#fionnghuala

[lavenderinoz]

Seo Linn perform the song Fionnghuala off their new album Anuas, at the Iowa Irish Festival, August 2023.

[hidden-but]

I'll keep all the fangirling for Discord, just look how cool the lads are.

[kitabasis]

What if I wrote a story that was Percy Jackson but Irish mythology (especially the Fenian cycle) with 300x more prominent environmental themes. What then.

[crazylittlejester]

The other swan transformation Irish myth that I grew up reading (and my personal favourite of the two), is called the Children of Lir.

Now, I know this myth off by heart as it is genuinely my favourite Irish myth ever and means a lot to me so I'll be a little looser with how I describe its story.

It starts with a king (more like a noble lord than a monarchy king, as mentioned in the last myth and something I forgot to elaborate on, the High King is the King of Kings, or an equivalent to the prime minister/president).

This king, was a man named Lir (who was also the God of the sea but that's not important because he wasn't technically a god yet). And much like the Shakespeare play of the anglicised name, King Lear (though the play is based on a different myth) this too is a tragedy around a king and his children.

King Lir failed to become the High King, and due to the various politics and relationships between those vying for the title of High King of the time, the new High King offered him the hand in marriage of one of his daughters. King Lir accepted this and the High King sent him one of his daughters. She gave Lir four healthy and happy children: Fionnghuala (pronounced Fin-oo-lah) the eldest (and only) daughter, Aodh (pronounced Ay), and twins Fiachra (pronounced Fee-ack-rah) and Conn.

However, shortly after the twins are born, their mother dies. This brought Lir great grief but fortunately he's an actually good father and the loss of his wife only makes him treasure and adore his children even more. To Lir, his children are the light of his life. There's nothing and no one he cherishes more than his children, and his children adore him back. Their grandfather, the High King also greatly treasures and adores his grandchildren.

Upon hearing news of the death of his daughter, the High King sends another of his daughters to marry Lir, Aoife (pronounced Ee-fah). Lir happily accepts since his last marriage to one of the high king's daughters was a resounding success!

Unfortunately, Aoife grows bitterly jealous of all the love and affection both her husband and father give to the four children. She feigns illness and gets to plotting their murders. Firstly by trying to murder them with a chariot and her entourage of knights (her knights refuse to harm the children, however). Aoife decides to take a sword and slay them herself but ends up unable to go through with the act.

Deciding brute force wasn't the answer, Aoife takes the children down to the lake that they love playing in and once they're in the water, casts a curse. Transforming them into Swans. She tells them the curse will only break once nine hundred years have passed, in which they'll be forced to spend three hundred years at this lake, three hundred years in one part of the sea, and three hundred years in another lake. She allows them to keep their voices in the cursed form but only so they can sing mournful songs like no other.

With the curse done, Aoife returns to her father's castle, where he asks her why she had not brought the children with her, she responds that Lir did not trust her with them. Worried that she had done something to his precious grandchildren, he sends a message to king Lir. Lir, devastated that his wife would do something to endanger his children, he rushes to the last place he knew they'd been, the lake.

And there he finds four beautiful swans, singing with human voices. He immediately recognises their voices as his childrens' and kneels by the shore, allowing them to swim up to him so he can pull them all into a tearful hug. They tell him what Aoife did, and so her father curses her with a druid's wand, into taking on the form of a demon of the air (which is not as cool as it sounds because demons of the air in Irish mythology are genuinely just moths. Your average common moth).

The high King, Lir, and their people regularly visited the lake to listen to the swans sing and keep them company. (Also the killing of all swans is banned in the area.)

However, soon the three hundred years on the lake were up and they were forced to swim to the sea to the north. Where bitter cold, fierce storms, and rough waves tormented the swan children. At one point a particularly wretched storm split the children up. Though luckily they were eventually able to reunite with none of them too worse for wear. They would spend these three hundred years completely and utterly miserable.

Finally, the years were up and they travelled to the final lake. Here they met a scribe who recorded their tragic tale. At one point the cold and harsh weather got so bad that their feet became frozen in ice and they pleaded to king of heavens to grant all birds the gift of protect from the dangers of rough weather. Their pleas were heard and from then on they were granted that protection.

However, once the final three hundred years were up, they immediately returned to their father's home. Only to find their childhood home in ruins and heavily overgrown. Devasted, they returned to the final lake they had spent the last three hundred years at.

