The Fairy King of Ulster. Lady Wilde seems to regard him as the king of the dead. In 'November Eve', a story in her Ancient Legends of Ireland (vol.I), she tells how a fisherman, Hugh King, negligently returning late from the fishing on November Eve, once got caught up in a Fairy Fair and found that all the dancers were dead men whom he had known. Finvarra and his wife drove up to the fair in a coach with four white horses: 'Out of it stepped a grand, grave gentleman all in black and a beautiful lady with a silver veil over her face'. In another tale, Ethna The Bride, we see Finvarra as the thief of beautiful human women, a theme reminiscent of the medieval king Orfeo. In vol.11 there is another story of Finvarra as a horseman on a black horse who lent one of the Kirwans of Galway a jockey by means of whom his horse won a great race, and afterwards took him to dinner in a grand mansion — actually, probably Knockma, Finvarra's fairy mound — where he gradually recognized the splendid company as the dead whom he had known. Though he ate the banquet and drank the fairy wine, he came to less harm than most mortals who violate the taboo against partaking of fairy food. He was escorted safely home; the only harm he received was a burnt ring round his wrist left by a girl whom he had loved in old days and who had died before their marriage.

The brief mentions of Finvarra in Wentz's The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries lay less stress on his role as king of the dead and more on his territorial holding.

[Motifs: F109; F160.0.2; F167.12; F184; F252.1]