Irish Faerie Folk of Yore and Yesterday: The Sluagh
So you’ve read of the Dullahan, who takes your life when your time is up. And you now know of the Dearg-Due, who takes your blood if she has the chance. But what about the thing that takes your soul, whenever it pleases?
Nearing Halloween, or Samhain, it seems easier to let your mind wander to darker things. Cooler nights, blustery winds, dry leaves breaking from the trees and rustling in the dark. Shapes and forms manifest where before there were only shadows. And it is out of those shadows, and a westerly wind, that the Sluagh (also called the Underfolk, The Wild Hunt, or The Host of Unforgiven Dead), has haunted Irish folklore for thousands of years.
The foulest and most dreaded of the realm of Faerie, the Sluagh (pronounced SLOO-AH) was more feared than even Death itself. Death was easy. The Sluagh, now that was something entirely different. Even Death has no choice but to defer to the Sluagh, in an otherworldly race for the immortal souls of the living.
Peter Nicolai Arbo – Åsgårdsreien, a Norse version of Wild Hunt (1872)
The Sluagh, meaning “host” in Irish, is a group formed from the darkest, most vile creatures imaginable. Prior to the introduction of Christianity into Scotland and Ireland, the Sluagh was more closely associated with “Fae gone amuck,” if you will. They were believed to be some ill-begotten form of faerie folk, with no reason, no loyalty, and no mercy. However, once Christianity came upon the isles, the Sluagh was transformed into a pack of unforgiven, unrepentant, dead sinners. Yes…the Sluagh were thought to be once human.
And humans are still very much their prey. The Sluagh exists on stealing the souls of the living, and especially the dying. Huddling and hiding in forgotten and dark places, they lay in wait for nightfall. Once the sun has left the sky, they strike out, in what, to the untrained or unsuspecting eye, appears to be a vast and ominous flock of large ravens or other birds. Flapping wings, screeching, and a whirlwind of undulating shadows are all you’d witness as the Sluagh descends for an attack. Owing to the folklore of the Wild Hunt, countless cultures and legends still link black birds (and especially ravens) as evil omens or signals of upcoming misfortune.
In Irish mythology, the Sluagh were said to fly in from the west to steal a dying soul before it was given Last Rites. To this day, doors and windows on the west sides of houses are kept closed if there is a sick or dying person at home.
However…and it would be in your best interest to pay attention to this…it is possible to also inadvertently call the Sluagh to you, by two means. One is by the mere utterance of the word “Sluagh.” Admittedly, that bit had been injected into the myth long before the introduction of the computer or the Internet, so I’m not quite sure if typing or reading the word is thought to trigger the call. Either way, both me writing it, and you reading it, will test that part of the legend together, I suppose. After sundown, of course.
The second means to call the Sluagh, is through the silent hopelessness of one’s heart. All of us have felt that crushing weight of sadness or loss at one time or another. Long has it been said that a person could “die of a broken heart.” But, is it the sadness, or the Sluagh, that finally finishes you off? Only the dead know…and they’re staying frustratingly mum on the subject.
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