"…From the Celtic pantheon is the lovely and ancient Sadv.
SADV is a forest goddess, she brings creativity in a magical, earthy, forest-like, deer spirit sort of way. She is the mother of the Oisin, the poet, she is an earthy creative sage with her white hair, blue-grey eyes and scarlet robes. She is connected to doe, fawn and deer … Sadv’s creative spirit is the soft flowing branches of the trees, the mystical tenderness of the doe and the dew that drops from the leaves as the creative drips form a pool of water below.
In some Celtic legends she appears as a hind (female deer) and has the gift of speech. She is described as white fairy deer. In other legends she is described as a sidhe fairy. You can seek Sadv when you need aid for your animal friends...
(Also known as Sadb, Saba, Sadhbh)”
The legend of SADV
'SADV'
by Lincolnshire Artist, Sharon-Marie Clarke Marris
The Creative Forest Goddess Sadv, associated with forests, the doe and fawn, she is one of the most ancient of the Celt Goddesses.
The Hind of the Woods.
"The Irish cycle of Leinster, or Finn, also called the Ossianic cycle, contains the clearest account of the legend of the deer goddess. This cycle is the most recent of the fairy-mythical collections that make up Gaelic literature, and some of its legends (for example, the story of Diarmaid and Grainne) have reached us in their entirety through oral accounts preserved in the folklore of Ireland and Scotland and collected in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fact that many Irish and Scottish tales tally on points of subject matter and characterisation indicated a very ancient oral tradition.
Ireland, The Birth of Oisin
Finn, King of the Fiana ahd his men were out hunting when they caught sight of a hind and pursued it. But no huntsman or hound could catch it. Only Finn and his two bloodhounds, Bran and Scolan, “who had the ‘minds of men”, carried on the chase. Eventually the hind lay down in the grass and the hounds instead of attacking it, played with it and licked its face and body. Astonished Finn led the hind back home with him and that night a beautiful girl appeared to him, announcing that her name was Sadv and that she was the hind he had been chasing all day. She had been transformed into an animal by the magic of the Druid Fir Doirch, because she repelled his advances; but a servant of the Druid had explained to her that if she could manage to get inside the Fianas fortress the Druid would have no more power over her. Finn fell in love with Sadv and found perfect bliss with her, and she soon became pregnant.
One day when Finn was away, the Druid Fir Doirch disguised himself as Finn and came calling for Sadv outside the fortress. When she ran out to greet the man she thought to be Finn, the Druid changed her into a hind once more. Sadv tried to return to the fortress, but the Druid’s two hinds prevented her and dragged her off to the woods. When he learned of this, Finn gave way to great grief and for seven years scoured Ireland for the hind with his bloodhounds. One day his dogs stopped by a small boy and lavished signs of affection on him. Finn was amazed at the resemblance between the child and Sadv. He took him away with him and brought him up. When the boy was able to speak he revealed that he had been reared by a hind, which had been taken away by a dark man who touched it with his wand. Finn concluded that the young boy was Sadvs son and gave him the name Oisin (Ossian) which means “the fawn”
Extract taken from the book ‘Women of the Celts’ By Jean Markale