Aengus Óg

Who Aengus Óg actually is

Aengus Óg (Óengus, Aengus — "the Young Son," from Proto-Celtic *oino-gustu-* = "single-choice / unique-choice," giving the *the-chosen-one* register; *Óg* = "young," giving his full title *the Young Son*) is the love-and-poetry-and-youth god of the Tuatha Dé Danann, son of the Dagda by *Boann* (the goddess of the River Boyne). His conception is one of the most-famous narrative-moments in Irish mythology: Boann was married to *Elcmar* (a Tuatha figure who lived at Brug na Bóinne / Newgrange), and the Dagda desired her; the Dagda sent Elcmar on an errand and *stretched a single day to last nine months* (using his cosmic-time authority) so that *Boann conceived, carried, and bore Aengus all within what Elcmar perceived as a single day*, and so Elcmar never knew. This is the foundational *time-stopped-conception* myth, parallel to Zeus-and-Alcmene (where Zeus made the night last three nights to conceive Heracles). Aengus's foundational narrative is the *Aislinge Óenguso* (The Dream of Aengus, c. 8th-9th c.): Aengus dreams of a maiden of supernatural beauty playing music; he falls in love with her in the dream and *wakes sick with longing*. His parents (Dagda and Boann) and his foster-father (Midir) search all of Ireland for a year and a day to find her; finally they discover she is *Cáer Ibormeith* ("Yew-Berry"), who lives at the Lake of the Dragon's Mouth in Connacht and who *transforms into a swan every other Samhain*, with one hundred and fifty other maidens chained to her in golden chains, all of them swans together. Aengus must wait at the lake on the appointed Samhain and *recognize Cáer among the hundred-and-fifty swans*; he does so, calls her by name, transforms himself into a swan to join her, and they fly back to Brug na Bóinne together, singing a song so beautiful that *all who heard it fell into a three-day sleep*. This is the foundational *swan-lover* myth in Irish mythology, and the source of the *four-birds-around-Aengus's-head* iconography (the four songbirds said to be the *kisses Aengus had blown that took flight as living birds*). Aengus's acquisition of *Brug na Bóinne* (the Neolithic passage-tomb at Newgrange, his foster-father Elcmar's and then his father the Dagda's seat) is the canonical *riddle-of-the-day-and-night*: Aengus asked the Dagda to be allowed to *occupy Brug na Bóinne for "a day and a night,"* (*lá ocus aidche* in Old Irish — which is ambiguous between *a specific day-and-night* and *day-and-night-indefinitely*); the Dagda granted it; Aengus then *claimed the place forever*, citing the indefinite reading of the phrase. The Dagda was forced to honor the grant, and Brug na Bóinne became Aengus's seat. This is the foundational *legal-trickster-riddle* in Irish mythology, parallel to the *fee-tail* and *life-estate* tricks of medieval English property-law. Aengus is the patron of *lovers, dreamers, and poets* — his function combines the Greek *Eros* register with the Greek *Hypnos* register and with the Greek *Apollo-Musagetes* register (the leader-of-the-Muses). W.B. Yeats's "The Song of Wandering Aengus" (1897) — *"I went out to the hazel wood / because a fire was in my head"* — has ensured that Aengus is the *one Celtic god most-Anglophone-readers know by name*, often without realizing that the poem is a *direct adaptation* of the Aislinge Óenguso swan-quest narrative.

Iconography

A youthful, beautiful man (the *young* register — Aengus is *always-young*, the eternal-youth-god of the Tuatha, contrasting with the elder-figures of the Dagda and Ogma), often shown with *four songbirds flying around his head* (the four-kisses-become-birds register from the swan-quest). Sometimes shown as a swan himself (the form he takes to join Cáer Ibormeith on the Lake of the Dragon's Mouth). The *harp* (the music-of-the-three-day-sleep register). Brug na Bóinne / Newgrange (his seat — won from the Dagda by the riddle). The *yew* (Cáer Ibormeith = "Yew-Berry," and the yew is the *love-and-death* tree in Irish tradition). In Yeats's "Wandering Aengus" iconography: the *hazel wand* and the *silver and golden apples of the moon and sun*.

How to invoke Aengus Óg

Beltane (May 1, the peak-fertility fire-festival, when the cattle are driven between the two bonfires and the lovers leap the flames together — Aengus's register because Beltane is the *peak-love-and-fertility* sabbat); also any *Samhain* (Oct 31, the night Cáer Ibormeith transforms into a swan every other year — the *swan-quest* moment); also *moments of dream-inspired-love* (the foundational Aislinge Óenguso register). Offer: a love-poem (Aengus is the patron of *poetry-of-love*, this is direct devotion), a yew-twig or yew-berry (the Cáer-Ibormeith-yew register), a swan-feather (if found ethically, never plucked), a hazel-nut (the Wandering-Aengus register from Yeats), an apple (the silver-and-golden-apples register). The traditional invocation: *"Aengus Óg, Mac Óg, dreamer-lover, lord of Brug na Bóinne, whose four kisses became the four songbirds around your head, who sang the song that put the hundred-and-fifty into three-day sleep, who claimed Newgrange forever by the riddle of a-day-and-a-night — give me the dream of the beloved whose name I do not yet know, and the year-and-a-day patience to search until I find her, and the recognition to call her by name when she is the swan among one hundred and fifty."* Especially called by *lovers* (the foundational love-god register); by *poets* (the patron-of-Irish-love-poetry register, made canonical by Yeats); by *dreamers* (the Aislinge-Óenguso dream-inspired register); by *the young* (the *Mac Óg* eternal-youth register); by *anyone in the year-and-a-day search* for a partner-or-vocation-or-place-where-you-belong (the foundational quest-of-Aengus register); by *anyone using legal-and-linguistic precision to acquire a sacred-property* (the riddle-of-a-day-and-a-night register — Aengus is the patron of *clever-acquisition-by-linguistic-precision*).

