Badb

Badb, also written Badb Catha, "battle crow", is a goddess of war and fate. She appears as a hooded crow or raven over the dead and the dying, and her screams can stir warriors to battle or panic. She is one of the sisters sometimes grouped as the Morrígna, with the Morrígan and Macha, and some texts treat Badb as another name of the Morrígan. In Cath Maige Tuired she is named among the daughters of Ernmas.

In the Ulster Cycle a crow lands on the shoulder of the dying Cú Chulainn, which shows that he is dead, and it is often read as the Badb. Later folklore preserves her in the figure of the washer at the ford, who washes the clothes of those about to die, though that image is also tied to the Morrígan and to Scottish tradition, and the link to the banshee is debated.

Badb is related to words in other Celtic languages: the Gaulish goddess Catubodua, named in inscriptions, has a name that appears to mean "battle crow", and this is generally taken to show that the idea was older than the Irish texts. In Irish tradition the Badb is often a name for a battlefield spirit as much as a single goddess, and the word is used in the annals for a supernatural presence that appears before a great slaughter.

The Morrígan, Badb and Macha are often listed together, and in some texts Nemain, "frenzy", takes the place of one of them. Their roles overlap and the sources do not agree on whether they are three goddesses, one goddess in three forms or three names. This is part of why Badb is hard to pin down. The washer at the ford, who is seen cleaning bloodied armour, already appears in early texts around the Morrígan and Badb and is developed further in later folklore, where she may be known as the bean nighe in Scotland.