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Maeve was once the supreme ruler of the fae. She ruled with strict morals, allowing mortal and faery to work together on a respectful plane. She was dethroned by her son, Oberon. Initially, this did not bother her. For she knew her son would eventually become king of the fae. However, under his rule, she noticed how mortals were straying from the old ways. They began to become ignorant towards the fae, not leaving out cream and honey or cakes, and regarding them as childish fantasies that never existed. In her anger, she demanded the throne back, or that Oberon change his ways. Oberon did not see things as his mother and soon banished her from the Seelie Kingdom, which he called it. Maeve, angry and bitter took refuge in the far reaches of the faery realm, reorganizing the Unseelie Kingdom. However, neither kingdom has supreme rule. Each fae has their loyalties or neutrality. Balance was demanded between Seelie and Unseelie courts. Maeve respects the balance, but is still interested at least in shedding the mortal ignorance.
They carried with them the traditionof worshipping the Goddess and became so ellusive that tales grew up of their fairy kingdom and powers of invisibility. These peoples became known as 'the little people', the fairies, and their reaction to the metal sword-wielding invaders is reflected in their legendary fear of metal, especially iron. The deities of the Old Religion were also either demonized or translated into fairies. The Goddess survived in myth and secret worship as the Good Fairy, the Fairy Godmother, or Queen of the Fairies. The Celtic Maeve, Queen of Connaught and warrior Queen, became Mab, Queen of the Fairies, or Titania, described in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The horned God became the Fairy King Oberon, while the trickster-god role, for example Loki in the Norse tradition, became the mischievous Puck of Shakespeare's play.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep; Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, The traces of the smallest spider's web, The collars of the moonshine's watery beams, Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film, Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat, Not so big as a round little worm Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid; Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub , Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight, O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees, O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are: Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep, Then dreams, he of another benefice: Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two And sleeps again. This is that very Mab That plats the manes of horses in the night, And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes: This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage: This is she--
Exerpt from Romeo and Juliet...Act 1,
The burial mound of Queen Maeve The cairn is on top of Knocknarea in County Sligo and overlooks Sligo Town between it and the sea. It is considered back luck to remove a stone from the cairn and good luck to take one up the hill with you and deposit it on it.
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©2002 used with permission 
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