This article addresses the link between goddesses and fairy queens in Irish and Romanian fairy lore and traditions. The focus is on solar deities, represented in this particular case by the Irish Áine and the Romanian Ileana Sânziana both featuring in dual capacity of goddesses and fairy queens. Following a brief overview of the existing parallels between Irish and Romanian fairies and the traditions that surround them, the paper expounds on two pre-Christian solar goddesses, Irish Áine and Romanian Sânziana, their gradual “demotion” from possible great goddess ranks, and their relegation to the fairy realm. The paper zooms-in on Áine and Ileana Sânziana solar attributes, functions, and powers, and the ways and reasons why they are still honored today.
Romanian and Irish cultures are bearers of rich traditions surrounding fairies. Despite geographical separation[1] and development of unique features characteristic to each culture, Romanian and Irish fairy lore and traditions display a remarkable parallelism. This parallelism becomes particularly evident in a side-by–side analysis of fairies’ physical appearance, types of interactions with humans, the connection with the dead and ancestor figures, and in some cases their origination from ancient gods. In both cultures, the fairies are seen as neither exceedingly benevolent nor exclusively harmful. Each, Romanian zâne or Iele, and Irish Aes Side or Na Daoine Maithe, are uniquely themselves, and their particular nature is well described by the word fairy with connotations of unpredictability, change, magical power, wonder, danger, and beauty which comes in many forms.
Individuality and striking similarities weave together to portray ancient goddess- figures who have assumed roles as fairy queens. Within the cultural frames discussed here, Áine and Ileana Sânziana are probably the best representing examples. While Áine’s goddess status and identity has been preserved quite successfully in the Irish lore, the profile of Ileana Sânziana as a solar goddess vanishes from the public eyes with the advancing of Christianity, never to return as a goddess in the lore yet well established as a fairy queen. Albeit the big goddess picture having sunk into oblivion, fortunately, some clues about Ilena Sânziana in her capacity of solar goddess have been preserved in very old lore and folk traditions from remote areas of the Romania. Such elements made it into later fairy lore and traditions where Sânziana, even if no longer called a goddess, still displays her solar attributes and shines in her role as Queen of all Fairies.
Goddesses to Fairy Queens
Áine. Áine is one of the best known and loved fairy queens in Ireland. She is also becoming increasingly more popular with pagans living outside the Emerald Island. Like with most, if not all major god and goddess-figures, her old lore sunk deeper under the layer of new, Christian stories and traditions that began to take root in Ireland around 400 CE. This layering and amalgamation of pre-Christian and Christian traditions makes her mythology not only complex, but also convoluted and sometimes even contradictory.
Mythology presents Áine as one of the Tuatha Dé Danann - the gods who pulled into the sidhe, the fairy hills in Ireland, and merged with the fairies living there. (Daimler, 2018; id, 2020) In the very old lore, Áine- whose name relates to bright, or brightness (O’hOgain, 2006), a sun deity herself, becomes the wife of Crom Cruach or Crom Dubh around Lammas. In this hypostasis Áine is said to represent the gentle, life-giving sun, while Crom Cruach is the scorching, destructive aspect of the summer sun.
But for the vast majority of Christians, celebrating an ancient goddess figure became problematic and especially from the Middle Ages onward, subject to resinous persecution. Yet giving up on Áine has never been an option. Considering the power Áine held and still holds over critically important aspects of life, people were not willing to quit honoring her. Continuing the shift that initiated over a millennium ago, the modern body of lore and the living oral tradition refers to Áine primarily in her role as Fairy Queen.
“The best-hearted woman who ever lived”, this is how Irish lore refers to Áine, the goddess and fairy queen who people still celebrate on Summer Solstice or Midsummer19 ( O’hOgain, 2006) Around this date, Áine and her retinue (and other fairies as well) travel and make their presence felt in the human world. On the Midsummer Eve they are said to mingle with the celebrating crowds; so fairy encounters are quite likely at this time, and several stories exist about fairy incidents occurring on this occasion. One such story mentions a group of boys roaming around a hillside on Midsummer Eve, chatting as they walked. The discussion revolved around fairies. One of the boys reminded the group to talk respectfully and not make jokes about Na Daoine Maithe, but the others in the group laughed at him. The boys reached a certain tree on the hillside; they sat down to rest, but fell asleep. Fairies came and turned the disrespectful boys into horses whom they raced mercilessly along the countryside all night long. The one boy who believed in fairies and acted respectfully, was given a beautiful horse to ride through the night to his enjoyment. The boys were then brought back, and upon waking up they all talked about having had a strange and unusually vivid dream. However, there is one intriguing detail: the boys who didn’t show respect to fairies, all ‘dreamed’ of being turned into horses and raced to exhaustion the whole night. Being awake, they felt their bodies terribly sore and bruised. The one boy who did show respect to fairies, told nthe others about his wonderful dream where he was given a splendid horse to ride and had a great time throughout the night.
