet that the people who hear it sleep for three days and three nights. Caer stayed with him from then on. The storytellers add a practical footnote: this is how Óengus came to be the friend of Ailill and Medb, and why he later brought three hundred men to help them on the great cattle raid of Cooley.

All of this comes from a single short tale, Aislinge Óenguso, The Dream of Óengus, composed in Old Irish and usually dated to the eighth century, though the only copy to survive was written into the manuscript Egerton 1782 in the early sixteenth. Caer appears nowhere earlier and does very little elsewhere. The tale never says where she came by her power, who her mother was, or why the girls on the shore were chained in pairs. Later popular writing has promoted her to a goddess of sleep and dreams. The tale itself gives her no such title; it shows a woman who walks into a god’s sleep uninvited and leaves him ill for two years.

Her strengths are all in that picture. She can enter a dream across the width of Ireland, she changes shape by the calendar and at her own will, she outranks the king of her own mound, and her voice in flight can lay a whole household unconscious. Her limits are quieter. The change is tied to Samain and to the year, and in her swan year she belongs to the water, which is why the promise had to be made. She can be found only when she chooses to be seen. And she cannot be given away by anyone, which the Dagda, Bodb, Ailill, Medb and her father all discover in turn. She had to be asked.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Caer Ibormeith?

Caer Ibormeith is a shape-changing woman of the síd in Irish mythology and the beloved of the god Óengus. She is the daughter of Ethal Anbúail of Síd Uamuin in Connacht. Her story is told in the Old Irish tale Aislinge Óenguso, The Dream of Óengus.

Why does Caer Ibormeith turn into a swan?

Caer Ibormeith spends one year in the form of a bird and the next year in the form of a woman, changing at Samain. The tale presents this as her own magic, and her father says her power is greater than his. No curse or outside enchanter is mentioned.

How did Óengus win Caer Ibormeith?

Óengus went to Loch Bél Dracon at Samain, where Caer Ibormeith was a swan among a hundred and fifty swans, and called her by name. She agreed to come to him if he promised she could return to the water. He promised, became a swan himself, and they circled the lake three times before flying to his home on the Boyne.

What happened when Caer Ibormeith and Óengus sang?

As Caer Ibormeith and Óengus flew to Bruig Maic ind Óc in swan form, they sang music so sweet that the people who heard it slept for three days and three nights. Caer stayed with Óengus afterwards.

Is Caer Ibormeith a goddess of dreams?

The Old Irish tale never calls Caer Ibormeith a goddess of sleep or dreams. That title comes from later popular writing. In the tale she is a powerful woman of the síd who appears to Óengus in his sleep for a year and whose swan song sends listeners to sleep.