peaks of the northwestern mountains rising purple towards the clouds,
with white seas foaming around them. Past towering headlands they
sailed; then, drawing in towards the shore, they crept under the great
cliffs of Slieve League, that rose like a many-colored wall from the sea
to the sky--so high that the great eagles on their summits were but
specks seen from beneath, so high that the ships below seemed like
sea-shells to those who watched them from above. With the wall of the
cliffs on their left hand, and the lesser headlands and hills of Sligo
on their right, they came to that same strand of Ballysadare, the
Cataract of the Oaks, where the last of the Firbolgs fell. Drawing their
long ships up on the beach, with furled sail and oars drawn in, they
debarked their army on the shore. It was a landing of ill-omen for the
Fomorians, that landing beside the cairn of Eocaid; a landing of
ill-omen for Indec, son of De Domnand, and for Balor of the Evil Eye.
It was the fall of the leaf when they came; the winds ran crying through
the forests, tearing the leaves and branches from the oaks, and mourning
among the pines of the uplands. The sea was gray as a gull's back, with
dark shadows under the cliffs and white tresses of foam along the
headlands. At evening a cold wind brought the rain beating in from the
ocean. Thus the Fomorians landed at the Cataract of the Oaks, and
marched inland to the plain now called Tirerril in Sligo. The murky sky
spread over the black and withered waste of the plain, hemmed in with
gloomy hills, wild rocks and ravines, and with all the northern horizon
broken by distant mountains. Here Indec and Balor, and Breas the cause
of their coming, fixed their camp. They sent a message of defiance to
the De Danaans, challenging them to fight or surrender. The De Danaans
heard the challenge and made ready to fight.
Nuada, now called the chieftain of the Silver Arm, because the mischief
wrought by Sreng's blow on his shoulder had been hidden by a silver
casing, was once more ruler since Breas had been driven out. Besides
Nuada, these were De Danaan chieftains: Dagda, the Mighty; Lug, son of
Cian, son of Diancect, surnamed Lamfada, the Long Armed; Ogma, of the
Sunlike Face; and Angus, the Young. They summoned the workers in bronze
and the armorers, and bid them prepare sword and spear for battle,
charging the makers of spear-haft and shield to perfect their work. The
heralds also were ready to proclaim the rank of the warriors, and those
skilled in healing herbs stood prepared to succor the wounded. The bards
were there also to arouse valor and ardor with their songs.
Then marching westward to the plain of the battle among the hills, they
set their camp and advanced upon the Fomorians. Each man had two spears
bound with a thong to draw them back after the cast, with a shield to
ward off blows, and a broad-bladed sword of bronze for close combat.
With war-chants and invocations the two hosts met. The spears, well
poised and leveled, clove the air, hissing between them, and under the
weight of the spear-heads and their sharp points many in both hosts
fell. There were cries of the wounded now, mingled with battle-songs,
and hoarse shouting for vengeance among those whose sons and brothers
and sworn friends fell. Another cast of the spears, seaming the air
between as the hosts closed in, and they fell on each other with their
swords, shields upraised and gold-bronze sword-points darting beneath
like the tongues of serpents. They cut and thrust, each with his eyes
fixed on the fierce eyes of his foe.
They fought on the day of the Spirits, now the Eve of All Saints; the
Fomorians were routed, and their chieftains slain. But of the De
Danaans, Nuada, once wounded by Sreng of the Firbolgs, now fell by the
hand of Balor; yet Balor also fell, slain by Lug, his own
daughter's son.
Thus was the might of the Fomorians broken, and the De Danaans ruled
unopposed, their power and the works of their hands spreading throughout
the length and breadth of the land.