There is also the story of a girl encountering Áine herself during a Midsummer celebration. Áine showed her the fairies dancing on the hill, and invited the girl to join. The girl declined the invitation, leaved unharmed, and told her story which becomes part of the current body of existing fairy lore and stories about Áine.
On Midsummer, the night of June 23, bonfires are lit on hilltops in Áine’s honor, and people gather to party, eat, drink, and dance. Young men jump over fire to show their prowess, and as tradition has it, to ensure strength and health in the months to come. To do divination for love, couples jump over fires holding hands; if partners let go of each other’s hand while leaping over fire, it is said the union won’t last. Fires are lit in Áine’s honor, but also for apotropaic purposes considering that not all fairies are benevolent toward humans. Depending on local traditions and beliefs, herbs for medicinal or magical purposes are gathered either on the morning after Summer Solstice or on Midsummer. It is said that in passing, the fairies have touched these herbs rendering them particularly powerful. As it can be inferred from the practices mentioned above, Áine and her fairy retinue are associated with romantic love, passion and the use of herbs.
According to some more modern sources, Áine has lunar associations as well. (O’Brien, 2021)
Whether these frame her in a hypostasis of goddess, fairy queen or both, is everyone’s guess.
Áine is known as the Fairy Queen of Munster. In the old lore, Áine is mentioned using magic to help her father regain sovereignty over the area of today’s County Limerick, where her hill, Knock Áine is located. Áine has become thus connected with land sovereignty and righteous land ownership. She is also connected to land fertility, for which reason up until the nineteenth century celebrations were held for her on Midsummer to propitiate her aid for a plentiful harvest. These celebrations are brought back under the current revival. Their importance, aside from practical, consists in tying Áine back to her role of land and fertility goddess, worshiped in the centuries, if not millennia, past.
Lough Gur, situated in the proximity of Knock Áine, is also known as one of her places. Áine has been seen, as stories have it, sitting on the shores of this lake, combing her long hair. A well in County Ulster is named after her, Tobar Áine, giving Áine associations with bodies of water. and love. Like many, if not all the other fairy queens, Áine has love affairs with mortals. She is credited as the ancestress of the Fitzgeralds, who descend from Gearoid Iarla, The third earl of Desmond, Áine’s son.
Ileana Sânziana, or Ileana Cosânzeana, is the best known and by far the most loved among the fairies populating Romanian folklore. Ileana Sânziana’s origination as solar goddess and/or agrarian goddess did not survive in folklore as a clear, explicit portrayal as it is the case for Áine. Historians and anthropologists, however, took a particular interest in deciphering her tenebrous origins, and so, the work of scholars supply what has been lost in the surviving folklore and fairy traditions. One possible origination of the name Sânziana could be Diana, the Roman goddess. The territory of modern day Romania was occupied by the Roman Empire, between 102 - 271CE. Elements from Roman and the autochthon Dacian[2] religious beliefs formed a syncretic blend. As it is the case with almost all European cultures during the first millennium, with the arrival of Christianity, many gods and goddesses have been assimilated into saints. According to Mircea Eliade[3], the name Sânziana comes from the name Diana, the Roman goddess that was coopted into the local Dancian pantheon following the Roman colonization, with the later addition of the prefix ‘Sân’ coming from ‘San’, meaning saint in Latin. San Diana would then become Sânziana. The contraction and changing the ‘a’ to ‘â’ is very commonly encountered in the case of other old gods that transitioned to a saint status. While the debate over the strength of this argument is still ongoing, it doesn’t alter the fact that one way or another Sânziana was once an important goddess.
