Nicevenn

From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project

Nicevenn or Nicnevin, ( scot-gaelic menaing "Divine"; "Brilliant") is the witch-goddess and Queen of the faries or elphame in Scottish folklore and witchcraft. She is said to ride through the night with her followers at Samhain and is also, seen as a female leader of the Wild Hunt.

She was sometimes thought of as the mother witch, Hecate, or Habundia figure of Scottish fairy mythology.This guise is frankly diabolical. Sir Walter Scott calls her:

a gigantic and malignant female, the Hecate of this mythology, who rode on the storm and marshalled the rambling host of wanderers under her grim banner. This hag (in all respects the reverse of the Mab or Titania of the Celtic creed) was called Nicneven in that later system which blended the faith of the Celts and of the Goths on this subject. The great Scottish poet Dunbar has made a spirited description of this Hecate riding at the head of witches and good neighbours (fairies, namely), sorceresses and elves, indifferently, upon the ghostly eve of All-Hallow Mass. In Italy we hear of the hags arraying themselves under the orders of Diana (in her triple character of Hecate, doubtless) and Herodias, who were the joint leaders of their choir, But we return to the more simple fairy belief, as entertained by the Celts before they were conquered by the Saxons.

Alexander Montgomerie, in his Flyting, described her as:

Nicnevin with her nymphes, in number anew With charms from Caitness and Chanrie of Ross Whose cunning consists in casting a clew.