Many monuments are accredited to them by tradition, but greatest and
most wonderful are the pyramids of stone at Brugh on the Boyne. Some
nine miles from the sandy seashore, where the Boyne loses itself in the
waves, there is a broad tongue of meadowland, shut in on three sides
southward by the Boyne, and to the northeast cut off by a lesser stream
that joins it. This remote and quiet headland, very famous in the
annals, was in old days so surrounded by woods that it was like a quiet
glade in the forest rimmed by the clear waters of the Boyne. The Mourne
Mountains to the north and the lesser summits on the southern sky-line
were hidden by the trees. The forest wall encircled the green
meadowland, and the river fringed with blue forget-me-nots.
In this quiet spot was the sacred place of the De Danaans, and three
great pyramids of stone, a mile apart along the river, mark their three
chief sanctuaries. The central is the greatest; two hundred thousand
tons of stone heaped up, within a circular wall of stone, itself
surrounded by a great outer circle of standing stones, thirty in number,
like gray sentinels guarding the shrine. In the very heart of the
pyramid, hushed in perpetual stillness and peace, is the inmost
sanctuary, a chamber formed like a cross, domed with a lofty roof, and
adorned with mysterious tracings on the rocks. Shrines like this are
found in many lands, whether within the heart of the pyramids of Egypt
or in the recesses of India's hills; and in all lands they have the same
purpose. They are secret and holy sanctuaries, guarded well from all
outward influence, where, in the mystic solitude, the valiant and great
among the living may commune with the spirits of the mighty dead. The
dead, though hidden, are not passed away; their souls are in perpetual
nearness to ours. If we enter deep within ourselves, to the remote
shrine of the heart, as they entered that secluded shrine, we may find
the mysterious threshold where their world and our world meet.
In the gloom and silence of those pyramid-chambers, the De Danaans thus
sought the souls of their mighty ones--the Dagda, surnamed the Mighty,
and Lug the Long-Armed, and Ogma of the Sunlike Face, and Angus the
Young. From these luminous guardians they sought the inbreathing of
wisdom, drawing into themselves the might of these mightier ones, and
rising toward the power of their immortal world. And to these sacred
recesses they brought the ashes of their mighty dead, as a token that
they, too, had passed through the secret gateway to the Land of the
Ever Young.
Some thirty miles to the west of Brugh, on the Boyne, a low range of
hills rises from the central plain, now bearing the name of Slieve na
Calliagh, the Witch's Hill. In the days of the great forest this was the
first large open space to the west coming from Brugh, and, like it, a
quiet and remote refuge among the woods. On the hillsides of Slieve na
Calliagh are other pyramids of stone, in all things like those of
Brugh, and with the same chambered sanctuaries, but of lesser size;
belonging, perhaps, to a later age, when the De Danaans were no longer
supreme in the land, but took their place beside newcome invaders. These
lesser shrines were also sacred places, doorways to the hidden world,
entrance-gates to the Land of the Ever Young. There also was beheld the
vision of the radiant departed; there also were fonts of baptism, basins
wrought of granite brought hither from the distant hills of Mourne or
Wicklow. As in all lands, these fonts were used in the consecration of
the new birth, from which man rises conscious of his immortality.
In harmony with this faith of theirs, our present tradition sees in the
De Danaans a still haunting impalpable presence, a race invisible yet
real, dwelling even now among our hills and valleys. When the life of
the visible world is hushed, they say, there is another life in the
hidden, where the Dagda Mor and Ogma and Lug and Angus still guard the
De Danaan hosts. The radiance of their nearness is all through the land,
like the radiance of the sun hidden behind storm-clouds, glimmering
through the veil.
[Illustration: White Rocks, Portrush]
In the chambers of those pyramid-shrines are still traces of the
material presence of the De Danaans; not only their baptismal fonts, but
more earthly things--ornaments, beads of glass and amber, and combs with
which they combed their golden locks. These amber beads, like so many
things in the De Danaan history, call us to far northern lands by the
Baltic, whence in all likelihood the De Danaans came; for in those
Baltic lands we find just such pyramid shrines as those at Brugh and on
the hillsides of Slieve na Calliagh, and their ornaments are the same,
and the fashion of their spear-heads and shields. The plan of the Danish
pyramid of Uby is like the pyramids of Newgrange and Nowth and Dowth by
the Boyne, and the carvings on King Gorm's stone by the Baltic are like
the carvings of stones in our own island. On the Baltic shores, too, of
most ancient date and belonging to forgotten times, are still found
fragments and even perfect hulls of just such long ships as were needed
for the Danaans' coming, like the ships they burnt along the reaches of
the Foyle.
