*The Celtic Cosmogony*
Among those secret doctrines about the “nature of things” which, as Cæsar
tells us, the Druids never would commit to writing, was there anything in
the nature of a cosmogony, any account of the origin of the world and of
man? There surely was. It would be strange indeed if, alone among the
races of the world, the Celts had no world-myth. The spectacle of the
universe with all its vast and mysterious phenomena in heaven and on earth
has aroused, first the imagination, afterwards the speculative reason, in
every people which is capable of either. The Celts had both in abundance,
yet, except for that one phrase about the “indestructibility” of the world
handed down to us by Strabo, we know nothing of their early imaginings or
their reasonings on this subject. Ireland possesses a copious legendary
literature. All of this, no doubt, assumed its present form in Christian
times; yet so much essential paganism has been allowed to remain in it
that it would be strange if Christian influences had led to the excision
of everything in these ancient texts that pointed to a non-Christian
conception of the origin of things—if Christian editors and transmitters
had never given us even the least glimmer of the existence of such a
conception. Yet the fact is that they do not give it; there is nothing in
the most ancient legendary literature of the Irish Gaels, which is the
oldest Celtic literature in existence, corresponding to the Babylonian
conquest of Chaos, or the wild Norse myth of the making of Midgard out of
the corpse of Ymir, or the Egyptian creation of the universe out of the
primeval Water by Thoth, the Word of God, or even to the primitive
folklore conceptions found in almost every savage tribe. That the Druids
had some doctrine on this subject it is impossible to doubt. But, by
resolutely confining it to the initiated and forbidding all lay
speculation on the subject, they seem to have completely stifled the
mythmaking instinct in regard to questions of cosmogony among the people
at large, and ensured that when their own order perished, their teaching,
whatever it was, should die with them.
In the early Irish accounts, therefore, of the beginnings of things, we
find that it is not with the World that the narrators make their start—it
is simply with their own country, with Ireland. It was the practice,
indeed, to prefix to these narratives of early invasions and colonisations
the Scriptural account of the making of the world and man, and this shows
that something of the kind was felt to be required; but what took the
place of the Biblical narrative in pre-Christian days we do not know, and,
unfortunately, are now never likely to know.
*The Cycles of Irish Legend*
Irish mythical and legendary literature, as we have it in the most ancient
form, may be said to fall into four main divisions, and to these we shall
adhere in our presentation of it in this volume. They are, in
chronological order, the Mythological Cycle, or Cycle of the Invasions,
the Ultonian or Conorian Cycle, the Ossianic or Fenian Cycle, and a
multitude of miscellaneous tales and legends which it is hard to fit into
any historical framework.
*The Mythological Cycle*
The Mythological Cycle comprises the following sections:
1. The coming of Partholan into Ireland.
2. The coming of Nemed into Ireland.
3. The coming of the Firbolgs into Ireland.
4. The invasion of the _Tuatha De Danann_, or People of the god Dana.
5. The invasion of the Milesians (Sons of Miled) from Spain, and their
conquest of the People of Dana.
With the Milesians we begin to come into something resembling history—they
represent, in Irish legend, the Celtic race; and from them the ruling
families of Ireland are supposed to be descended. The People of Dana are
evidently gods. The pre-Danaan settlers or invaders are huge phantom-like
figures, which loom vaguely through the mists of tradition, and have
little definite characterisation. The accounts which are given of them are
many and conflicting, and out of these we can only give here the more
ancient narratives.
*The Coming of Partholan*
The Celts, as we have learned from Caesar, believed themselves to be
descended from the God of the Underworld, the God of the Dead. Partholan
is said to have come into Ireland from the West, where beyond the vast,
unsailed Atlantic Ocean the Irish Fairyland, the Land of the
Living—_i.e._, the land of the Happy Dead— was placed. His father’s name
was Sera (? the West). He came with his queen Dalny(74) and a number of
companions of both sexes. Ireland—and this is an imaginative touch
intended to suggest extreme antiquity—was then a different country,
physically, from what it is now. There were then but three lakes in
Ireland, nine rivers, and only one plain. Others were added gradually
during the reign of the Partholanians. One, Lake Rury, was said to have
burst out as a grave was being dug for Rury, son of Partholan.
*The Fomorians*
The Partholanians, it is said, had to do battle with a strange race,
called the Fomorians, of whom we shall hear much in later sections of this
book. They were a huge, misshapen, violent and cruel people, representing,
we may believe, the powers of evil. One of these was surnamed _Cenchos_,
which means The Footless, and thus appears to be related to Vitra, the God
of Evil in Vedantic mythology, who had neither feet nor hands. With a host
of these demons Partholan fought for the lordship of Ireland, and drove
them out to the northern seas, whence they occasionally harried the
country under its later rulers.
The end of the race of Partholan was that they were afflicted by
pestilence, and having gathered together on the Old Plain (Senmag) for
convenience of burying their dead, they all perished there; and Ireland
once more lay empty for reoccupation.
*The Legend of Tuan mac Carell*
Who, then, told the tale? This brings us to the mention of a very curious
and interesting legend—one of the numerous legendary narratives in which
these tales of the Mythical Period have come down to us. It is found in
the so-called “Book of the Dun Cow,” a manuscript of about the year A.D.
1100, and is entitled “The Legend of Tuan mac Carell.”
St. Finnen, an Irish abbot of the sixth century, is said to have gone to
seek hospitality from a chief named Tuan mac Carell, who dwelt not far
from Finnen’s monastery at Moville, Co. Donegal. Tuan refused him
admittance. The saint sat down on the doorstep of the chief and fasted for
a whole Sunday,(75) upon which the surly pagan warrior opened the door to
him. Good relations were established between them, and the saint returned
to his monks.
“Tuan is an excellent man,” said he to them; “he will come to you and
comfort you, and tell you the old stories of Ireland.”(76)
This humane interest in the old myths and legends of the country is, it
may here be observed, a feature as constant as it is pleasant in the
literature of early Irish Christianity.
Tuan came shortly afterwards to return the visit of the saint, and invited
him and his disciples to his fortress. They asked him of his name and
lineage, and he gave an astounding reply. “I am a man of Ulster,” he said.
“My name is Tuan son of Carell. But once I was called Tuan son of Starn,
son of Sera, and my father, Starn, was the brother of Partholan.”
“Tell us the history of Ireland,” then said Finnen, and Tuan began.
Partholan, he said, was the first of men to settle in Ireland. After the
great pestilence already narrated he alone survived, “for there is never a
slaughter that one man does not come out of it to tell the tale.” Tuan was
alone in the land, and he wandered about from one vacant fortress to
another, from rock to rock, seeking shelter from the wolves. For
twenty-two years he lived thus alone, dwelling in waste places, till at
last he fell into extreme decrepitude and old age.
“Then Nemed son of Agnoman took possession of Ireland. He
[Agnoman] was my father’s brother. I saw him from the cliffs, and
kept avoiding him. I was long-haired, clawed, decrepit, grey,
naked, wretched, miserable. Then one evening I fell asleep, and
when I woke again on the morrow I was changed into a stag. I was
young again and glad of heart. Then I sang of the coming of Nemed
and of his race, and of my own transformation.... ‘I have put on a
new form, a skin rough and grey. Victory and joy are easy to me; a
little while ago I was weak and defenceless.’ ”
Tuan is then king of all the deer of Ireland, and so remained all the days
of Nemed and his race.
He tells how the Nemedians sailed for Ireland in a fleet of thirty-two
barks, in each bark thirty persons. They went astray on the seas for a
year and a half, and most of them perished of hunger and thirst or of
shipwreck. Nine only escaped—Nemed himself, with four men and four women.
These landed in Ireland, and increased their numbers in the course of time
till they were 8060 men and women. Then all of them mysteriously died.
Again old age and decrepitude fell upon Tuan, but another transformation
awaited him. “Once I was standing at the mouth of my cave—I still remember
it —and I knew that my body changed into another form. I was a wild boar.
And I sang this song about it:
“ ‘To-day I am a boar.... Time was when I sat in the assembly that
gave the judgments of Partholan. It was sung, and all praised the
melody. How pleasant was the strain of my brilliant judgment! How
pleasant to the comely young women! My chariot went along in
majesty and beauty. My voice was grave and sweet. My step was
swift and firm in battle. My face was full of charm. To-day, lo! I
am changed into a black boar.’
“That is what I said. Yea, of a surety I was a wild boar. Then I became
young again, and I was glad. I was king of the boar-herds in Ireland; and,
faithful to any custom, I went the rounds of my abode when I returned into
the lands of Ulster, at the times old age and wretchedness came upon me.
For it was always there that my transformations took place, and that is
why I went back thither to await the renewal of my body.”
Tuan then goes on to tell how Semion son of Stariat settled in Ireland,
from whom descended the Firbolgs and two other tribes who persisted into
historic times. Again old age comes on, his strength fails him, and he
undergoes another transformation; he becomes “a great eagle of the sea,”
and once more rejoices in renewed youth and vigour. He then tells how the
People of Dana came in, “gods and false gods from whom every one knows the
Irish men of learning are sprung.” After these came the Sons of Miled, who
conquered the People of Dana. All this time Tuan kept the shape of the
sea-eagle, till one day, finding himself about to undergo another
transformation, he fasted nine days; “then sleep fell upon me, and I was
changed into a salmon.” He rejoices in his new life, escaping for many
years the snares of the fishermen, till at last he is captured by one of
them and brought to the wife of Carell, chief of the country. “The woman
desired me and ate me by herself, whole, so that I passed into her womb.”
