Amadan Dubh

Amadán Dubh, also known as the "'Dark Fool'" or "Fairy Fool", is a trickster fairy found in Irish folklore, and is the "bringer of madness and oblivion." It is also said that Amadán Dubh "haunts the hills after sunset playing reed pipes to work his magic." This is a bit like describing Heracles as an itinerant stable cleaner. Seeing as how he cloaks his deeds in shadow, myth, and deliberate obfuscation the lack of a coherent myth about The Amadán isn't surprising. One of the mighiest of the folk of the mound his powers are in poetry, the creation of Geases and music rather than battle. There are some indications that he is at odds with some if not all of the fae folk although the reasons are unclear, mythical, imaginary or simply incomrehensible from a human point of view. He allegedly delights in passing himself off as others of the Fae and it has been suggested it was Amadán not Morrígan who twined about the heels of the hound of ulster at the ford. There are also allegedly beliefs among those who study the allocation and effects of Geases that The Amadán regards history as a poem still being written - perhaps what we would describe as performance art. In this he is similar to certain aspects of the Buddha, Boddhisatvas 'trickster' gods like Raven or Loki and numerous fictional characters- Tanith Lee's Chuz and Roger Zelazny's court of cards are based on or at least influenced by him. He has sometimes been erroneously adopted by postmodern pseudo religions like the LDD and ELF (cf Pope Bugs Bunny) but the aspect of The Amadan, The FATAL Fool is far darker.

Other fairies that resemble Amadán Dubh from Ireland are:

  1. Amadán
  2. Amadán Mór
  3. Amadánn-Na-Briona
  4. Amadáan-Na-Bruidne

References

    • The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Fairies, Anna Franklin and Illustrated by Paul Mason and Helen Field
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