Secrets of the Síd: The Supernatural in Medieval Irish Texts

Abstract

The Irish have never had small gods. Their local spirits and ancestral heroes have always been larger than life. "Do not think the fairies are always little," W.B. Yeats cautioned, "everything is capricious about them, even their size." 1 The fairies, though-along with leprechauns, púcai, and the dullahan-are relatively recent immigrants to Ireland. 2 The native spirits of Ireland are the aos sí or, as the earliest sources spelled it, áes síde-the folk of the síd (pl. síde). The síd was at once an Otherworld, its inhabitants, and earthly portals to that unearthly place. The síd originated before the Irish learned how to write, and tales of it continue to be written, told, and sung today. 3 The medieval Irish built a rich culture of enchantment around their not-so-small gods, much of it derived from two sources: indigenous oral learning and the Bible, which arrived in the fourth or fifth century.