#(while the fir bolg are representative of scottish tribes)

[littlestarprincess]

Grainne said "Work life balance" and Diarmuid said, "But honey I'm gonna be famous someday."

I do suspect the fork between the Irish version being Very Romantic and the Scottish version being Very Suspicious is also kind of a neat little fork in the cultures. Scottish version is probably also informed by the focus on nature being more dominant in Scottish myth.

I know that the idea of love potions / love spells / etc taking agency away from the characters in courtly romance style legends is a way of retaining their moral purity while allowing them to engage in adultery and betrayal and the like -- their love is outside of their control! They're still good people, they just can't help themselves!! -- but I legitimately can not fathom how little discussion I can find about that trope regarding Diarmuid and Grainne, because while Diarmuid's agency is completely revoked -- not only is he forced to be with Grainne, but he's punished for it by his liege and treated as an outlaw -- Grainne's is very pointedly not.

Some varieties even portray her "acceptance" of Finn's proposal as being because of his status (i.e. she's effectively treated as a gold-digger who, upon seeing Diarmuid, decides to throw her pursuit of status in the trash and force Diarmuid to run away with her by drugging his whole company and putting him under a geis. Not even like. . . a love spell or a potion or something to instill him with feeling, but literally just a magic command.) And there is probably more merit to this than there would be if the story were from the mainland -- there's a lot more Independent Women in irish mythic structures than in english or greek ones, for example.

The most charitable interpretation I've seen is that she was victim to his love spot, nursing feelings for him for a long time, betrothed against her will to someone too old for her who just so happened to bring her crush along, and her geis was only for Diarmuid to rescue her from Finn, but I still haven't actually seen reference to Diarmuid having feelings for her outside of her baiting him into bedding her many years into their life of crime.