Until finally, christianity came to Ireland and the swans came across a Catholic monk ringing a bell. They asked him what the ringing was for and he explained it was to call people to come to morning prayer at the church. (So technically upon hearing that the siblings are like "oh perfect a Christian bell, it shall free us of the curse" but firstly that's because the story has been christianised, and secondly Aoife never said christianity would save them (so how do they know it will 900yrs later), and thirdly these swans are 900yrs old they'd have no clue what christianity is and would not have believed in it even once told!)

(For context, christianity arrived in Ireland around the 5th century so they lived as humans around 500bce, so during the height of the Irish iron age!)

Anyway back to the story, the swans tell the monk of their tale and stricken by their plight, he blesses them, using silver chains. Which magically transforms them back into humans (I would like to state that I disagree with the ending because if you can't tell yet I have my gripes with the christianisation of Irish mythology). However depending on the translation/telling, some say that the children upon becoming human stay the same age as they were when cursed and began dancing and singing in joy. Whereas others say that they immediately aged before the monks eyes and became extremely elderly, asked the monk to baptise them, he did so, and then they immediately keeled over and died. Which is certainly an ending.

Anyway as I mentioned in the first ask, this doesn't translate into an au as well but also if we go by the elderly ending, it's kinda funny to imagine that poor Warriors, finally free of being cursed to be a swan for nine hundred years, only to immediately become an old man and die. At least the other ending gives them time to celebrate breaking the curse.

The children could be Wars, Wild, and the twins could be Mask and Wind (since they're the Links who've all been in the hw games).

I would say Dink, or even Zant since he's in hw and the twilight causes the animal forms, could be Aoife but then that brings to mind the hilarious and awkward concept of either of them failing to be Warriors, Wild, Mask, and Wind's stepdad.

Time however is usually the one who's assigned Dad vibes however but he's already Mask so he can't be the father in this au. Unless we have Fierce deity as Lir instead but I can't see him letting dink/zant off that easily for hurting his boys? Or we steal Wild's royal guard dad but he doesn't have a name canonically or much personality (although he would fit the nobility part of hyrule follows medieval accuracy that knights are part of the nobility but the one piece of art we have of him doesn't scream noble. So we might as well just make up a father instead since it's not like he'll be around long after the hw siblings get turned into swans anyway.

(Perhaps Wild loses his memories during the storm that separates them all and even though it's not his fault, as the oldest, Warriors blames himself)

Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble about the myths and a rough idea of what au versions could look like! I'm going to sleep now since it definitely isn't almost 4am whoops.

— Shams-of-the-Wild

‘She feigns illness and gets to plotting their murders’ <- not sure why this caught me so off guard but I feel bad for laughing because i was like ‘oh this is such a sweet story we love a loving father OH SHES DOING MURDERS.’

The idea of Swan Wars being like ‘IM FREE’ and then IMMEDIATELY ageing to 900+ and falling over dead is hilarious and so so tragic

I can for sure just make up a father, and like the other one, I’ll probably make another little fic that follows closer to this, or like, mention it IN the swan au (maybe it’s a story Legend knows (?)) because this is really cool and I like it a lot :)

thank you so much for sharing these!! I hope you got good eep last night :)

[earhartsease]

we were grumbling to our friend about how it's taken four bloody years to get around to putting shelves up in our bedroom - and then said friend reminded us that this happening now coincides with having been a week on finally the right adhd meds after a lifetime undiagnosed so okay we'll take that

and those ugly boxes are waiting for a good sort through and then lots of stuff will get rehomed, and the rest will go in more aesthetic containers at some point (also that's a folk harp on the top and that's going to the local folk society in a couple of weeks)

anyway that's also Fionnghuala the black swan peering down benignly from on high

[lboogie1906]

Fionnghuala O’Reilly (August 20, 1993) winner of the 2019 Miss Universe Ireland Contest would not only be of African descent but had arrived far from the shores of the Emerald Isle.

In 2020, she joined Mission Unstoppable as the newest correspondent. She joined the cast of Twenty Pearls.

Born in the section of Hardin County, Kentucky, she is the daughter of Irishman Fergal O’Reilly, a bricklayer and painter, and Vanetta O’Reilly, an African American he met in San Francisco. At age 9 an affinity for math and science resulted in her attendance at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, and as a teenager participation in the Summer Math and Science Honors Academy at UC Berkeley.

She won her first beauty contest, Miss Freshman, at George Washington University where she pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She earned her BS in Systems Engineering. A tip from a friend led to a position in the Datanaut program at NASA and was promoted to executive director of the NASA Space Apps Challenge which allowed her to work remotely from her home in Dublin, Ireland.

