Áine: Radiant Goddess of Summer

A voice is heard amidst the flow of the water.

First, it almost sounds like the singing of the stream itself, being caught amongst the moss-covered rocks, meandering its way into the crevices and curbs that had been carved out for centuries.

But if you listen closer, you will hear her voice, pure and clear like the water itself.

Pure and clear, but oh, so mournful.

It travels upwards from a place that has seen sorrow and hardship unceasing.

That has tended to grief, not burying it, but turning the soil of it daily.

Tending and turning it until it can grow new seeds once more in its rich soils.

And as the voice sings out and braids into the winding of the river itself, new life comes from it.

For this is the river of death that she sits upon the banks of.

And the water there flows and flows and continues to flow from life to death to life once more.

And there she sits, singing a song for each of those lives, wrapping it in the beauty of her ethereal voice to help it find its way home once more.

This woman, sitting by the river, is Omnia, known as the fairy queen of Munster, as the goddess of love, of wealth, of sovereignty, and of summer.

Daughter of Egaville, of the Tuath Dé Danann, those mythical first peoples of Ireland.

There is a light that can constantly be seen shimmering around her form.

Opalescent is her aura, and if you can catch a glimpse of her through her shining light, you will see that she is most beautiful.

Slight of form, willowy of limb, with a tinkling laugh and a wide smile, she is a goddess of the light, and the sun favors her well.

Wherever she goes, there is sunshine in the day and bright beckoning fires in the night to warm yourself by.

Many a mortal man has fallen in love with her over the years, and her daughters and her sons, part fairy, part human.

They have her eyes, her laughter, her desire to travel far and wide, loving deeply and purely, just as they learned from their mother.

Each midsummer, Áine was celebrated not just by her children, but by those throughout Ireland who prayed to her, who understood her divine powers and knew if they wanted a good harvest come Lunasa, they would need to honor her.

They would need to light the bonfires for her and seek her blessing.

singing to her, offering gifts to her, traveling to her hillside on Cnach Awnia in Limerick, and performing the rituals honoring her there on Solstice Eve.

And it was on this evening one was most likely to spot her with her fairy consort, dancing around the hill, moving in time to that mysterious music that could be heard faintly in the air.

Anya Clear, goddess of the light, swaying and moving so gracefully, her long flowing hair swaying, glimmering like the sunlight in a halo around her head.

All who saw her would be mesmerized by her, as were a group of young girls who it is said once saw her atop that hill one evening at dusk, the lights of the rising moon glinting in her eyes.