He is born again, and passes for Tuan son of Carell; but the memory of his
pre-existence and all his transformations and all the history of Ireland
that he witnessed since the days of Partholan still abides with him, and
he teaches all these things to the Christian monks, who carefully preserve
them.
This wild tale, with its atmosphere of grey antiquity and of childlike
wonder, reminds us of the transformations of the Welsh Taliessin, who also
became an eagle, and points to that doctrine of the transmigration of the
soul which, as we have seen, haunted the imagination of the Celt.
We have now to add some details to the sketch of the successive
colonisations of Ireland outlined by Tuan mac Carell.
*The Nemedians*
The Nemedians, as we have seen, were akin to the Partholanians. Both of
them came from the mysterious regions of the dead, though later Irish
accounts, which endeavoured to reconcile this mythical matter with
Christianity, invented for them a descent from Scriptural patriarchs and
an origin in earthly lands such as Spain or Scythia. Both of them had to
do constant battle with the Fomorians, whom the later legends make out to
be pirates from oversea, but who are doubtless divinities representing the
powers of darkness and evil. There is no legend of the Fomorians coming
into Ireland, nor were they regarded as at any time a regular portion of
the population. They were coeval with the world itself. Nemed fought
victoriously against them in four great battles, but shortly afterwards
died of a plague which carried off 2000 of his people with him. The
Fomorians were then enabled to establish their tyranny over Ireland. They
had at this period two kings, Morc and Conann. The stronghold of the
Formorian power was on Tory Island, which uplifts its wild cliffs and
precipices in the Atlantic off the coast of Donegal—a fit home for this
race of mystery and horror. They extracted a crushing tribute from the
people of Ireland, two-thirds of all the milk and two-thirds of the
children of the land. At last the Nemedians rise in revolt. Led by three
chiefs, they land on Tory Island, capture Conann’s Tower, and Conann
himself falls by the hand of the Nemedian chief, Fergus. But Morc at this
moment comes into the battle with a fresh host, and utterly routs the
Nemedians, who are all slain but thirty:
“The men of Erin were all at the battle,
After the Fomorians came;
All of them the sea engulphed,
Save only three times ten.”
_Poem by Eochy O’Flann, circ_. A.D. 960.
The thirty survivors leave Ireland in despair. According to the most
ancient belief they perished utterly, leaving no descendants, but later
accounts, which endeavour to make sober history out of all these myths,
represent one family, that of the chief Britan, as settling in Great
Britain and giving their name to that country, while two others returned
to Ireland, after many wanderings, as the Firbolgs and People of Dana.
*The Coming of the Firbolgs*
Who were the Firbolgs, and what did they represent in Irish legend? The
name appears to mean “Men of the Bags,” and a legend was in later times
invented to account for it. It was said that after settling in Greece they
were oppressed by the people of that country, who set them to carry earth
from the fertile valleys up to the rocky hills, so as to make arable
ground of the latter. They did their task by means of leathern bags; but
at last, growing weary of the oppression, they made boats or coracles out
of their bags, and set sail in them for Ireland. Nennius, however, says
they came from Spain, for according to him all the various races that
inhabited Ireland came originally from Spain; and “Spain” with him is a
rationalistic rendering of the Celtic words designating the Land of the
Dead.(77) They came in three groups, the Fir-Bolg, the Fir-Domnan, and the
Galioin, who are all generally designated as Firbolgs. They play no great
part in Irish mythical history, and a certain character of servility and
inferiority appears to attach to them throughout.
One of their kings, Eochy(78) mac Erc, took in marriage Taltiu, or Telta,
daughter of the King of the “Great Plain” (the Land of the Dead). Telta
had a palace at the place now called after her, Telltown (properly
Teltin). There she died, and there, even in mediæval Ireland, a great
annual assembly or fair was held in her honour.
*The Coming of the People of Dana*
We now come to by far the most interesting and important of the mythical
invaders and colonisers of Ireland, the People of Dana. The name, _Tuatha
De Danann_, means literally “the folk of the god whose mother is Dana.”
Dana also sometimes bears another name, that of Brigit, a goddess held in
much honour by pagan Ireland, whose attributes are in a great measure
transferred in legend to the Christian St. Brigit of the sixth century.
Her name is also found in Gaulish inscriptions as “Brigindo,” and occurs
in several British inscriptions as “Brigantia.” She was the daughter of
the supreme head of the People of Dana, the god Dagda, “The Good.” She had
three sons, who are said to have had in common one only son, named
Ecne—that is to say, “Knowledge,” or “Poetry.”(79) Ecne, then, may be said
to be the god whose mother was Dana, and the race to whom she gave her
name are the clearest representatives we have in Irish myths of the powers
of Light and Knowledge. It will be remembered that alone among all these
mythical races Tuan mac Carell gave to the People of Dana the name of
“gods.” Yet it is not as gods that they appear in the form in which Irish
legends about them have now come down to us. Christian influences reduced
them to the rank of fairies or identified them with the fallen angels.
They were conquered by the Milesians, who are conceived as an entirely
human race, and who had all sorts of relations of love and war with them
until quite recent times. Yet even in the later legends a certain
splendour and exaltation appears to invest the People of Dana, recalling
the high estate from which they had been dethroned.
*The Popular and the Bardic Conceptions*
Nor must it be overlooked that the popular conception of the Danaan
deities was probably at all times something different from the bardic and
Druidic, or in other words the scholarly, conception. The latter, as we
shall see, represents them as the presiding deities of science and poetry.
This is not a popular idea; it is the product of the Celtic, the Aryan
imagination, inspired by a strictly intellectual conception. The common
people, who represented mainly the Megalithic element in the population,
appear to have conceived their deities as earth-powers—_dei terreni_, as
they are explicitly called in the eighth-century “Book of
Armagh”(80)—presiding, not over science and poetry, but rather
agriculture, controlling the fecundity of the earth and water, and
dwelling in hills, rivers, and lakes. In the bardic literature the Aryan
idea is prominent; the other is to be found in innumerable folk-tales and
popular observances; but of course in each case a considerable amount of
interpenetration of the two conceptions is to be met with—no sharp
dividing line was drawn between them in ancient times, and none can be
drawn now.
*The Treasures of the Danaans*
Tuan mac Carell says they came to Ireland “out of heaven.” This is
embroidered in later tradition into a narrative telling how they sprang
from four great cities, whose very names breathe of fairydom and
romance—Falias, Gorias, Finias, and Murias. Here they learned science and
craftsmanship from great sages one of whom was enthroned in each city, and
from each they brought with them a magical treasure. From Falias came the
stone called the _Lia Fail_, or Stone of Destiny, on which the High-Kings
of Ireland stood when they were crowned, and which was supposed to confirm
the election of a rightful monarch by roaring under him as he took his
place on it. The actual stone which was so used at the inauguration of a
reign did from immemorial times exist at Tara, and was sent thence to
Scotland early in the sixth century for the crowning of Fergus the Great,
son of Erc, who begged his brother Murtagh mac Erc, King of Ireland, for
the loan of it. An ancient prophecy told that wherever this stone was, a
king of the Scotic (_i.e._, Irish-Milesian) race should reign. This is the
famous Stone of Scone, which never came back to Ireland, but was removed
to England by Edward I. in 1297, and is now the Coronation Stone in
Westminster Abbey. Nor has the old prophecy been falsified, since through
the Stuarts and Fergus mac Erc the descent of the British royal family can
be traced from the historic kings of Milesian Ireland.
The second treasure of the Danaans was the invincible sword of Lugh of the
Long Arm, of whom we shall hear later, and this sword came from the city
of Gorias. From Finias came a magic spear, and from Murias the Cauldron of
the Dagda, a vessel which had the property that it could feed a host of
men without ever being emptied.
With these possessions, according to the version given in the “Book of
Invasions,” the People of Dana came into Ireland.
*The Danaans and the Firbolgs*
They were wafted into the land in a magic cloud, making their first
appearance in Western Connacht. When the cloud cleared away, the Firbolgs
discovered them in a camp which they had already fortified at Moyrein.
The Firbolgs now sent out one of their warriors, named Sreng, to interview
the mysterious new-comers; and the People of Dana, on their side, sent a
warrior named Bres to represent them. The two ambassadors examined each
other’s weapons with great interest. The spears of the Danaans, we are
told, were light and sharp-pointed; those of the Firbolgs were heavy and
blunt. To contrast the power of science with that of brute force is here
the evident intention of the legend, and we are reminded of the Greek myth
of the struggle of the Olympian deities with the Titans.
Bres proposed to the Firbolg that the two races should divide Ireland
equally between them, and join to defend it against all comers for the
future. They then exchanged weapons and returned each to his own camp.