By the Baltic, too, and nowhere else, were there races with hair yellow
as their own amber, or, as our island bards say, "so bright that the
new-molten gold was not brighter; yellow as the yellow flag-lilies along
the verges of the rivers." Therefore, in character of race, in face and
feature, in color and complexion, in the form and make of sword and
spear and shield, in their knowledge of ships and the paths of the sea,
as in their ornaments and decorative art, and in those majestic pyramids
and shrines where they sought mystic wisdom, and whither they carried
the ashes of their dead, as to a place of sacred rest--in all these the
life of the De Danaans speaks of the Baltic shores and the ancient race
of golden-haired heroes who dwelt there. The honoring of bards, the
heraldic keeping of traditions and the names of ancestors, also speak of
the same home; and with a college of heraldic bards, well-ordered and
holding due rank and honor, we can well see how the stories of their
past have come down even to our days, lingering among our hills and
valleys, as the De Danaan themselves linger, hidden yet not departed.
The traditional time of their coming, too, agrees well with all we know.
Without bronze tools they could not have carved the beautifully adorned
stones that are built into the pyramids by the Boyne; yet there is a
certain early ruggedness about these stones that falls far short of the
perfection of later times. Early in the bronze age, therefore, they must
be placed; and the early bronze age, wherever its remoteness can be
measured, as in the Swiss lakes or the peat-mosses of Denmark, cannot be
less than four thousand years ago, thus well agreeing with our De Danaan
tradition. We are, therefore, led to believe that the tale told by these
traditions is in the main a true one; that the races recorded by them
came in the recorded order; that their places of landing are faithfully
remembered; that all traditions pointing to their earlier homes are
worthy of belief, and in full accord with all our other knowledge.
V.
EMAIN OF MACA.
B.C. 50--A.D. 50.
The battles of Southern and Northern Moytura gave the De Danaans sway
over the island. After they had ruled for many centuries, they in their
turn were subjected to invasion, as the Firbolg and Fomorian had been
before them. The newcomers were the Sons of Milid, and their former home
was either Gaul or Spain. But whether from Gaul or Spain, the sons of
Milid were of undoubted Gaelic race, in every feature of character and
complexion resembling the continental Gauls.
We must remember that, in the centuries before the northward spread of
Rome, the Gauls were the great central European power. Twenty-six
hundred years ago their earlier tribal life was consolidated into a
stable empire under Ambigatos; Galicia in Eastern Austria and Galicia in
Western Spain mark their extreme borders towards the rising and
setting sun.
Several centuries before the days of Ambigatos, in the older period of
tribal confederation, was the coming of the Gaelic Sons of Milid to
Ireland. Tradition places the date between three and four thousand years
ago. Yet even after that long interval of isolation the resemblance
between the Irish and continental Gaels is perfect; they are tall,
solidly built, rather inclined to stoutness; they are fair-skinned, or
even florid, easily browned by sun and wind. Their eyes are gray,
greenish or hazel, not clear blue, like the eyes of the Baltic race; and
though fair-haired, they are easily distinguished from the golden-haired
Norsemen. Such are the descendants of the Sons of Milid. Coming from
Gaul or Spain, the Sons of Milid landed in one of the great fiords that
penetrate between the mountains of Kerry--long after so named from the
descendants of Ciar. These same fiords between the hills have been the
halting-place of continental invaders for ages; hardly a century has
passed since the last landing there of continental soldiers; there was
another invasion a century before that, and yet another a hundred years
earlier. But the Sons of Milid showed the way. They may have come by
Bantry Bay or the Kenmare River or Dingle Bay; more probably the last,
for tradition still points to the battlefield where they were opposed,
on the hills of Slieve Mish, above the Dingle fiord.
