THE IRISH MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE.
Three divine and heroic cycles of myths are known in Ireland, one
telling of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the others of Cúchulainn and of the
Fians. They are distinct in character and contents, but the gods of the
first cycle often help the heroes of the other groups, as the gods of
Greece and India assisted the heroes of the epics. We shall see that
some of the personages of these cycles may have been known in Gaul; they
are remembered in Wales, but, in the Highlands, where stories of
Cúchulainn and Fionn are still told, the Tuatha Dé Danann are less known
now than in 1567, when Bishop Carsewell lamented the love of the
Highlanders for "idle, turbulent, lying, worldly stories concerning the
Tuatha Dédanans."[153]
As the new Achæan religion in Greece and the Vedic sacred books of India
regarded the aboriginal gods and heroes as demons and goblins, so did
Christianity in Ireland sometimes speak of the older gods there. On the
other hand, it was mainly Christian scribes who changed the old
mythology into history, and made the gods and heroes kings. Doubtless
myths already existed, telling of the descent of rulers and people from
divinities, just as the Gauls spoke of their descent from Dispater, or
as the Incas of Peru, the Mikados of Japan, and the kings of Uganda
considered themselves offspring of the gods. This is a universal
practice, and made it the more easy for Christian chroniclers to
transmute myth into history. In Ireland, as elsewhere, myth doubtless
told of monstrous races inhabiting the land in earlier days, of the
strife of the aborigines and incomers, and of their gods, though the
aboriginal gods may in some cases have been identified with Celtic gods,
or worshipped in their own persons. Many mythical elements may therefore
be looked for in the euhemerised chronicles of ancient Ireland. But the
chroniclers themselves were but the continuers of a process which must
have been at work as soon as the influence of Christianity began to be
felt.[154] Their passion, however, was to show the descent of the Irish
and the older peoples from the old Biblical personages, a process dear
to the modern Anglo-Israelite, some of whose arguments are based on the
wild romancing of the chroniclers.
Various stories were told of the first peopling of Ireland. Banba, with
two other daughters of Cain, arrived with fifty women and three men,
only to die of the plague. Three fishermen next discovered Ireland, and
"of the island of Banba of Fair Women with hardihood they took
possession." Having gone to fetch their wives, they perished in the
deluge at Tuath Inba.[155] A more popular account was that of the coming
of Cessair, Noah's granddaughter, with her father, husband, a third man,
Ladru, "the first dead man of Erin," and fifty damsels. Her coming was
the result of the advice of a _laimh-dhia_, or "hand-god," but their
ship was wrecked, and all save her husband, Finntain, who survived for
centuries, perished in the flood.[156] Cessair's ship was less
serviceable than her grandparent's! Followed the race of Partholan, "no
wiser one than the other," who increased on the land until plague swept
them away, with the exception of Tuan mac Caraill, who after many
transformations, told the story of Ireland to S. Finnen centuries
after.[157] The survival of Finntain and Tuan, doubles of each other,
was an invention of the chroniclers, to explain the survival of the
history of colonists who had all perished. Keating, on the other hand,
rejecting the sole survivor theory as contradictory to Scripture,
suggests that "aerial demons," followers of the invaders, revealed all
to the chroniclers, unless indeed they found it engraved with "an iron
pen and lead in the rocks."[158]
Two hundred years before Partholan's coming, the Fomorians had
arrived,[159] and they and their chief Cichol Gricenchos fought
Partholan at Mag Itha, where they were defeated. Cichol was footless,
and some of his host had but one arm and one leg.[160] They were demons,
according to the chroniclers, and descendants of the luckless Ham.