*The First Battle of Moytura*
The Firbolgs, however, were not impressed with the superiority of the
Danaans, and decided to refuse their offer. The battle was joined on the
Plain of Moytura,(81) in the south of Co. Mayo, near the spot now called
Cong. The Firbolgs were led by their king, mac Erc, and the Danaans by
Nuada of the Silver Hand, who got his name from an incident in this
battle. His hand, it is said, was cut off in the fight, and one of the
skilful artificers who abounded in the ranks of the Danaans made him a new
one of silver. By their magical and healing arts the Danaans gained the
victory, and the Firbolg king was slain. But a reasonable agreement
followed: the Firbolgs were allotted the province of Connacht for their
territory, while the Danaans took the rest of Ireland. So late as the
seventeenth century the annalist Mac Firbis discovered that many of the
inhabitants of Connacht traced their descent to these same Firbolgs.
Probably they were a veritable historic race, and the conflict between
them and the People of Dana may be a piece of actual history invested with
some of the features of a myth.
*The Expulsion of King Bres*
Nuada of the Silver Hand should now have been ruler of the Danaans, but
his mutilation forbade it, for no blemished man might be a king in
Ireland. The Danaans therefore chose Bres, who was the son of a Danaan
woman named Eri, but whose father was unknown, to reign over them instead.
This was another Bres, not the envoy who had treated with the Firbolgs and
who was slain in the battle of Moytura. Now Bres, although strong and
beautiful to look on, had no gift of kingship, for he not only allowed the
enemy of Ireland, the Fomorians, to renew their oppression and taxation in
the land, but he himself taxed his subjects heavily too; and was so
niggardly that he gave no hospitality to chiefs and nobles and harpers.
Lack of generosity and hospitality was always reckoned the worst of vices
in an Irish prince. One day it is said that there came to his court the
poet Corpry, who found himself housed in a small, dark chamber without
fire or furniture, where, after long delay, he was served with three dry
cakes and no ale. In revenge he composed a satirical quatrain on his
churlish host:
“Without food quickly served,
Without a cow’s milk, whereon a calf can grow,
Without a dwelling fit for a man under the gloomy night,
Without means to entertain a bardic company,—
Let such be the condition of Bres.”
Poetic satire in Ireland was supposed to have a kind of magical power.
Kings dreaded it; even rats could be exterminated by it.(82) This quatrain
of Corpry’s was repeated with delight among the people, and Bres had to
lay down his sovranty. This was said to be the first satire ever made in
Ireland. Meantime, because Nuada had got his silver hand through the art
of his physician Diancecht, or because, as some versions of the legend
say, a still greater healer, the son of Diancecht, had made the veritable
hand grow again to the stump, he was chosen to be king in place of Bres.
The latter now betook himself in wrath and resentment to his mother Eri,
and begged her to give him counsel and to tell him of his lineage. Eri
then declared to him that his father was Elatha, a king of the Fomorians,
who had come to her secretly from over sea, and when he departed had given
her a ring, bidding her never bestow it on any man save him whose finger
it would fit. She now brought forth the ring, and it fitted the finger of
Bres, who went down with her to the strand where the Fomorian lover had
landed, and they sailed together for his father’s home.
*The Tyranny of the Fomorians*
Elatha recognised the ring, and gave his son an army wherewith to
reconquer Ireland, and also sent him to seek further aid from the greatest
of the Fomorian kings, Balor. Now Balor was surnamed “of the Evil Eye,”
because the gaze of his one eye could slay like a thunderbolt those on
whom he looked in anger. He was now, however, so old and feeble that the
vast eyelid drooped over the death-dealing eye, and had to be lifted up by
his men with ropes and pulleys when the time came to turn it on his foes.
Nuada could make no more head against him than Bres had done when king;
and the country still groaned under the oppression of the Fomorians and
longed for a champion and redeemer.
*The Coming of Lugh*
A new figure now comes into the myth, no other than Lugh son of Kian, the
Sun-god _par excellence_ of all Celtica, whose name we can still identify
in many historic sites on the Continent.(83) To explain his appearance we
must desert for a moment the ancient manuscript authorities, which are
here incomplete, and have to be supplemented by a folk-tale which was
fortunately discovered and taken down orally so late as the nineteenth
century by the great Irish antiquary, O’Donovan.(84) In this folk-tale the
names of Balor and his daughter Ethlinn (the latter in the form “Ethnea”)
are preserved, as well as those of some other mythical personages, but
that of the father of Lugh is faintly echoed in MacKineely; Lugh’s own
name is forgotten, and the death of Balor is given in a manner
inconsistent with the ancient myth. In the story as I give it here the
antique names and mythical outline are preserved, but are supplemented
where required from the folk-tale, omitting from the latter those modern
features which are not reconcilable with the myth.
The story, then, goes that Balor, the Fomorian king, heard in a Druidic
prophecy that he would be slain by his grandson. His only child was an
infant daughter named Ethlinn. To avert the doom he, like Acrisios, father
of Danae, in the Greek myth, had her imprisoned in a high tower which he
caused to be built on a precipitous headland, the Tor Mōr, in Tory Island.
He placed the girl in charge of twelve matrons, who were strictly charged
to prevent her from ever seeing the face of man, or even learning that
there were any beings of a different sex from her own. In this seclusion
Ethlinn grew up—as all sequestered princesses do—into a maiden of
surpassing beauty.
Now it happened that there were on the mainland three brothers, namely,
Kian, Sawan, and Goban the Smith, the great armourer and artificer of
Irish myth, who corresponds to Wayland Smith in Germanic legend. Kian had
a magical cow, whose milk was so abundant that every one longed to possess
her, and he had to keep her strictly under protection.
Balor determined to possess himself of this cow. One day Kian and Sawan
had come to the forge to have some weapons made for them, bringing fine
steel for that purpose. Kian went into the forge, leaving Sawan in charge
of the cow. Balor now appeared on the scene, taking on himself the form of
a little redheaded boy, and told Sawan that he had overheard the brothers
inside the forge concocting a plan for using all the fine steel for their
own swords, leaving but common metal for that of Sawan. The latter, in a
great rage, gave the cow’s halter to the boy and rushed into the forge to
put a stop to this nefarious scheme. Balor immediately carried off the
cow, and dragged her across the sea to Tory Island.
Kian now determined to avenge himself on Balor, and to this end sought the
advice of a Druidess named Birōg. Dressing himself in woman’s garb, he was
wafted by magical spells across the sea, where Birōg, who accompanied him,
represented to Ethlinn’s guardians that they were two noble ladies cast
upon the shore in escaping from an abductor, and begged for shelter. They
were admitted; Kian found means to have access to the Princess Ethlinn
while the matrons were laid by Birōg under the spell of an enchanted
slumber, and when they awoke Kian and the Druidess had vanished as they
came. But Ethlinn had given Kian her love, and soon her guardians found
that she was with child. Fearing Balor’s wrath, the matrons persuaded her
that the whole transaction was but a dream, and said nothing about it; but
in due time Ethlinn was delivered of three sons at a birth.
News of this event came to Balor, and in anger and fear he commanded the
three infants to be drowned in a whirlpool off the Irish coast. The
messenger who was charged with this command rolled up the children in a
sheet, but in carrying them to the appointed place the pin of the sheet
came loose, and one of the children dropped out and fell into a little
bay, called to this day _Port na Delig_, or the Haven of the Pin. The
other two were duly drowned, and the servant reported his mission
accomplished.
But the child who had fallen into the bay was guarded by the Druidess, who
wafted it to the home of its father, Kian, and Kian gave it in fosterage
to his brother the smith, who taught the child his own trade and made it
skilled in every manner of craft and handiwork. This child was Lugh. When
he was grown to a youth the Danaans placed him in charge of Duach, “The
Dark,” king of the Great Plain (Fairyland, or the “Land of the Living,”
which is also the Land of the Dead), and here he dwelt till he reached
manhood.
Lugh was, of course, the appointed redeemer of the Danaan people from
their servitude. His coming is narrated in a story which brings out the
solar attributes of universal power, and shows him, like Apollo, as the
presiding deity of all human knowledge and of all artistic and medicinal
skill. He came, it is told, to take service with Nuada of the Silver Hand,
and when the doorkeeper at the royal palace of Tara asked him what he
could do, he answered that he was a carpenter.
“We are in no need of a carpenter,” said the doorkeeper; “we have an
excellent one in Luchta son of Luchad.” “I am a smith too,” said Lugh. “We
have a master-smith,” said the doorkeeper, “already.” “Then I am a
warrior,” said Lugh. “We do not need one,” said the doorkeeper, “while we
have Ogma.” Lugh goes on to name all the occupations and arts he can think
of—he is a poet, a harper, a man of science, a physician, a spencer, and
so forth, always receiving the answer that a man of supreme accomplishment
in that art is already installed at the court of Nuada. “Then ask the
King,” said Lugh, “if he has in his service any one man who is
accomplished in every one of these arts, and if he have, I shall stay here
no longer, nor seek to enter his palace.” Upon this Lugh is received, and
the surname Ildánach is conferred upon him, meaning “The All-Craftsman,”
Prince of all the Sciences; while another name that he commonly bore was
Lugh Lamfada, or Lugh of the Long Arm. We are reminded here, as de
Jubainville points out, of the Gaulish god whom Caesar identifies with
Mercury, “inventor of all the arts,” and to whom the Gauls put up many
statues. The Irish myth supplements this information and tells us the
Celtic name of this deity.
