The Goddess Who Dreamed Her Way to Love
Plus, the swan myth that inspired Aisling’s powers in The Dreammasters
Picture this: I'm on a plane, trying to relax through takeoff (turbulence and I have never been friends), taking slow, deep breaths to keep myself calm. Somewhere between the runway and cruising altitude, an idea took hold: a story about women who could reshape reality through their dreams.
At the time, my husband and I were living in Galway, Ireland, and I knew right away that this new novel needed to be set there, woven through with the Irish mythology I'd loved for years. The moment I got home, I dove into research on the old gods and goddesses of Ireland, and that's when I found her: Caer Ibormeith, the goddess of sleep and dreams.
The tale of how Caer wove herself into the dreams of the god Aengus and made him fall helplessly in love with her is, in fact, the only story I've ever found about this goddess, making it really the main source of what little we know of her. That sliver of myth was all the invitation I needed. I took literary liberties and expanded her story for the Of Gods and Monsters series, imagining that Caer, and the rest of the Tuatha Dé Danann, have descendants living among us today, each carrying a spark of their ancestor's power. My protagonist, Aisling, inherits Caer's gift: the Dreammaster ability to reshape reality through dreams. But as Aisling soon discovers, her power reaches far beyond her dreams.
If you want to truly meet Caer, there's no better place to start than the story of how she won Aengus's heart. I wrote my own retelling, drawn from years of reading Irish mythology, and it appears in Chapter Twenty-five of The Dreammasters. I've shared it below as a gift for you.
Caer Ibormeith and Aengus Og: A Dream of Love
“Caer Ibormeith, a goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann, is the Celtic goddess of dreams and prophecy and a powerful symbol of love, purity, and fierce determination. She is connected to the swan, also a symbol of purity and love. Determined to choose her mate, Caer pursues her man, the god of youth, love, and poetry, Aengus mac Og, using the power of her dreams to captivate his mind and capture his heart. Caer appears to Aengus in his dreams for a year, wooing him in his sleep with her beauty and the sweet music of her timpan. Caer’s grace, intelligence, and loveliness overwhelm him, and each night Aengus reaches for her in his dreams. But the elusive Caer evades his grasp and leaves him as dawn breaks, casting such a spell that Aengus becomes heartsick, his illness preventing him from leaving his bed.
“After a year, the physician Fergne diagnoses Aengus. ‘It is love in absence,’ he says, and the young god agrees.
““I have seen a young woman, the most beautiful woman in the whole of Ériu,’ says Aengus. ‘But she only comes to me in my dreams. Before dawn, she vanishes like the morning mist.’
“Aengus’s mother, Boann, is summoned, but she cannot discover the whereabouts of the young woman haunting her son. After a year without success, Aengus’s father, the Dagda, the great king and father god of the Tuatha Dé Danann, is sent for. The Dagda sends word to his many connections in Ériu, and after another year he receives a report that the woman young Aengus loves has been found.
““She is called Caer Ibormeith,’ the Dagda tells his son. ‘She is the daughter of a fairy king, Ethal Anbúail, who rules the fairy mound of Sídh Uamuin in the kingdom of Connachta. You will find her at the Lake of the Dragon’s Mouth.’
“With this news, Aengus Og travels to the lake and first spies Caer as a woman standing within a group of three times fifty women, all wearing silver chains. He instantly recognizes her from his dreams. But she is not yet his.
“His father, the Dagda, asks Ethal Anbúail to give Caer to him for Aengus, but the fairy king refuses. He explains his daughter is far stronger than he and it is not for him to offer her to any man, for she will make her choice as to whom she loves. Aengus must win Caer’s love for himself. Caer’s father also explains that she is a shape-shifting goddess who spends one year as a human and one year as a swan, changing from one to the other on Samhain. Aengus must return in one year to the Lake of the Dragon’s Mouth on Samhain and woo her when Caer will be in her swan form. To do so, he must be able to pick her out from her companions, all one hundred and fifty of them in the shape of swans. A year later, upon his return, Aengus recognizes the shining qualities of his love because of the Dreamscape Caer has woven around and between them over the years.
“‘I will come to you, Aengus mac Og,’ Caer calls to him, ‘if you promise I may return to the water.’
“‘I promise,’ Aengus says. Aengus shifts into the shape of a swan, and together they take flight, circling the lake three times and singing a song so beautiful that all who hear it fall into a deep slumber for three days and nights. They live together from then on, committed to their love for each other.”
I hope Caer and Aengus's love story enchanted you as much as it did me while writing it.
May your dreams be filled with magic,
Kelley
An interpretation of how the Goddess Caer might look