But wherever they debarked on that southwestern coast they found a land
warm and winning as the south they had left behind--a land of ever-green
woods, yew and arbutus mingling with beech and oak and fir; rich
southern heaths carpeting the hillsides, and a soft drapery of ferns
upon the rocks. There were red masses of overhanging mountain, but in
the valleys, sheltered and sun-warmed, they found a refuge like the
Isles of the Blest. The Atlantic, surging in great blue rollers, brought
the warmth of tropical seas, and a rich and vivid growth through all the
glens and vales responded to the sun's caress.
The De Danaans must ere this have spread through all of the island,
except the western province assigned to the Firbolgs; for we find them
opposing,--but vainly opposing,--the Sons of Milid, at the very place of
their landing. Here again we find the old tradition verified; for at the
spot recorded of old by the bards and heralds, among the hills by the
pass that leads from Dingle to Tralee Bay, numberless arrow-heads have
been gathered, the gleanings after a great combat. The De Danaans fought
with sword and spear, but, unless they had added to their weapons since
the days of Breas and Sreng, they did not shoot with the bow; this was,
perhaps, the cause of their defeat, for the De Danaans were defeated
among the hills on that long headland.
From their battlefield they could see the sea on either hand, stretching
far inland northward and southward; across these arms of the sea rose
other headlands, more distant, the armies of hills along them fading
from green to purple, from purple to clear blue. But the De Danaans had
burned their boats; they sought refuge rather by land, retreating
northward till they came to the shelter of the great central woods. The
Sons of Milid pursued them, and, overtaking them at Tailten on the
Blackwater, some ten miles northwest of Tara, they fought another
battle; after it, the supremacy of the De Danaans definitely
passed away.
Yet we have no reason to believe that, any more than the Fomorians or
Firbolgs, the De Danaans ceased to fill their own place in the land.
They seem, indeed, to have been preponderant in the north, and in all
likelihood they hold their own there even now; for every addition to our
knowledge shows us more and more how tenacious is the life of races, how
firmly they cling to their earliest dwellings. And though we read of
races perishing before invaders, this is the mere boasting of
conquerors; more often the newcomers are absorbed among the earlier
race, and nothing distinctive remains of them but a name. We have
abundant evidence to show that at the present day, as throughout the
last three thousand years, the four races we have described continue to
make up the bulk of our population, and pure types of each still linger
unblended in their most ancient seats; for, though races mingle, they do
not thereby lose their own character. The law is rather that the type of
one or other will come out clear in their descendants, all undefined
forms tending to disappear.
Nor did any subsequent invasion add new elements; for as all northern
Europe is peopled by the same few types, every newcomer,--whether from
Norway, Denmark, Britain or Continental Europe,--but reinforced one of
these earlier races. Yet even where the ethnical elements are alike,
there seems to be a difference of destiny and promise--as if the very
land itself brooded over its children, transforming them and molding
them to a larger purpose. The spiritual life of races goes far deeper
than their ethnic history.
It would seem that with the coming of the Sons of Milid the destiny of
Ireland was rounded and completed; from that time onward, for more than
two thousand years, was a period of uniform growth and settled life and
ideals; a period whose history and achievements we are only beginning to
understand. At the beginning of that long epoch of settled life the art
of working gold was developed and perfected; and we have abundance of
beautiful gold-work from remote times, of such fine design and execution
that there is nothing in the world to equal it. The modern work of
countries where gold is found in quantities is commonplace, vulgar and
inartistic, when compared with the work of the old Irish period.
Torques, or twisted ribbons of gold, of varying size and shape, were
worn as diadems, collars, or even belts; crescent bands of finely
embossed sheet-gold were worn above the forehead; brooches and pins of
most delicate and imaginative workmanship were used to catch together
the folds of richly colored cloaks, and rings and bracelets were of not
less various and exquisite forms.