When Lugh came from the Land of the Living he brought with him many
magical gifts. There was the Boat of Mananan, son of Lir the Sea God,
which knew a man’s thoughts and would travel whithersoever he would, and
the Horse of Mananan, that could go alike over land and sea, and a
terrible sword named _Fragarach_ (“The Answerer”), that could cut through
any mail. So equipped, he appeared one day before an assembly of the
Danaan chiefs who were met to pay their tribute to the envoys of the
Fomorian oppressors; and when the Danaans saw him, they felt, it is said,
as if they beheld the rising of the sun on a dry summer’s day. Instead of
paying the tribute, they, under Lugh’s leadership, attacked the Fomorians,
all of whom were slain but nine men, and these were sent back to tell
Balor that the Danaans defied him and would pay no tribute henceforward.
Balor then made him ready for battle, and bade his captains, when they had
subdued the Danaans, make fast the island by cables to their ships and tow
it far northward to the Fomorian regions of ice and gloom, where it would
trouble them no longer.
*The Quest of the Sons of Turenn*
Lugh, on his side, also prepared for the final combat; but to ensure
victory certain magical instruments were still needed for him, and these
had now to be obtained. The story of the quest of these objects, which
incidentally tells us also of the end of Lugh’s father, Kian, is one of
the most valuable and curious in Irish legend, and formed one of a triad
of mythical tales which were reckoned as the flower of Irish romance.(85)
Kian, the story goes, was sent northward by Lugh to summon the fighting
men of the Danaans in Ulster to the hosting against the Fomorians. On his
way, as he crosses the Plain of Murthemney, near Dundalk, he meets with
three brothers, Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba, sons of Turenn, between whose
house and that of Kian there was a blood-feud. He seeks to avoid them by
changing into the form of a pig and joining a herd which is rooting in the
plain, but the brothers detect him and Brian wounds him with a cast from a
spear. Kian, knowing that his end is come, begs to be allowed to change
back into human form before he is slain. “I had liefer kill a man than a
pig,” says Brian, who takes throughout the leading part in all the
brothers’ adventures. Kian then stands before them as a man, with the
blood from Brian’s spear trickling from his breast. “I have outwitted ye,”
he cries, “for if ye had slain a pig ye would have paid but the eric
[blood-fine] of a pig, but now ye shall pay the eric of a man; never was
greater eric than that which ye shall pay; and the weapons ye slay me with
shall tell the tale to the avenger of blood.”
“Then you shall be slain with no weapons at all,” says Brian, and he and
the brothers stone him to death and bury him in the ground as deep as the
height of a man.
But when Lugh shortly afterwards passes that way the stones on the plain
cry out and tell him of his father’s murder at the hands of the sons of
Turenn. He uncovers the body, and, vowing vengeance, returns to Tara. Here
he accuses the sons of Turenn before the High King, and is permitted to
have them executed, or to name the eric he will accept in remission of
that sentence. Lugh chooses to have the eric, and he names it as follows,
concealing things of vast price, and involving unheard-of toils, under the
names of common objects: Three apples, the skin of a pig, a spear, a
chariot with two horses, seven swine, a hound, a cooking-spit, and,
finally, to give three shouts on a hill. The brothers bind themselves to
pay the fine, and Lugh then declares the meaning of it. The three apples
are those which grow in the Garden of the Sun; the pig-skin is a magical
skin which heals every wound and sickness if it can be laid on the
sufferer, and it is a possession of the King of Greece; the spear is a
magical weapon owned by the King of Persia (these names, of course, are
mere fanciful appellations for places in the mysterious world of Faëry);
the seven swine belong to King Asal of the Golden Pillars, and may be
killed and eaten every night and yet be found whole next day; the spit
belongs to the sea-nymphs of the sunken Island of Finchory; and the three
shouts are to be given on the hill of a fierce warrior, Mochaen, who, with
his sons, are under vows to prevent any man from raising his voice on that
hill. To fulfil any one of these enterprises would be an all but
impossible task, and the brothers must accomplish them all before they can
clear themselves of the guilt and penalty of Kian’s death.
The story then goes on to tell how with infinite daring and resource the
sons of Turenn accomplish one by one all their tasks, but when all are
done save the capture of the cooking-spit and the three shouts on the Hill
of Mochaen, Lugh, by magical arts, causes forgetfulness to fall upon them,
and they return to Ireland with their treasures. These, especially the
spear and the pig-skin, are just what Lugh needs to help him against the
Fomorians; but his vengeance is not complete, and after receiving the
treasures he reminds the brothers of what is yet to be won. They, in deep
dejection, now begin to understand how they are played with, and go forth
sadly to win, if they can, the rest of the eric. After long wandering they
discover that the Island of Finchory is not above, but under the sea.
Brian in a magical “water-dress” goes down to it, sees the thrice fifty
nymphs in their palace, and seizes the golden spit from their hearth. The
ordeal of the Hill of Mochaen is the last to be attempted. After a
desperate combat which ends in the slaying of Mochaen and his sons, the
brothers, mortally wounded, uplift their voices in three faint cries, and
so the eric is fulfilled. The life is still in them, however, when they
return to Ireland, and their aged father, Turenn, implores Lugh for the
loan of the magic pig-skin to heal them; but the implacable Lugh refuses,
and the brothers and their father die together. So ends the tale.
*The Second Battle of Moytura*
The Second Battle of Moytura took place on a plain in the north of Co.
Sligo, which is remarkable for the number of sepulchral monuments still
scattered over it. The first battle, of course, was that which the Danaans
had waged with the Firbolgs, and the Moytura there referred to was much
further south, in Co. Mayo. The battle with the Fomorians is related with
an astounding wealth of marvellous incident. The craftsmen of the Danaans,
Goban the smith, Credné the artificer (or goldsmith), and Luchta the
carpenter, keep repairing the broken weapons of the Danaans with magical
speed—three blows of Goban’s hammer make a spear or sword, Luchta flings a
handle at it and it sticks on at once, and Credné jerks the rivets at it
with his tongs as fast as he makes them and they fly into their places.
The wounded are healed by the magical pig-skin. The plain resounds with
the clamour of battle:
“Fearful indeed was the thunder which rolled over the battlefield;
the shouts of the warriors, the breaking of the shields, the
flashing and clashing of the swords, of the straight, ivory-hilted
swords, the music and harmony of the ‘belly-darts’ and the sighing
and winging of the spears and lances.”(86)
*The Death of Balor*
The Fomorians bring on their champion, Balor, before the glance of whose
terrible eye Nuada of the Silver Hand and others of the Danaans go down.
But Lugh, seizing an opportunity when the eyelid drooped through
weariness, approached close to Balor, and as it began to lift once more he
hurled into the eye a great stone which sank into the brain, and Balor lay
dead, as the prophecy had foretold, at the hand of his grandson. The
Fomorians were then totally routed, and it is not recorded that they ever
again gained any authority or committed any extensive depredations in
Ireland. Lugh, the Ildánach, was then enthroned in place of Nuada, and the
myth of the victory of the solar hero over the powers of darkness and
brute force is complete.
*The Harp of the Dagda*
A curious little incident bearing on the power which the Danaans could
exercise by the spell of music may here be inserted. The flying Fomorians,
it is told, had made prisoner the harper of the Dagda and carried him off
with them. Lugh, the Dagda, and the warrior Ogma followed them, and came
unknown into the banqueting-hall of the Fomorian camp. There they saw the
harp hanging on the wall. The Dagda called to it, and immediately it flew
into his hands, killing nine men of the Fomorians on its way. The Dagda’s
invocation of the harp is very singular, and not a little puzzling:
“Come, apple-sweet murmurer,” he cries, “come, four-angled frame
of harmony, come, Summer, come, Winter, from the mouths of harps
and bags and pipes.”(87)
The allusion to summer and winter suggests the practice in Indian music of
allotting certain musical modes to the different seasons of the year (and
even to different times of day), and also an Egyptian legend referred to
in Burney’s “History of Music,” where the three strings of the lyre were
supposed to answer respectively to the three seasons, spring, summer, and
winter.(88)
When the Dagda got possession of the harp, the tale goes on, he played on
it the “three noble strains” which every great master of the harp should
command, namely, the Strain of Lament, which caused the hearers to weep,
the Strain of Laughter, which made them merry, and the Strain of Slumber,
or Lullaby, which plunged them all in a profound sleep. And under cover of
that sleep the Danaan champion stole out and escaped. It may be observed
that throughout the whole of the legendary literature of Ireland skill in
music, the art whose influence most resembles that of a mysterious spell
or gift of Faëry, is the prerogative of the People of Dana and their
descendants. Thus in the “Colloquy of the Ancients,” a collection of tales
made about the thirteenth or fourteenth century, St. Patrick is introduced
to a minstrel, Cascorach, “a handsome, curly-headed, dark-browed youth,”
who plays so sweet a strain that the saint and his retinue all fall
asleep. Cascorach, we are told, was son of a minstrel of the Danaan folk.