In 2018, she won the swimsuit competition and was third runner-up in the Miss District of Columbia USA contest. On August 1, 2019, she competed for the title of Miss Universe Ireland against 28 finalists in the Round Room of the Mansion House on Dublin’s Dawson Street. She won the crown and the equivalent of $78,000 in prizes. She had the distinction of being the first person of color and the first person of African heritage to claim victory in the history of the contest.

Returning from Atlanta, representing Ireland in the 2019 Miss Universe Contest, she continued her association with Girls Who Code, a NASA-related program aimed at girls interested in STEM fields, and #ReachForTheStars, a social media initiative she launched that promotes women and diversity in STEM. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphakappaalpha

[k00296662]

Sculpture

My collection of works from sculpture this week, including 5 full plaster waves, a small plaster section of a wave I painted and a wire swan I very quickly put together, to tie Fionnghuala and the Children of Lir into this week.

[gothimp]

Odd numbers 1-9 for any oc(s) of your choice. 🖤🖤🖤

(As a bisexual I refuse to choose just one, so please gab about as many as you like)

TY!!! 🩵 i’m going to do these for my swanmay girlie swift 🦢

romanticism asks

1: What is their color palette?

3: What architectural or design aesthetic would best suit them?

Corinthian!

5: What character from myth or fairytale best represents them?

swan maidens are in several myths from all over the world, but other than that a veela is also very befitting of swift especially since they also have been documented as taking swan forms, or maybe even a naiad

7: If your OC could meet any historical or past figure, whether in the real world or in their own canon lore, who would it be and why?

Fionnghuala, demi-goddess of the swanmays. She was a gifted warrior who was favored by the fey and granted abilities.

9: If your OC were to imagine their idyllic life (realistically or otherwise) what would it be like?

Swift’s idyllic life would be sailing between the isles at her leisure with a lover of her own and endless gentle warm summer breezes.

[itcamefromthenintendoeshop]

the short haired mermaid is fo-dhord, blond person next to them is Fionnghuala - at present the character that was Nooche/Prudence is called Czesława

oh wow I'll have to retag some stuff!! thank you so much!! If you don't mind me asking do you have sources on these :0?

[alechanleybemis]

The Bothy Band: “Fionnghuala” (mid-1970s)

[goalhofer]

Shera Danese as Vanessa Barsini, Isabel Lorca as Julie and Fionnghuala Flanagan as Louise Barsini in Columbo season 9, episode 1 (1989).

[hidden-but]

Waiting for a train in a McDonalds eating ice cream and i can feel how each blandly inoffensive chill guitar okay song that comes on in the background makes me lose another sanity point

[schmuckhoelle]

Namentag 24.11.2022: Flora

Buchstaben-Schmuck für den Namen Flora In unserem Shop finden Sie Ketten-Anhänger für den Buchstaben F in Silber und Gold. Sehr zu empfehlen als Geschenk oder um sich selbst zu beschenken  Einen Ketten-Anhänger aus Silber oder Gold. Die Anhänger können ganz klassisch als Halskettenanhänger getragen werden oder sehr modisch als Armbandanhänger. Herkunft und Bedeutung Der Name Flora wird vom lateinischen flos „Blume“ abgeleitet. Flora war die römische Göttin der Blumen und des Frühlings. In Schottland wird er gelegentlich als anglisierte Variante von Fionnghuala genutzt. Verbreitung Der Name Flora findet weltweit Verwendung. Besonders beliebt ist Flóra derzeit in Ungarn (Rang 24, Stand: 2019) In Deutschland ist der Name zwar geläufig, zählte jedoch nie zu den beliebtesten Vornamen. Im Jahr 2021 belegte der Name Rang 197 der beliebtesten Vornamen. Weitere Schmuck-Buchstaben-Anhänger In unserem Shop finden Sie auch für weitere Buchstaben Anhänger: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Außerdem bieten wir Ihnren auch noch passende Ketten dazu an Zu den Ketten und Armbändern aus Silber | Zu den Ketten und Armbändern aus Gold   Quelle: Wikipedia Lesen Sie den ganzen Artikel

[hanas-hues]

Archfey Fionnghuala, before and after she got kicked out of the Seelie Court, or as Marigold knows her…. Mama(adoptive) :)

[earhartsease]

household gods freshly installed in the bedroom - left to right is

The Black Panther

Nkoë the tiger

Fionnghuala the black swan

all they/them pronouns - photo doesn't do justice to how glossy The Black Panther is

and yes they are getting a band together