nsort of Mars. Cormac calls Net and
Neman "a venomous couple," which we may well believe them to have
been.[237] To Macha were devoted the heads of slain enemies, "Macha's
mast," but she, according to the annalists, was slain at Mag-tured,
though she reappears in the Cuchulainn saga as the Macha whose
ill-treatment led to the "debility" of the Ulstermen.[238] The name
Morrigan may mean "great queen," though Dr. Stokes, connecting _mor_
with the same syllable in "Fomorian," explains it as
"nightmare-queen."[239] She works great harm to the Fomorians at
Mag-tured, and afterwards proclaims the victory to the hills, rivers,
and fairy-hosts, uttering also a prophecy of the evils to come at the
end of time.[240] She reappears prominently in the Cuchulainn saga,
hostile to the hero because he rejects her love, yet aiding the hosts of
Ulster and the Brown Bull, and in the end trying to prevent the hero's
death.[241]

The prominent position of these goddesses must be connected with the
fact that women went out to war--a custom said to have been stopped by
Adamnan at his mother's request, and that many prominent heroines of the
heroic cycles are warriors, like the British Boudicca, whose name may be
connected with _boudi_, "victory." Specific titles were given to such
classes of female warriors--_bangaisgedaig_, _banfeinnidi_, etc.[242]
But it is possible that these goddesses were at first connected with
fertility, their functions changing with the growing warlike tendencies
of the Celts. Their number recalls that of the threefold _Matres_, and
possibly the change in their character is hinted in the Romano-British
inscription at Benwell to the _Lamiis Tribus_, since Morrigan's name is
glossed _lamia_.[243] She is also identified with Anu, and is mistress
of Dagda, an Earth-god, and with Badb and others expels the Fomorians
when they destroyed the agricultural produce of Ireland.[244] Probably
the scald-crow was at once the symbol and the incarnation of the
war-goddesses, who resemble the Norse Valkyries, appearing sometimes as
crows, and the Greek Keres, bird-like beings which drank the blood of
the slain. It is also interesting to note that Badb, who has the
character of a prophetess of evil, is often identified with the "Washer
at the Ford," whose presence indicates death to him whose armour or
garments she seems to cleanse.[245]

The _Matres_, goddesses of fertility, do not appear by name in Ireland,
but the triplication of