St. Patrick’s scribe, Brogan, remarks, “A good cast of thine art is that
thou gavest us.” “Good indeed it were,” said Patrick, “but for a twang of
the fairy spell that infests it; barring which nothing could more nearly
resemble heaven’s harmony.”(89) Some of the most beautiful of the antique
Irish folk-melodies,—_e.g._, the _Coulin_—are traditionally supposed to
have been overheard by mortal harpers at the revels of the Fairy Folk.
*Names and Characteristics of the Danaan Deities*
I may conclude this narrative of the Danaan conquest with some account of
the principal Danaan gods and their attributes, which will be useful to
readers of the subsequent pages. The best with which I am acquainted is to
be found in Mr. Standish O’Grady’s “Critical History of Ireland.”(90) This
work is no less remarkable for its critical insight—it was published in
1881, when scientific study of the Celtic mythology was little heard
of—than for the true bardic imagination, kindred to that of the ancient
myth-makers themselves, which recreates the dead forms of the past and
dilates them with the breath of life. The broad outlines in which Mr.
O’Grady has laid down the typical characteristics of the chief personages
in the Danaan cycle hardly need any correction at this day, and have been
of much use to me in the following summary of the subject.
*The Dagda*
The Dagda Mōr was the father and chief of the People of Dana. A certain
conception of vastness attaches to him and to his doings. In the Second
Battle of Moytura his blows sweep down whole ranks of the enemy, and his
spear, when he trails it on the march, draws a furrow in the ground like
the fosse which marks the mearing of a province. An element of grotesque
humour is present in some of the records about this deity. When the
Fomorians give him food on his visit to their camp, the porridge and milk
are poured into a great pit in the ground, and he eats it with a spoon big
enough, it was said, for a man and a woman to lie together in it. With
this spoon he scrapes the pit, when the porridge is done, and shovels
earth and gravel unconcernedly down his throat. We have already seen that,
like all the Danaans, he is a master of music, as well as of other magical
endowments, and owns a harp which comes flying through the air at his
call. “The tendency to attribute life to inanimate things is apparent in
the Homeric literature, but exercises a very great influence in the
mythology of this country. The living, fiery spear of Lugh; the magic ship
of Mananan; the sword of Conary Mōr, which sang; Cuchulain’s sword, which
spoke; the Lia Fail, Stone of Destiny, which roared for joy beneath the
feet of rightful kings; the waves of the ocean, roaring with rage and
sorrow when such kings are in jeopardy; the waters of the Avon Dia,
holding back for fear at the mighty duel between Cuchulain and Ferdia, are
but a few out of many examples.”(91) A legend of later times tells how
once, at the death of a great scholar, all the books in Ireland fell from
their shelves upon the floor.
*Angus Ōg*
Angus Ōg (Angus the Young), son of the Dagda, by Boanna (the river Boyne),
was the Irish god of love. His palace was supposed to be at New Grange, on
the Boyne. Four bright birds that ever hovered about his head were
supposed to be his kisses taking shape in this lovely form, and at their
singing love came springing up in the hearts of youths and maidens. Once
he fell sick of love for a maiden whom he had seen in a dream. He told the
cause of his sickness to his mother Boanna, who searched all Ireland for
the girl, but could not find her. Then the Dagda was called in, but he too
was at a loss, till he called to his aid Bōv the Red, king of the Danaans
of Munster—the same whom we have met with in the tale of the Children of
Lir, and who was skilled in all mysteries and enchantments. Bōv undertook
the search, and after a year had gone by declared that he had found the
visionary maiden at a lake called the Lake of the Dragon’s Mouth.
Angus goes to Bōv, and, after being entertained by him three days, is
brought to the lake shore, where he sees thrice fifty maidens walking in
couples, each couple linked by a chain of gold, but one of them is taller
than the rest by a head and shoulders. “That is she!” cries Angus. “Tell
us by what name she is known.” Bōv answers that her name is Caer, daughter
of Ethal Anubal, a prince of the Danaans of Connacht. Angus laments that
he is not strong enough to carry her off from her companions, but, on
Bōv’s advice, betakes himself to Ailell and Maev, the mortal King and
Queen of Connacht, for assistance. The Dagda and Angus then both repair to
the palace of Ailell, who feasts them for a week, and then asks the cause
of their coming. When it is declared he answers, “We have no authority
over Ethal Anubal.” They send a message to him, however, asking for the
hand of Caer for Angus, but Ethal refuses to give her up. In the end he is
besieged by the combined forces of Ailell and the Dagda, and taken
prisoner. When Caer is again demanded of him he declares that he cannot
comply, “for she is more powerful than I.” He explains that she lives
alternately in the form of a maiden and of a swan year and year about,
“and on the first of November next,” he says, “you will see her with a
hundred and fifty other swans at the Lake of the Dragon’s Mouth.”
Angus goes there at the appointed time, and cries to her, “Oh, come and
speak to me!” “Who calls me?” asks Caer. Angus explains who he is, and
then finds himself transformed into a swan. This is an indication of
consent, and he plunges in to join his love in the lake. After that they
fly together to the palace on the Boyne, uttering as they go a music so
divine that all hearers are lulled to sleep for three days and nights.
Angus is the special deity and friend of beautiful youths and maidens.
Dermot of the Love-spot, a follower of Finn mac Cumhal, and lover of
Grania, of whom we shall hear later, was bred up with Angus in the palace
on the Boyne. He was the typical lover of Irish legend. When he was slain
by the wild boar of Ben Bulben, Angus revives him and carries him off to
share his immortality in his fairy palace.
*Len of Killarney*
Of Bōv the Red, brother of the Dagda, we have already heard. He had, it is
said, a goldsmith named Len, who “gave their ancient name to the Lakes of
Killarney, once known as Locha Lein, the Lakes of Len of the Many Hammers.
Here by the lake he wrought, surrounded by rainbows and showers of fiery
dew.”(92)
*Lugh*
Lugh has already been described.(93) He has more distinctly solar
attributes than any other Celtic deity; and, as we know, his worship was
spread widely over Continental Celtica. In the tale of the Quest of the
Sons of Turenn we are told that Lugh approached the Fomorians from the
west. Then Bres, son of Balor, arose and said: “I wonder that the sun is
rising in the west to-day, and in the east every other day.” “Would it
were so,” said his Druids. “Why, what else but the sun is it?” said Bres.
“It is the radiance of the face of Lugh of the Long Arm,” they replied.
Lugh was the father, by the Milesian maiden Dectera, of Cuchulain, the
most heroic figure in Irish legend, in whose story there is evidently a
strong element of the solar myth.(94)
*Midir the Proud*
Midir the Proud is a son of the Dagda. His fairy palace is at _Bri Leith_,
or Slieve Callary, in Co. Longford. He frequently appears in legends
dealing partly with human, partly with Danaan personages, and is always
represented as a type of splendour in his apparel and in personal beauty.
When he appears to King Eochy on the Hill of Tara he is thus
described:(95)
“It chanced that Eochaid Airemm, the King of Tara, arose upon a
certain fair day in the time of summer; and he ascended the high
ground of Tara(96) to behold the plain of Breg; beautiful was the
colour of that plain, and there was upon it excellent blossom
glowing with all hues that are known. And as the aforesaid Eochy
looked about and around him, he saw a young strange warrior upon
the high ground at his side. The tunic that the warrior wore was
purple in colour, his hair was of a golden yellow, and of such
length that it reached to the edge of his shoulders. The eyes of
the young warrior were lustrous and grey; in the one hand he held
a fine pointed spear, in the other a shield with a white central
boss, and with gems of gold upon it. And Eochaid held his peace,
for he knew that none such had been in Tara on the night before,
and the gate that led into the _Liss_ had not at that time been
thrown open.”(97)
*Lir and Mananan*
Lir, as Mr. O’Grady remarks, “appears in two distinct forms. In the first
he is a vast, impersonal presence commensurate with the sea; in fact, the
Greek Oceanus. In the second, he is a separate person dwelling invisibly
on Slieve Fuad,” in Co. Armagh. We hear little of him in Irish legend,
where the attributes of the sea-god are mostly conferred on his son,
Mananan.
This deity is one of the most popular in Irish mythology. He was lord of
the sea, beyond or under which the Land of Youth or Islands of the Dead
were supposed to lie; he therefore was the guide of man to this country.
He was master of tricks and illusions, and owned all kinds of magical
possessions—the boat named Ocean-sweeper, which obeyed the thought of
those who sailed in it and went without oar or sail, the steed Aonbarr,
which could travel alike on sea or land, and the sword named The Answerer,
which no armour could resist. White-crested waves were called the Horses
of Mananan, and it was forbidden (_tabu_) for the solar hero, Cuchulain,
to perceive them—this indicated the daily death of the sun at his setting
in the western waves. Mananan wore a great cloak which was capable of
taking on every kind of colour, like the widespread field of the sea as
looked on from a height; and as the protector of the island of Erin it was
said that when any hostile force invaded it they heard his thunderous
tramp and the flapping of his mighty cloak as he marched angrily round and
round their camp at night. The Isle of Man, seen dimly from the Irish
coast, was supposed to be the throne of Mananan, and to take its name from
this deity.
