Pictish Mystic · Lore · Ulster Cycle
The Adventures of Nera: a Samhain Tale from Crúachan
Echtra Nerai, "The Adventures of Nera", is an old tale linked to the Táin, here told from Kuno Meyer's translation. It is set on Samhain night, when the tale says the fairy mounds of Ireland are always open. These are legends from medieval manuscripts, not recorded history.
The Dare
One Halloween, Ailill and Medb sat in Rath Crúachan with their household, cooking food. Two captives had been hanged the day before. Ailill offered a prize to anyone who would go out and tie a withy round the foot of one of the hanged men. The night was dark and full of horror, and demons always appeared on it. Each man who tried came quickly back. Nera said he would go, and Ailill promised him his gold-hilted sword.
The Hanged Man
Nera put on armour and tied the withy. Three times it sprang off, until the captive himself told him to fix it with a proper peg. Then the hanged man praised him, said he had been very thirsty when he was hanged, and asked Nera to carry him on his neck to get a drink.
Three Houses
At the first house there was a lake of fire, and at the second a lake of water, and the dead man would not go in. In the third were tubs for washing and bathing and a slop-pail left on the floor. He drank from each, then spat the last sip at the faces of the people inside, and they all died. The tale says this is why it isn't good to leave washing water, an unbanked fire or a slop-pail in a house overnight. Nera carried him back to the gallows.
The Burning
Back at Crúachan, Nera saw the fort burnt and a heap of his people's heads. He followed the host that did it through the cave of Crúachan into the síd, the Otherworld mound. The king there sent him to a woman's house and set him to carry firewood to the fort every day.
The Crown in the Well
Each day Nera saw a blind man carrying a lame man out to a well. The woman, now his wife, told him the king's golden crown was kept in that well, and those two were trusted to guard it. She told him what he had seen was a vision of what the fairy host would do next Samhain, unless he warned his people. She said that if they came, they would destroy the síd and take the Crown of Briun.
Proof from Summer
To be believed, he took fruits of summer: wild garlic, primrose and golden fern. She told him she would bear him a son. He found his people still round the same cauldron, the meat not yet off the fire, though it had felt like three days to him. He got his sword and stayed a year. That was the year Fergus mac Róich came into exile at Crúachan.
The Morrígan and the Calf
Back in the síd, the Morrígan took his son's cow, and the Brown Bull of Cúailnge bulled her in the east. Cú Chulainn overtook them on the plain of Muirthemne. The calf born of it later bellowed on the plain of Crúachan and fought Ailill's bull, the Whitehorn, for a night and a day, and the calf was beaten. Medb swore she would not sleep until she saw the two bulls fight.
Still Inside
Ailill and Medb's warriors broke into the síd and carried off the Crown of Briun, one of the three wonders of Ireland. Nera stayed in the síd with his wife and son. The tale ends: he has not come out until now, nor will he come till Doom.
These are legends from medieval manuscripts, not recorded history.
First shared on X @dalriada36963 and TikTok @johnshaw333.
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