Caoránach

The Caoránach is a monstrous serpent of Irish folklore, an oilliphéist sometimes called the mother of demons, which was killed in Lough Derg in County Donegal and whose blood is said to have turned the lake red.

The Story

Lough Derg, a lake in the hills of south Donegal, is one of Ireland's great pilgrimage sites: its Station Island holds St Patrick's Purgatory, where pilgrims have fasted and prayed since the Middle Ages. Local legend explains the lake's name, Loch Dearg, "red lake," with the story of a monster.

In one widespread version, Fionn mac Cumhaill and his warrior band, the Fianna, kill a hag or witch. Afterward one of them, Conán, breaks open her thigh bone. A small worm crawls out, grows into a huge serpent, and devours cattle and people across the country. The monster is the Caoránach. It is finally killed in the lake, and its blood stains the water and stones red.

In a more Christian version, Saint Patrick drives the last of Ireland's serpents, the Caoránach, into Lough Derg, or kills it there, and the blood again gives the lake its name. Some tellings call the creature the mother of demons.

Appearance and Powers

The Caoránach is an oilliphéist (great worm), the Irish word for a monstrous serpent that lives in lakes and rivers. Its defining traits are its enormous size, its hunger for livestock, and its link with demons and the underworld, fitting for a lake famous as a gateway to Purgatory.

Origins and Sources

The tale is folklore rather than early literature. The earliest dated written version found is in John Richardson's attack on the Lough Derg pilgrimage, The Great Folly, Superstition, and Idolatry of Pilgrimages in Ireland (1727). There Conán finds a little worm in the jawbone of a dead giant and throws it into the lake, where it grows into the Caoranach, which sucks in men and cattle from a mile away until Conán, swallowed by it, cuts his way out; its blood reddens the lake. Many later versions were written down by Donegal schoolchildren for the National Folklore Collection's Schools' Collection in the late 1930s. Modern claims that the Caoránach was a pre-Christian goddess are speculation, not folklore.

Legacy

The Caoránach is Ireland's best-known lake dragon and a regional example of the belief that Patrick rid Ireland of snakes. See dragons in Celtic mythology for related Irish beasts.

Related

• Y Ddraig Goch: Y Ddraig Goch, the Red Dragon of Wales, is the dragon of the Britons who, in early Welsh legend, fights a white Saxon dragon beneath Dinas Emrys and today flies on the national flag of Wales.
• Stoorworm: The Stoorworm, or Mester Stoorworm, is a colossal sea serpent of Orkney folklore whose poisonous breath threatened the land until the boy Assipattle burned it from the inside, its teeth becoming Orkney, Shetland, and the Faroes.
• Lambton Worm: The Lambton Worm is a giant serpent of County Durham folklore, fished from the River Wear by young John Lambton, which grew huge, coiled around a hill, and could rejoin its body whenever it was cut apart.
• Dragons in Celtic Mythology
• Dragon Legends

Sources and Further Reading

• John Richardson, The Great Folly, Superstition, and Idolatry of Pilgrimages in Ireland; Especially of That to St. Patrick's Purgatory (Dublin, 1727)
• National Folklore Collection, The Schools' Collection (1937-1939), County Donegal volumes, University College Dublin (digitized at dúchas.ie)
• Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, Myth, Legend & Romance: An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition (Ryan Publishing, 1990)

Cite this entry: “Caoránach,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/caoranach.