*The Goddess Dana*
The greatest of the Danaan goddesses was Dana, “mother of the Irish gods,”
as she is called in an early text. She was daughter of the Dagda, and,
like him, associated with ideas of fertility and blessing. According to
d’Arbois de Jubainville, she was identical with the goddess Brigit, who
was so widely worshipped in Celtica. Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba are said
to have been her sons—these really represent but one person, in the usual
Irish fashion of conceiving the divine power in triads. The name of Brian,
who takes the lead in all the exploits of the brethren,(98) is a
derivation from a more ancient form, Brenos, and under this form was the
god to whom the Celts attributed their victories at the Allia and at
Delphi, mistaken by Roman and Greek chroniclers for an earthly leader.
*The Morrigan*
There was also an extraordinary goddess named the Morrigan,(99) who
appears to embody all that is perverse and horrible among supernatural
powers. She delighted in setting men at war, and fought among them
herself, changing into many frightful shapes and often hovering above
fighting armies in the aspect of a crow. She met Cuchulain once and
proffered him her love in the guise of a human maid. He refused it, and
she persecuted him thenceforward for the most of his life. Warring with
him once in the middle of the stream, she turned herself into a
water-serpent, and then into a mass of water-weeds, seeking to entangle
and drown him. But he conquered and wounded her, and she afterwards became
his friend. Before his last battle she passed through Emain Macha at
night, and broke the pole of his chariot as a warning.
*Cleena’s Wave*
One of the most notable landmarks of Ireland was the _Tonn Cliodhna_, or
“Wave of Cleena,” on the seashore at Glandore Bay, in Co. Cork. The story
about Cleena exists in several versions, which do not agree with each
other except in so far as she seems to have been a Danaan maiden once
living in Mananan’s country, the Land of Youth beyond the sea. Escaping
thence with a mortal lover, as one of the versions tells, she landed on
the southern coast of Ireland, and her lover, Keevan of the Curling Locks,
went off to hunt in the woods. Cleena, who remained on the beach, was
lulled to sleep by fairy music played by a minstrel of Mananan, when a
great wave of the sea swept up and carried her back to Fairyland, leaving
her lover desolate. Hence the place was called the Strand of Cleena’s
Wave.
*The Goddess Ainé*
Another topical goddess was Ainé, the patroness of Munster, who is still
venerated by the people of that county. She was the daughter of the Danaan
Owel, a foster-son of Mananan and a Druid. She is in some sort a
love-goddess, continually inspiring mortals with passion. She was
ravished, it was said, by Ailill Olum, King of Munster, who was slain in
consequence by her magic arts, and the story is repeated in far later
times about another mortal lover, who was not, however, slain, a
Fitzgerald, to whom she bore the famous wizard Earl.(100) Many of the
aristocratic families of Munster claimed descent from this union. Her name
still clings to the “Hill of Ainé” (Knockainey), near Loch Gur, in
Munster. All the Danaan deities in the popular imagination were
earth-gods, _dei terreni_, associated with ideas of fertility and
increase. Ainé is not heard much of in the bardic literature, but she is
very prominent in the folk-lore of the neighbourhood. At the bidding of
her son, Earl Gerald, she planted all Knockainey with pease in a single
night. She was, and perhaps still is, worshipped on Midsummer Eve by the
peasantry, who carried torches of hay and straw, tied on poles and
lighted, round her hill at night. Afterwards they dispersed themselves
among their cultivated fields and pastures, waving the torches over the
crops and the cattle to bring luck and increase for the following year. On
one night, as told by Mr. D. Fitzgerald,(101) who has collected the local
traditions about her, the ceremony was omitted owing to the death of one
of the neighbours. Yet the peasantry at night saw the torches in greater
number than ever circling the hill, and Ainé herself in front, directing
and ordering the procession.
“On another St. John’s Night a number of girls had stayed late on the Hill
watching the _cliars_ (torches) and joining in the games. Suddenly Ainé
appeared among them, thanked them for the honour they had done her, but
said she now wished them to go home, as _they wanted the hill to
themselves_. She let them understand whom she meant by _they_, for calling
some of the girls she made them look through a ring, when behold, the hill
appeared crowded with people before invisible.”
“Here,” observed Mr. Alfred Nutt, “we have the antique ritual carried out
on a spot hallowed to one of the antique powers, watched over and shared
in by those powers themselves. Nowhere save in Gaeldom could be found such
a pregnant illustration of the identity of the fairy class with the
venerable powers to ensure whose goodwill rites and sacrifices, originally
fierce and bloody, now a mere simulacrum of their pristine form, have been
performed for countless ages.”(102)
*Sinend and the Well of Knowledge*
There is a singular myth which, while intended to account for the name of
the river Shannon, expresses the Celtic veneration for poetry and science,
combined with the warning that they may not be approached without danger.
The goddess Sinend, it was said, daughter of Lodan son of Lir, went to a
certain well named Connla’s Well, which is under the sea—_i.e._, in the
Land of Youth in Fairyland. “That is a well,” says the bardic narrative,
“at which are the hazels of wisdom and inspirations, that is, the hazels
of the science of poetry, and in the same hour their fruit and their
blossom and their foliage break forth, and then fall upon the well in the
same shower, which raises upon the water a royal surge of purple.” When
Sinend came to the well we are not told what rites or preparation she had
omitted, but the angry waters broke forth and overwhelmed her, and washed
her up on the Shannon shore, where she died, giving to the river its
name.(103) This myth of the hazels of inspiration and knowledge and their
association with springing water runs through all Irish legend, and has
been finely treated by a living Irish poet, Mr. G.W. Russell, in the
following verses:
“>A cabin on the mountain-side hid in a grassy nook,
With door and window open wide, where friendly stars may look;
The rabbit shy may patter in, the winds may enter free
Who roam around the mountain throne in living ecstasy.
“And when the sun sets dimmed in eve, and purple fills the air,
I think the sacred hazel-tree is dropping berries there,
From starry fruitage, waved aloft where Connla’s Well o’erflows;
For sure, the immortal waters run through every wind that blows.
“I think when Night towers up aloft and shakes the trembling dew,
How every high and lonely thought that thrills my spirit through
Is but a shining berry dropped down through the purple air,
And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere.”
*The Coming of the Milesians*
After the Second Battle of Moytura the Danaans held rule in Ireland until
the coming of the Milesians, the sons of Miled. These are conceived in
Irish legend as an entirely human race, yet in their origin they, like the
other invaders of Ireland, go back to a divine and mythical ancestry.
Miled, whose name occurs as a god in a Celtic inscription from Hungary, is
represented as a son of Bilé. Bilé, like Balor, is one of the names of the
god of Death, _i.e._, of the Underworld. They come from “Spain”—the usual
term employed by the later rationalising historians for the Land of the
Dead.
The manner of their coming into Ireland was as follows: Ith, the
grandfather of Miled, dwelt in a great tower which his father, Bregon, had
built in “Spain.” One clear winter’s day, when looking out westwards from
this lofty tower, he saw the coast of Ireland in the distance, and
resolved to sail to the unknown land.
He embarked with ninety warriors, and took land at Corcadyna, in the
south-west. In connexion with this episode I may quote a passage of great
beauty and interest from de Jubainville’s “Irish Mythological Cycle”:(104)
“According to an unknown writer cited by Plutarch, who died about the year
120 of the present era, and also by Procopius, who wrote in the sixth
century A.D., ‘the Land of the Dead’ is the western extremity of Great
Britain, separated from the eastern by an impassable wall. On the northern
coast of Gaul, says the legend, is a populace of mariners whose business
is to carry the dead across from the continent to their last abode in the
island of Britain. The mariners, awakened in the night by the whisperings
of some mysterious voice, arise and go down to the shore, where they find
ships awaiting them which are not their own,(105) and, in these, invisible
beings, under whose weight the vessels sink almost to the gunwales. They
go on board, and with a single stroke of the oar, says one text, in one
hour, says another, they arrive at their destination, though with their
own vessels, aided by sails, it would have taken them at least a day and a
night to reach the coast of Britain. When they come to the other shore the
invisible passengers land, and at the same time the unloaded ships are
seen to rise above the waves, and a voice is heard announcing the names of
the new arrivals, who have just been added to the inhabitants of the Land
of the Dead.
“One stroke of the oar, one hour’s voyage at most, suffices for the
midnight journey which transfers the Dead from the Gaulish continent to
their final abode. Some mysterious law, indeed, brings together in the
night the great spaces which divide the domain of the living from that of
the dead in daytime. It was the same law which enabled Ith one fine winter
evening to perceive from the Tower of Bregon, in the Land of the Dead, the
shores of Ireland, or the land of the living. The phenomenon took place in
winter; for winter is a sort of night; winter, like night, lowers the
barriers between the regions of Death and those of Life; like night,
winter gives to life the semblance of death, and suppresses, as it were,
the dread abyss that lies between the two.”
