The Cloak of Mist and the Treasures

Manannan is above all a master of magic and illusion, and he possesses a wealth of wonderful objects that he lends and gives to the heroes and gods of the tales. He owns a cloak of mist that he can sweep between two people to part them forever, and which he shakes to raise concealing fogs; a crane bag that holds his treasures, full at high tide and empty at the ebb; a sword named Fragarach, the Answerer, that no armour can withstand; and magical swine that can be eaten and yet are alive again the next day, providing an endless feast. He gives the god Lugh his marvellous horse and boat, and he fosters and protects heroes, appearing and vanishing in disguise.

In the later tales he is a trickster and shape-shifter as much as a sea-lord, a figure of glamour and enchantment who tests and aids mortals and gods alike. Manannan mac Lir gathers into one figure the Irish imagination of the sea and of the enchanted lands beyond it, generous, magical, elusive, the ferryman and guardian of the passage between the ordinary world and the Otherworld.