Nera is a warrior of
ConnachtConnacht , formerly Anglicised as Connaught, is the western province of Ireland, comprising counties Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo. Its main urban centres are Galway in the south, and Sligo in the north...
in the
Ulster CycleThe Ulster Cycle, formerly known as the Red Branch Cycle, one of the four great cycles of Irish mythology, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster and northern Leinster, particularly counties Armagh, Down and...
of
Irish mythologyThe mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology...
.
One
SamhainSamhain is a festival held at the end of the harvest season in Gaelic and Brythonic cultures. The festival has aspects of a festival of the dead...
night when the warriors of
CruachanRathcroghan is a complex of archaeological sites near Tulsk in County Roscommon, Ireland. It is identified as the site of Cruachan, the traditional capital of the Connachta. While it is debatable whether this was a place of residence, it had huge importance as a cemetery and also hosted some of the...
were feasting, King
AillilAilill mac Máta is the king of the Connachta and the husband of queen Medb in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. He rules from Cruachan ....
offered a prize to any man who was brave enough to put a wicker band around the ankle of a corpse that had been hanged. Because Samhain was considered to be a night when the dead have power, only Nera was courageous enough to volunteer. When he placed the wicker band around the corpse's ankle, it moved and asked him for water.
Nera is a warrior of
ConnachtConnacht , formerly Anglicised as Connaught, is the western province of Ireland, comprising counties Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo. Its main urban centres are Galway in the south, and Sligo in the north...
in the
Ulster CycleThe Ulster Cycle, formerly known as the Red Branch Cycle, one of the four great cycles of Irish mythology, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster and northern Leinster, particularly counties Armagh, Down and...
of
Irish mythologyThe mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology...
.
One
SamhainSamhain is a festival held at the end of the harvest season in Gaelic and Brythonic cultures. The festival has aspects of a festival of the dead...
night when the warriors of
CruachanRathcroghan is a complex of archaeological sites near Tulsk in County Roscommon, Ireland. It is identified as the site of Cruachan, the traditional capital of the Connachta. While it is debatable whether this was a place of residence, it had huge importance as a cemetery and also hosted some of the...
were feasting, King
AillilAilill mac Máta is the king of the Connachta and the husband of queen Medb in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. He rules from Cruachan ....
offered a prize to any man who was brave enough to put a wicker band around the ankle of a corpse that had been hanged. Because Samhain was considered to be a night when the dead have power, only Nera was courageous enough to volunteer. When he placed the wicker band around the corpse's ankle, it moved and asked him for water. Nera allowed it to climb on his back and he carried it to a house, but flames sprang up around the house when they approached. They tried a second house, which was then surrounded by water. On their third attempt, they were able to enter the house, and the corpse drank three cups of water, spitting the last out on the householders and killing them. Nera returned the corpse to the gallows, but when he went back to court the hall was on fire and all of the inhabitants had been decapitated. He thought he saw an army going into the Hill of Cruachan, so he followed them. Inside the hill, he met a woman of the
sidheIn Irish mythology, the aos sí are a powerful, supernatural race comparable to the fairies or elves. They are variously believed to live underground in the fairy mounds, across the western sea, or in an invisible world that coexists with the world of humans...
who told him that the destruction that he had seen was only a vision of what would happen on the next
SamhainSamhain is a festival held at the end of the harvest season in Gaelic and Brythonic cultures. The festival has aspects of a festival of the dead...
night unless the warriors of
MedbMedb ; modern , ; reformed modern Irish Meabh ; sometimes Anglicised Maeve, Maev, or Maive , is queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. Her husband in the core stories of the cycle is Ailill mac Máta, although she had several husbands before him who were also kings of Connacht...
and Aillil destroyed the Hill of Cruachan and defeated the sidhe army. Nera went back to tell Medb and Aillil what he had heard and found that no time had past since he had left the hall to put the wicker band around the corpse's foot. Nera warned the people of Cruachan of the danger and then escaped with the woman of the sidhe before Medb and Aillil called on
Fergus mac RoichFergus mac Róich is a character of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology...
to destroy the Hill of Cruachan.
In some versions of the legend, Nera spends a whole year in the hill and convinces Medb and Aillil of the truth of his story by bringing them summer flowers.
- Nera
Nera may refer to one of the following:* Nera , a tributary of the Tiber in Italy.* Nera River , a tributary of the Indigirka in Russia.* Nera River , a tributary of the Danube, flowing through Romania and Serbia....
is also the name of a NorwegianNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
telecommunications company.
Sources