Same as Áine, Sânziana was too important to be let go of. She could no longer be acknowledged as a goddess because that would have conflicted with the one god vision imposed by the new religion. Her identity as a saint did not stick, but she claimed permanently a position as fairy queen. It is not known exactly when the name Ileana began to precede Sânziana, but she became deeply and permanently imbedded in the lore as Ilena Sânziana, Queen of All Fairies. In the lore of the past millennium, Ileana Sânziana - same as Áine- has connections to fire, love magic, abundance, and luck. Also, similarly to Áine, the herbs for charms and healing are her purview.
Ileana Sânziana is the protagonist of numerous fairy tales where she appears related to Fāt Frumos[4], either as his sister or as his bride. (Chelariu, 2021) Her name, Sânziana, is eponymous to the fairies known as Sânziene, and to the flowers these fairies are connected to[5]. Ileana Sânziana and her zâne, the powerful yet benevolent Sânziene, are most active during their eponymous holiday. The celebration begins on the night of June 23 which is called the Night of Sânziene. Huge bonfires are lit on top of hills, and young men swirl around carrying torches. The circular pattern shining in the dark is reminiscent of the Sun, a reminder that in ancient times, the people living in the area of modern day Romania followed a religion which included the worship of solar deities. Ileana Sânziana and her retinue of zâne can be understood as survivors of those times and traditions, with Sânziana, being a solar deity and fairy queen.
The day that follows the Night of Sânziene is called the Feast of Sânziene. Women wake up early on the morning of June 24 to gather the herbs that zâne blessed the night before when flying over fields and woods. On this day it is customary for people to gather for picnics, and leave out offerings for Sânziene and their queen. The offerings and the way they are presented follow very specific rules. Only white items of the best quality one can afford are acceptable. A white tablecloth is laid out, and a platter is made for Sânziene; cheese, butter, milk or yogurt, hard boiled eggs, and white bread
As yet another similarity to Áine, some sources mention Ileana Sânziana connected to the moon, thus complementing the solar Fāt Frumos, while the zâne in her retinue acquire, in this interpretation, an association to stars. (Chelariu, 2021)
In conclusion
The relegation from goddess to fairy is not an actual demotion; it is, at most, a change in how these beings were addressed by a population who, despite becoming increasingly Christianized, still would not conceive letting go of Áine, Sânziana and other beings like themselves. Instead, people sought to integrate them in to the new belief system. Áine and Sânziana were and still are immensely powerful, because in all truth, they wield today the same powers as they always did. Both Áine and Sânziana are still acknowledged, honored, and celebrated, and the notion of how important they are, is kept alive in the local fairy-related traditions in both Ireland and Romania. There were times when honoring them dampened, especially in the second half of the twentieth century, but fortunately we are seeing a revival of these practices.
References:
Chelariu, Ana Radu, “The Most Prevalent Mythical Characters in Romanian Folklore” , Journal of Romanian Language, Issue 29/2021 retrieved at https://limbaromana.org/en/the-most-prevalent-feminine-mythical-characters-in -romanian-folklore/
Daimler, Morgan “Fairy Queens. Meeting the Queens of the Otherworld”, 2018
Morgan, Daimler, “A Modern Dictionary of Fairies”, 2020
Eliade, Mircea, “Noaptea de Sânziene”, 1955
Eliade, Mircea, “Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions: Essays in Comparative Religions”, 1976
Ghinoiu, Ion, “Folk Almanac”, 2005
O’Brien, Lora, “Fairy Faith in Ireland”, 2021
Pócs, Éva “Fairies and Witches and the Bounday of South-Eastern and Central Europe”, 1989
Simina, Daniela, “Where Fairies Meet: Parallels between Irish and Romanian Fairy Traditions”, 2023
Vivod, Maria, “The Fairy Seers of Eastern Serbia: Seeing Fairies- Speaking through Trance”, 2018
[1] Romania: Southeastern- Central Europe 45.9432° N, 24.9668° E; Ireland: Northwestern Europe, insular, 53.1424° N, 7.6921° W
[2] Dacians, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacians
[3] Mircea Eliade, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade
[4] Fāt Frumos, Handsome Lad, is an ancient sun or sky deity, also relegated to the realm of fairies. Details on Handsome Lad and other Romanian fairies, in the paper “An Overview of Romanian Fairy Lore and Traditions,” by Daniela Simina, available on Academia.edu, and Pagan Portals - “Where Fairies Meet: Parallels between Romanian and Irish Fairy Traditions,” by the same author. The book will become available on Amazon in May 2023.
[5] Galium verum, Sânziene, Lady’s bedstraw or Lady’s fingers.
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