Ronald Hutton, Professor of History at the University of Bristol, traces the Irish war goddess the Morrigan back from her modern reputation as the supreme dark Celtic goddess to her medieval textual roots. Delivered as his final lecture as Gresham Professor at Barnard's Inn Hall, the talk works through decades of scholarly disagreement over her name and identity before placing her among five distinct Irish war goddesses, including Macha, with her three contradictory origin myths, and the Badb, a crow spirit and doom prophet. Hutton examines the episode of her propositioning Cu Chulainn and her later appearance as a raven on his shoulder at his death, drawing parallels to Athena, Ishtar and Gilgamesh. He argues she survives as a modern icon, referenced everywhere from Madonna to fantasy villains, precisely because she combined features the other four goddesses lacked, a war goddess entangled with love, prophecy and sex rather than battle alone.