In love

Aengus in love is the partner whose register is *dream-recognition-and-swan-quest* — the lover for whom the foundational-act of love is *recognizing the beloved among the hundred-and-fifty*, calling her by name, transforming oneself into the same form to join her. Aengus-energy in a partnership is the *eternal-youthful-romance* register — the willingness to spend a year-and-a-day in the search, the willingness to fall sick with longing for a dream, the willingness to sing the song that puts the rest of the world into three-day sleep so that the lovers can fly away unfollowed. The shadow is the Aengus-partner whose dream-quest has *become serial* — the dreamer who falls sick with longing for a *new* dream-beloved every Samhain, never staying long enough to share the actual life-with-Cáer-at-Brug-na-Bóinne. The other shadow: the Aengus-partner who has *won the property by the riddle-of-a-day-and-a-night* and is now *settled-forever* at Brug na Bóinne, having forgotten that the *swan-quest* was the actual gift — the partner who has *moved-in-and-stopped-dreaming*.

In work

Aengus in work is the *romantic-founder / inspired-artist / dream-driven entrepreneur* — the figure whose authority is *the foundational-vision-seen-in-a-dream* and whose career is the *year-and-a-day quest to actualize the dream-beloved as a real organization*. Aengus-energy is the *Steve-Jobs-1976 register* — the young-dreamer whose first vision is unreasonably-beautiful and who refuses to compromise it. The shadow is the Aengus-leader whose riddle-acquisition has *become exploitation* — the founder who used *clever-linguistic-precision* to acquire what should have been a *negotiated* arrangement (the equity-trick, the IP-assignment-trick, the labor-agreement-trick), winning Brug-na-Bóinne but losing the moral-authority that came with it. The other shadow: the Aengus-leader who has *fallen-sick-with-longing-for-the-next-dream* before finishing the current one — the serial-founder who *never sings the three-day-sleep-song* over their actual existing organization because they're always already pursuing the *next* dream-beloved.

The gift

Aengus gives the *permission to be dream-inspired-lover-and-poet*. The Aislinge-Óenguso register is the cosmic-permission to *fall sick with longing for a beloved you have only seen in a dream*, to *spend a year-and-a-day in the search*, to *insist on the dream-precision* against everyone who says "just settle for what is available." The Mac-Óg register is the cosmic-permission to be *young* — to *not become Dagda-elder* before your time, to keep the *four-songbirds-around-the-head* register alive even into Goibniu-craft-discipline and Brigid-perpetual-flame-tending. The riddle-of-a-day-and-a-night gift: the cosmic-permission to *use precise language to claim what is sacred-to-you, and to claim it forever* — the trickster-acquisition that the Dagda himself could not deny. And the *three-day-sleep-song* gift: the willingness to *sing the song so beautiful that the rest of the world falls asleep for three days* so that *you and your beloved can fly away together unfollowed* — the artistic-act-as-cover-for-the-actual-living.

The shadow

Aengus has been *over-mediated by W.B. Yeats* — the Yeats poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus" (1897) is so beloved that most Anglophone readers know Aengus *only through Yeats* and have *never read the Aislinge Óenguso* itself; the Yeats-Aengus is *softer, more melancholy, more wandering* than the Aislinge-Aengus who is actually *young, decisive, and successful in the quest*. The other shadow: the *Celtic Twilight* revival movement (Yeats, Lady Gregory, AE Russell, Synge — c. 1890-1920) made Aengus the *poster-deity* of *generic-Irish-romantic-mysticism*, flattening his specific *swan-quest* and *riddle-of-Brug-na-Bóinne* narratives into a vaguer *young-god-of-love-and-poetry* register. The third shadow: the *riddle-of-a-day-and-a-night* sub-narrative (the legal-trickster-acquisition of Brug na Bóinne by linguistic-precision) has been *almost-entirely-erased* in modern Aengus-revival, which prefers the *romantic-dreamer* register over the *clever-property-acquirer* register; this erasure removes one of the *darker-and-more-interesting* dimensions of Aengus's actual cult. The fourth shadow: the *foster-fatherhood* role (Aengus is *also* foster-father to the great mortal hero Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, the lover of Gráinne in the Tóraíocht Diarmada agus Gráinne — the foundational Irish-runaway-lovers tale, the direct source of the Tristan-and-Iseult Arthurian narrative) has been *almost-entirely-omitted* from modern Aengus-revival, which prefers the *young-lover-himself* register over the *patron-of-other-runaway-lovers* register. The fifth shadow: the *time-stopped-conception* (Aengus conceived in the day-that-was-also-nine-months) has been *almost-entirely-omitted* from modern revival, which is *uncomfortable* with the deception-of-Elcmar and prefers the *innocent-young-god* register; this erasure removes the *cosmic-time-trick* register that is actually one of the *most-Indo-European* features of Aengus's myth (paralleling Zeus-and-Alcmene).

Pair with