We are at no loss to understand the abundance of our old goldsmiths'
work when we know that even now, after being worked for centuries, the
Wicklow gold-mines have an average yearly yield of some five hundred
ounces, found, for the most part, in nuggets in the beds of streams
flowing into the two Avons. One mountain torrent bears the name of Gold
Mines River at the present day, showing the unbroken presence of the
yellow metal from the time of its first discovery, over three thousand
years ago. It seems probable that a liberal alloy of gold gave the
golden bronze its peculiar excellence and beauty; for so rich is the
lustre, so fine the color of many of our bronze axes and spears, that
they are hardly less splendid than weapons of pure gold. From the
perfect design and workmanship of these things of gold and bronze, more
than from any other source, we gain an insight into the high culture and
skill in the arts which marked that most distinctively Irish period,
lasting, as we have seen, more than two thousand years.
Early in this same epoch we find traditions of the clearing of forests,
the sowing of cornfields, the skill of dyers in seven colors, earliest
of which were purple, blue and green. Wells were dug to insure an easily
accessible supply of pure water, so that we begin to think of a settled
population dwelling among fields of golden grain, pasturing their cattle
in rich meadows, and depending less on the deer and wild oxen of the
forest, the salmon of lake and river, and the abundant fish along
the shores.
Tradition speaks persistently of bards, heralds, poets and poetesses;
of music and song; of cordial and generous social life; and to the
presence of these bards, like the skalds of the Northmen, we owe
pictures, even now full of life and color and movement, of those days
of long ago.
At a period rather more than two thousand years ago, a warrior-queen,
Maca by name, founded a great fort and citadel at Emain, some two miles
west of Armagh, in the undulating country of green hills and meadows to
the south of Lough Neagh. The ramparts and earthworks of that ancient
fortress can still be traced, and we can follow and verify what the
ancient bards told of the greatness of the stronghold of Maca. The plans
of all forts of that time seem to have been much the same--a wide ring
of earthwork, with a deep moat, guarded them, and a stockade of oak
stakes rose above the earthwork, behind which the defenders stood,
firing volleys of arrows at the attacking host. Within this outer circle
of defence there was almost always a central stronghold, raised on a
great mound of earth; and this was the dwelling of the chief, provincial
ruler, or king. Lesser mounds upheld the houses of lesser chiefs, and
all alike seem to have been built of oak, with plank roofs. Safe
storehouses of stone were often sunk underground, beneath the chief's
dwelling. In the fort of Emain, as in the great fort of Tara in the
Boyne Valley, there was a banqueting-hall for the warriors, and the
bards thus describe one of these in the days of its glory: "The
banquet-hall had twelve divisions in each wing, with tables and passages
round them; there were sixteen attendants on each side, eight for the
star-watchers, the historians and the scribes, in the rear of the hall,
and two to each table at the door,--a hundred guests in all; two oxen,
two sheep and two hogs were divided equally on each side at each meal.
Beautiful was the appearance of the king in that assembly--flowing,
slightly curling golden hair upon him; a red buckler with stars and
beasts wrought of gold and fastenings of silver upon him; a crimson
cloak in wide descending folds upon him, fastened at his breast by a
golden brooch set with precious stones; a neck-torque of gold around his
neck; a white shirt with a full collar, and intertwined with threads of
gold, upon him; a girdle of gold inlaid with precious stones around him;
two wonderful shoes of gold with runings of gold upon him; two spears
with golden sockets in his hand."
We are the more disposed to trust the fidelity of the picture, since
the foundations of the Tara banquet-hall are to be clearly traced to
this day--an oblong earthwork over seven hundred feet long by ninety
wide, with the twelve doors still distinctly marked; as for the brooches
and torques of gold, some we have surpass in magnificence anything here
described, and their artistic beauty is eloquent of the refinement of
spirit that conceived and the skill that fashioned them. Spear-heads,
too, are of beautiful bronze-gold, with tracings round the socket of
great excellence and charm.
[Illustration: Powerscourt Waterfall, Co. Wicklow]