Deity · Celtic · c. 1050 CE
Balor
Also called Balor of the Evil Eye
Fomorian king of Irish myth whose single eye destroys whatever it looks at. He was killed by his own grandson, exactly as the prophecy he tried to prevent had said.
Narrow source base
One eye, kept shut, that kills whatever it looks at and takes four men to lever open — and a prophecy that his grandson will be the death of him, which is the reason there is a grandson at all. Lugh puts the eye out from behind with a sling stone at Mag Tuired. The pattern recurs across Europe with no plausible line of transmission behind it: the destroying gaze, the lid that must be raised, the prophesied kin who does the killing. This compendium records that as a fact about how such stories form rather than as evidence that anyone borrowed from anyone, and Balor is the case where all three elements sit in one short text.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
None. Tory Island off Donegal is his fortress in the telling, which is landscape doing the work of a shrine.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- Rank
- King of the Fomorians
- Pantheon
- Celtic
- Order
- Celtic pantheon
- Base of operations
- None. Tory Island off Donegal is his fortress in the telling, which is landscape doing the work of a shrine.
- Era
- c. 1050 CE
- Traditions
- Celtic
Traits
- Domain
- The destroying eye, tyranny, the sea-raiders
- Traditional form
- A giant with a single eye that destroys what it sees
Stats
Known connections
1 site
Where was it worshipped?
Attested cult sites, located against the Pleiades gazetteer of the ancient world where it reaches and against Wikidata everywhere else. An absence here is not evidence that no cult existed: a good number of figures never had one, and the entry above says so where that is the case.
Balor's fortress in the telling. Not the Tory Island in North Carolina.
55.264, -8.222 · Wikidata Q1147050
3 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 3 offices attributed to Balor, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- martial2
- malefic1
2 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Balor, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts, all given the same approximate date
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as Balor, Balor of the Baleful Eye
His eye lays waste whatever it looks on; slain by Lugh at Mag Tuired.
The eye that has to be levered open by four men and kills whatever it looks at, put out by his own grandson with a sling from behind. This corpus keeps it because the pattern — a destroying gaze, a prophesied grandson, a lid that must be lifted — recurs across Europe with no plausible line of transmission, which is a fact about how such stories form rather than about who borrowed from whom.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Identified with Fenrir
Bound or one-eyed destroyers loosed at a final battle.
Serves The Fomoire
Their leader at Mag Tuired; the kind understates a kingship, but the text gives him command rather than a crown.
Opposed by Lugh
Kills him at the second battle of Mag Tuired with a sling stone through the eye — his own grandfather, on the Fomorian side of his ancestry.
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Balor?
Is Balor the same as Fenrir?
What rank is Balor?
How else is Balor spelled?
What is Balor said to do?
How old is Balor?
Nearest in the corpus
If Balor is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
The Morrígan
Phantom Queen · Celtic
War-goddess who appears as a crow over battlefields and foretells the deaths below. Sovereignty and slaughter, held in one figure.
Brigid
Goddess of Poets and Smiths · Celtic
The Irish goddess of poetry, smithing and healing who invents keening over her son's body at Mag Tuired — and whose name, feast and attributes are carried straight over to a Christian saint.
Lugh
The Many-Skilled · Celtic
The Irish god who gets into Tara by being master of every art at once, and who kills his own grandfather Balor with a sling — the Tuatha Dé Danann's answer to the Fomoire.
Nuada
King of the Tuatha Dé Danann · Celtic
The Irish king who loses his hand in battle and with it his kingship, because the Tuatha Dé Danann will not be ruled by a blemished man — and gets both back when a silver arm is made for him.
The Dagda
The Good God · Celtic
'The good god' — good at everything rather than morally good — with a club that kills at one end and restores at the other.
The Fomoire
The Adversary Host · Celtic
The enemies of every group that settles Ireland in the Lebor Gabála, and the clearest case in this corpus of a monastic redactor turning a defeated people into demons.
The books behind Balor
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
Cath Maige Tuired (The Second Battle of Moytura)
Anonymous; Irish monastic compilation · c. 11th c., from older material · Middle Irish
Read Cath Maige Tuired (The Second Battle of Moytura) in full ↗Lebor Gabála Érenn & the Mythological Cycle
Anonymous Irish monastics · 11th c., from older oral material · Middle Irish
Read Lebor Gabála Érenn & the Mythological Cycle in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Áed Ua Crimthainn et al (12th century) · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.