Side by side, from the sources
The Morrígan vs The Erinyes
These two are identified with one another in the record, which is not the same as being the same figure. Female powers of battle and of blood-debt, appearing as birds over the dead.
Deity · Celtic · c. 1050 CE
The Morrígan
also called Morrigu, Badb, Macha, The Morrigan, Mórrígan
War-goddess who appears as a crow over battlefields and foretells the deaths below. Sovereignty and slaughter, held in one figure.
- Alignment
- Disputed
- Rank
- Phantom Queen
- First attested
- Lebor Gabála Érenn & the Mythological Cycle · 11th c., from older oral material
- Named there as
- The Morrígan
- Texts naming it
- 5
- Powers attributed
- 4
Deity · Greek · c. 700 BCE
The Erinyes
also called Furies, Eumenides, Dirae (Roman), Erinnyes, Semnae theae, Avenging Deities, Ἐρινύες
Born from the blood of the castrated Ouranos, they pursue kin-murderers without appeal. Christian tradition later hands that office to demons; in Greece it belongs to the gods.
- Alignment
- Disputed
- Rank
- Avenging Spirits
- First attested
- The Iliad · c. 750 BCE
- Named there as
- The Erinyes
- Texts naming it
- 3
- Powers attributed
- 3
Where do they actually overlap?
Texts naming both
None. The two never appear in the same text in this corpus, which is worth knowing before accepting any confident claim that they are one figure.
Powers credited to both
No shared office is recorded. Where two figures are said to be the same and share no job description at all, the identification is usually doing polemical work rather than descriptive work.