At this time, it is said, Ireland was ruled by three Danaan kings,
grandsons of the Dagda. Their names were MacCuill, MacCecht, and MacGrené,
and their wives were named respectively Banba, Fohla, and Eriu. The Celtic
habit of conceiving divine persons in triads is here illustrated. These
triads represent one person each, and the mythical character of that
personage is evident from the name of one of them, MacGrené, Son of the
Sun. The names of the three goddesses have each at different times been
applied to Ireland, but that of the third, Eriu, has alone persisted, and
in the dative form, Erinn, is a poetic name for the country to this day.
That Eriu is the wife of MacGrené means, as de Jubainville observes, that
the Sun-god, the god of Day, Life, and Science, has wedded the land and is
reigning over it.
Ith, on landing, finds that the Danaan king, Neit, has just been slain in
a battle with the Fomorians, and the three sons, MacCuill and the others,
are at the fortress of Aileach, in Co. Donegal, arranging for a division
of the land among themselves. At first they welcome Ith, and ask him to
settle their inheritance. Ith gives his judgment, but, in concluding, his
admiration for the newly discovered country breaks out: “Act,” he says,
“according to the laws of justice, for the country you dwell in is a good
one, it is rich in fruit and honey, in wheat and in fish; and in heat and
cold it is temperate.” From this panegyric the Danaans conclude that 1th
has designs upon their land, and they seize him and put him to death. His
companions, however, recover his body and bear it back with them in their
ships to “Spain”; when the children of Miled resolve to take vengeance for
the outrage and prepare to invade Ireland.
They were commanded by thirty-six chiefs, each having his own ship with
his family and his followers. Two of the company are said to have perished
on the way. One of the sons of Miled, having climbed to the masthead of
his vessel to look out for the coast of Ireland, fell into the sea and was
drowned. The other was Skena, wife of the poet Amergin, son of Miled, who
died on the way. The Milesians buried her when they landed, and called the
place “Inverskena” after her; this was the ancient name of the Kenmare
River in Co. Kerry.
“It was on a Thursday, the first of May, and the seventeenth day of the
moon, that the sons of Miled arrived in Ireland. Partholan also landed in
Ireland on the first of May, but on a different day of the week and of the
moon; and it was on the first day of May, too, that the pestilence came
which in the space of one week destroyed utterly his race. The first of
May was sacred to Beltené, one of the names of the god of Death, the god
who gives life to men and takes it away from them again. Thus it was on
the feast day of this god that the sons of Miled began their conquest of
Ireland.”(106)
*The Poet Amergin*
When the poet Amergin set foot upon the soil of Ireland it is said that he
chanted a strange and mystical lay:
“I am the Wind that blows over the sea,
I am the Wave of the Ocean;
I am the Murmur of the billows;
I am the Ox of the Seven Combats;
I am the Vulture upon the rock;
I am a Ray of the Sun;
I am the fairest of Plants;
I am a Wild Boar in valour;
I am a Salmon in the Water;
I am a Lake in the plain;
I am the Craft of the artificer;
I am a Word of Science;
I am the Spear-point that gives battle;
I am the god that creates in the head of man the fire of thought.
Who is it that enlightens the assembly upon the mountain,if not I?
Who telleth the ages of the moon, if not I?
“Who showeth the place where the sun goes to rest, if not I?
De Jubainville, whose translation I have in the main followed, observes
upon this strange utterance:
“There is a lack of order in this composition, the ideas, fundamental and
subordinate, are jumbled together without method; but there is no doubt as
to the meaning: the _filé_ [poet] is the Word of Science, he is the god
who gives to man the fire of thought; and as science is not distinct from
its object, as God and Nature are but one, the being of the _filé_ is
mingled with the winds and the waves, with the wild animals and the
warrior’s arms.”(107)
Two other poems are attributed to Amergin, in which he invokes the land
and physical features of Ireland to aid him:
“I invoke the land of Ireland,
Shining, shining sea;
Fertile, fertile Mountain;
Gladed, gladed wood!
Abundant river, abundant in water!
Fish-abounding lake!”(108)
*The Judgment of Amergin*
The Milesian host, after landing, advance to Tara, where they find the
three kings of the Danaans awaiting them, and summon them to deliver up
the island. The Danaans ask for three days’ time to consider whether they
shall quit Ireland, or submit, or give battle; and they propose to leave
the decision, upon their request, to Amergin. Amergin pronounces
judgment—“the first judgment which was delivered in Ireland.” He agrees
that the Milesians must not take their foes by surprise—they are to
withdraw the length of nine waves from the shore, and then return; if they
then conquer the Danaans the land is to be fairly theirs by right of
battle.
The Milesians submit to this decision and embark on their ships. But no
sooner have they drawn _off_ for this mystical distance of the nine waves
than a mist and storm are raised by the sorceries of the Danaans—the coast
of Ireland is hidden from their sight, and they wander dispersed upon the
ocean. To ascertain if it is a natural or a Druidic tempest which afflicts
them, a man named Aranan is sent up to the masthead to see if the wind is
blowing there also or not. He is flung from the swaying mast, but as he
falls to his death he cries his message to his shipmates: “There is no
storm aloft.” Amergin, who as poet—that is to say, Druid—takes the lead in
all critical situations, thereupon chants his incantation to the land of
Erin. The wind falls, and they turn their prows, rejoicing, towards the
shore. But one of the Milesian lords, Eber Donn, exults in brutal rage at
the prospect of putting all the dwellers in Ireland to the sword; the
tempest immediately springs up again, and many of the Milesian ships
founder, Eber Donn’s being among them. At last a remnant of the Milesians
find their way to shore, and land in the estuary of the Boyne.
*The Defeat of the Danaans*
A great battle with the Danaans at Telltown(109) then follows. The three
kings and three queens of the Danaans, with many of their people, are
slain, and the children of Miled—the last of the mythical invaders of
Ireland—enter upon the sovranty of Ireland. But the People of Dana do not
withdraw. By their magic art they cast over themselves a veil of
invisibility, which they can put on or off as they choose. There are two
Irelands henceforward, the spiritual and the earthly. The Danaans dwell in
the spiritual Ireland, which is portioned out among them by their great
overlord, the Dagda. Where the human eye can see but green mounds and
ramparts, the relics of ruined fortresses or sepulchres, there rise the
fairy palaces of the defeated divinities; there they hold their revels in
eternal sunshine, nourished by the magic meat and ale that give them
undying youth and beauty; and thence they come forth at times to mingle
with mortal men in love or in war. The ancient mythical literature
conceives them as heroic and splendid in strength and beauty. In later
times, and as Christian influences grew stronger, they dwindle into
fairies, the People of the Sidhe;(110) but they have never wholly
perished; to this day the Land of Youth and its inhabitants live in the
imagination of the Irish peasant.
*The Meaning of the Danaan Myth*
All myths constructed by a primitive people are symbols, and if we can
discover what it is that they symbolise we have a valuable clue to the
spiritual character, and sometimes even to the history, of the people from
whom they sprang. Now the meaning of the Danaan myth as it appears in the
bardic literature, though it has undergone much distortion before it
reached us, is perfectly clear. The Danaans represent the Celtic reverence
for science, poetry, and artistic skill, blended, of course, with the
earlier conception of the divinity of the powers of Light. In their combat
with the Firbolgs the victory of the intellect over dulness and ignorance
is plainly portrayed—the comparison of the heavy, blunt weapon of the
Firbolgs with the light and penetrating spears of the People of Dana is an
indication which it is impossible to mistake. Again, in their struggle
with a far more powerful and dangerous enemy, the Fomorians, we are
evidently to see the combat of the powers of Light with evil of a more
positive kind than that represented by the Firbolgs. The Fomorians stand
not for mere dulness or stupidity, but for the forces of tyranny, cruelty,
and greed—for moral rather than for intellectual darkness.
*The Meaning of the Milesian Myth*
But the myth of the struggle of the Danaans with the sons of Miled is more
difficult to interpret. How does it come that the lords of light and
beauty, wielding all the powers of thought (represented by magic and
sorcery), succumbed to a human race, and were dispossessed by them of
their hard-won inheritance? What is the meaning of this shrinking of their
powers which at once took place when the Milesians came on the scene? The
Milesians were not on the side of the powers of darkness. They were guided
by Amergin, a clear embodiment of the idea of poetry and thought. They
were regarded with the utmost veneration, and the dominant families of
Ireland all traced their descent to them. Was the Kingdom of Light, then,
divided against itself? Or, if not, to what conception in the Irish mind
are we to trace the myth of the Milesian invasion and victory?
The only answer I can see to this puzzling question is to suppose that the
Milesian myth originated at a much later time than the others, and was, in
its main features, the product of Christian influences. The People of Dana
were in possession of the country, but they were pagan divinities—they
could not stand for the progenitors of a Christian Ireland. They had
somehow or other to be got rid of, and a race of less embarrassing
antecedents substituted for them. So the Milesians were fetched from
“Spain” and endowed with the main characteristics, only more humanised, of
the People of Dana. But the latter, in contradistinction to the usual
attitude of early Christianity, are treated very tenderly in the story of
their overthrow. One of them has the honour of giving her name to the
island, the brutality of one of the conquerors towards them is punished
with death, and while dispossessed of the lordship of the soil they still
enjoy life in the fair world which by their magic art they have made
invisible to mortals. They are no longer gods, but they are more than
human, and frequent instances occur in which they are shown as coming
forth from their fairy world, being embraced in the Christian fold, and
entering into heavenly bliss. With two cases of this redemption of the
Danaans we shall close this chapter on the Invasion Myths of Ireland.
The first is the strange and beautiful tale of the Transformation of the
Children of Lir.
*The Children of Lir*
Lir was a Danaan divinity, the father of the sea-god Mananan who
continually occurs in magical tales of the Milesian cycle. He had married
in succession two sisters, the second of whom was named Aoife.(111) She
was childless, but the former wife of Lir had left him four children, a
girl named Fionuala(112) and three boys. The intense love of Lir for the
children made the stepmother jealous, and she ultimately resolved on their
destruction. It will be observed, by the way, that the People of Dana,
though conceived as unaffected by time, and naturally immortal, are
nevertheless subject to violent death either at the hands of each other or
even of mortals.
With her guilty object in view, Aoife goes on a journey to a neighbouring
Danaan king, Bōv the Red, taking the four children with her. Arriving at a
lonely place by Lake Derryvaragh, in Westmeath, she orders her attendants
to slay the children. They refuse, and rebuke her. Then she resolves to do
it herself; but, says the legend, “her womanhood overcame her,” and
instead of killing the Children she transforms them by spells of sorcery
into four white swans, and lays on them the following doom: three hundred
years they are to spend on the waters of Lake Derryvaragh, three hundred
on the Straits of Moyle (between Ireland and Scotland), and three hundred
on the Atlantic by Erris and Inishglory. After that, “when the woman of
the South is mated with the man of the North,” the enchantment is to have
an end.
When the children fail to arrive with Aoife at the palace of Bōv her guilt
is discovered, and Bōv changes her into “a demon of the air.” She flies
forth shrieking, and is heard of no more in the tale. But Lir and Bōv seek
out the swan-children, and find that they have not only human speech, but
have preserved the characteristic Danaan gift of making wonderful music.
From all parts of the island companies of the Danaan folk resort to Lake
Derryvaragh to hear this wondrous music and to converse with the swans,
and during that time a great peace and gentleness seemed to pervade the
land.
But at last the day came for them to leave the fellowship of their kind
and take up their life by the wild cliffs and ever angry sea of the
northern coast. Here they knew the worst of loneliness, cold, and storm.
Forbidden to land, their feathers froze to the rocks in the winter nights,
and they were often buffeted and driven apart by storms. As Fionuala
sings:
“Cruel to us was Aoife
Who played her magic upon us,
And drove us out on the water—
Four wonderful snow-white swans.
“Our bath is the frothing brine,
In bays by red rocks guarded;
For mead at our father’s table
We drink of the salt, blue sea.
“Three sons and a single daughter,
In clefts of the cold rocks dwelling,
The hard rocks, cruel to mortals—
We are full of keening to-night.”
Fionuala, the eldest of the four, takes the lead in all their doings, and
mothers the younger children most tenderly, wrapping her plumage round
them on nights of frost. At last the time comes to enter on the third and
last period of their doom, and they take flight for the western shores of
Mayo. Here too they suffer much hardship; but the Milesians have now come
into the land, and a young farmer named Evric, dwelling on the shores of
Erris Bay, finds out who and what the swans are, and befriends them. To
him they tell their story, and through him it is supposed to have been
preserved and handed down. When the final period of their suffering is
close at hand they resolve to fly towards the palace of their father Lir,
who dwells, we are told, at the Hill of the White Field, in Armagh, to see
how things have fared with him. They do so; but not knowing what has
happened on the coming of the Milesians, they are shocked and bewildered
to find nothing but green mounds and whin-bushes and nettles where once
stood—and still stands, only that they cannot see it—the palace of their
father. Their eyes are holden, we are to understand, because a higher
destiny was in store for them than to return to the Land of Youth.
On Erris Bay they hear for the first time the sound of a Christian bell.
It comes from the chapel of a hermit who has established himself there.
The swans are at first startled and terrified by the “thin, dreadful
sound,” but afterwards approach and make themselves known to the hermit,
who instructs them in the faith, and they join him in singing the offices
of the Church.
Now it happens that a princess of Munster, Deoca, (the “woman of the
South”) became betrothed to a Connacht chief named Lairgnen, and begged
him as a wedding gift to procure for her the four wonderful singing swans
whose fame had come to her. He asks them of the hermit, who refuses to
give them up, whereupon the “man of the North” seizes them violently by
the silver chains with which the hermit had coupled them, and drags them
off to Deoca. This is their last trial. Arrived in her presence, an awful
transformation befalls them. The swan plumage falls off, and reveals, not,
indeed, the radiant forms of the Danaan divinities, but four withered,
snowy-haired, and miserable human beings, shrunken in the decrepitude of
their vast old age. Lairgnen flies from the place in horror, but the
hermit prepares to administer baptism at once, as death is rapidly
approaching them. “Lay us in one grave,” says Fionuala, “and place Conn at
my right hand and Fiachra at my left, and Hugh before my face, for there
they were wont to be when I sheltered them many a winter night upon the
seas of Moyle.” And so it was done, and they went to heaven; but the
hermit, it is said, sorrowed for them to the end of his earthly days.(113)
In all Celtic legend there is no more tender and beautiful tale than this
of the Children of Lir.
*The Tale of Ethné*
But the imagination of the Celtic bard always played with delight on the
subjects of these transition tales, where the reconciling of the pagan
order with the Christian was the theme. The same conception is embodied in
the tale of Ethné, which we have now to tell.
It is said that Mananan mac Lir had a daughter who was given in fosterage
to the Danaan prince Angus, whose fairy palace was at Brugh na Boyna. This
is the great sepulchral tumulus now called New Grange, on the Boyne. At
the same time the steward of Angus had a daughter born to him whose name
was Ethné, and who was allotted to the young princess as her handmaiden.
Ethné grew up into a lovely and gentle maiden, but it was discovered one
day that she took no nourishment of any kind, although the rest of the
household fed as usual on the magic swine of Mananan, which might be eaten
to-day and were alive again for the feast to-morrow. Mananan was called in
to penetrate the mystery, and the following curious story came to light.
One of the chieftains of the Danaans who had been on a visit with Angus,
smitten by the girl’s beauty, had endeavoured to possess her by force.
This woke in Ethné’s pure spirit the moral nature which is proper to man,
and which the Danaan divinities know not. As the tale says, her “guardian
demon” left her, and an angel of the true God took its place. After that
event she abstained altogether from the food of Faëry, and was
miraculously nourished by the will of God. After a time, however, Mananan
and Angus, who had been on a voyage to the East, brought back thence two
cows whose milk never ran dry, and as they were supposed to have come from
a sacred land Ethné lived on their milk thenceforward.
All this is supposed to have happened during the reign of Eremon, the
first Milesian king of all Ireland, who was contemporary with King David.
At the time of the coming of St. Patrick, therefore, Ethné would have been
about fifteen hundred years of age. The Danaan folk grow up from childhood
to maturity, but then they abide unaffected by the lapse of time.
Now it happened one summer day that the Danaan princess whose handmaid
Ethné was went down with all her maidens to bathe in the river Boyne. When
arraying themselves afterwards Ethné discovered, to her dismay—and this
incident was, of course, an instance of divine interest in her
destiny—that she had lost the Veil of Invisibility, conceived here as a
magic charm worn on the person, which gave her the entrance to the Danaan
fairyland and hid her from mortal eyes. She could not find her way back to
the palace of Angus, and wandered up and down the banks of the river
seeking in vain for her companions and her home. At last she came to a
walled garden, and, looking through the gate, saw inside a stone house of
strange appearance and a man in a long brown robe. The man was a Christian
monk, and the house was a little church or oratory. He beckoned her in,
and when she had told her story to him he brought her to St. Patrick, who
completed her adoption into the human family by giving her the rite of
baptism.
Now comes in a strangely pathetic episode which reveals the tenderness,
almost the regret, with which early Irish Christianity looked back on the
lost world of paganism. As Ethné was one day praying in the little church
by the Boyne she heard suddenly a rushing sound in the air, and
innumerable voices, as it seemed from a great distance, lamenting and
calling her name. It was her Danaan kindred, who were still seeking for
her in vain. She sprang up to reply, but was so overcome with emotion that
she fell in a swoon on the floor. She recovered her senses after a while,
but from that day she was struck with a mortal sickness, and in no long
time she died, with her head upon the breast of St. Patrick, who
administered to her the last rites, and ordained that the church should be
named after her, Kill Ethné—a name doubtless borne, at the time the story
was composed, by some real church on the banks of Boyne.(114)
*Christianity and Paganism in Ireland*
These, taken together with numerous other legendary incidents which might
be quoted, illustrate well the attitude of the early Celtic Christians, in
Ireland at least, towards the divinities of the older faith. They seem to
preclude the idea that at the time of the conversion of Ireland the pagan
religion was associated with cruel and barbarous practices, on which the
national memory would look back with horror and detestation.