Nennius makes Partholan and his men the first Scots who came from Spain
to Ireland. The next arrivals were the people of Nemed who returned to
Spain, whence they came (Nennius), or died to a man (Tuan). They also
were descendants of the inevitable Noah, and their sojourn in Ireland
was much disturbed by the Fomorians who had recovered from their defeat,
and finally overpowered the Nemedians after the death of Nemed.[161]
From Tory Island the Fomorians ruled Ireland, and forced the Nemedians
to pay them annually on the eve of Samhain (Nov. 1st) two-thirds of
their corn and milk and of the children born during the year. If the
Fomorians are gods of darkness, or, preferably, aboriginal deities, the
tribute must be explained as a dim memory of sacrifice offered at the
beginning of winter when the powers of darkness and blight are in the
ascendant. The Fomorians had a tower of glass in Tory Island. This was
one day seen by the Milesians, to whom appeared on its battlements what
seemed to be men. A year after they attacked the tower and were
overwhelmed in the sea.[162] From the survivors of a previously wrecked
vessel of their fleet are descended the Irish. Another version makes the
Nemedians the assailants. Thirty of them survived their defeat, some of
them going to Scotland or Man (the Britons), some to Greece (to return
as the Firbolgs), some to the north, where they learned magic and
returned as the Tuatha Dé Danann.[163] The Firbolgs, "men of bags,"
resenting their ignominious treatment by the Greeks, escaped to Ireland.
They included the Firbolgs proper, the Fir-Domnann, and the
Galioin.[164] The Fomorians are called their gods, and this, with the
contemptuous epithets bestowed on them, may point to the fact that the
Firbolgs were the pre-Celtic folk of Ireland and the Fomorians their
divinities, hostile to the gods of the Celts or regarded as dark
deities. The Firbolgs are vassals of Ailill and Medb, and with the Fir
Domnann and Galioin are hostile to Cúchulainn and his men,[165] just as
Fomorians were to the Tuatha Dé Danann. The strifes of races and of
their gods are inextricably confused.
The Tuatha Dé Danann arrived from heaven--an idea in keeping with their
character as beneficent gods, but later legend told how they came from
the north. They reached Ireland on Beltane, shrouded in a magic mist,
and finally, after one or, in other accounts, two battles, defeated the
Firbolgs and Fomorians at Magtured. The older story of one battle may be
regarded as a euhemerised account of the seeming conflict of nature
powers.[166] The first battle is described in a fifteenth to sixteenth
century MS.,[167] and is referred to in a fifteenth century account of
the second battle, full of archaic reminiscences, and composed from
various earlier documents.[168] The Firbolgs, defeated in the first
battle, join the Fomorians, after great losses. Meanwhile Nuada, leader
of the Tuatha Dé Danann, lost his hand, and as no king with a blemish
could sit on the throne, the crown was given to Bres, son of the
Fomorian Elatha and his sister Eri, a woman of the Tuatha Dé Danann. One
day Eri espied a silver boat speeding to her across the sea. From it
stepped forth a magnificent hero, and without delay the pair, like the
lovers in Theocritus, "rejoiced in their wedlock." The hero, Elatha,
foretold the birth of Eri's son, so beautiful that he would be a
standard by which to try all beautiful things. He gave her his ring, but
she was to part with it only to one whose finger it should fit. This was
her child Bres, and by this token he was later, as an exile, recognised
by his father, and obtained his help against the Tuatha Dé Danann. Like
other wonderful children, Bres grew twice as quickly as any other child
until he was seven.[169] Though Elatha and Eri are brother and sister,
she is among the Tuatha Dé Danann.[170] There is the usual inconsistency
of myth here and in other accounts of Fomorian and Tuatha Dé Danann
unions. The latter had just landed, but already had united in marriage
with the Fomorians. This inconsistency escaped the chroniclers, but it
points to the fact that both were divine not human, and that, though in
conflict, they united in marriage as members of hostile tribes often do.
The second battle took place twenty-seven years after the first, on
Samhain. It was fought like the first on the plain of Mag-tured, though
later accounts made one battle take place at Mag-tured in Mayo, the
other at Mag-tured in Sligo.[171] Inconsistently, the conquering Tuatha
Dé Danann in the interval, while Bres is their king, must pay tribute
imposed by the Fomorians. Obviously in older accounts this tribute must
have been imposed before the first battle and have been its cause. But
why should gods, like the Tuatha Dé Danann, ever have been in
subjection? This remains to be seen, but the answer probably lies in
parallel myths of the subjection or death of divinities like Ishtar,
Adonis, Persephone, and Osiris. Bres having exacted a tribute of the
milk of all hornless dun cows, the cows of Ireland were passed through
fire and smeared with ashes--a myth based perhaps on the Beltane fire
ritual.[172] The avaricious Bres was satirised, and "nought but decay
was on him from that hour,"[173] and when Nuada, having recovered,
claimed the throne, he went to collect an army of the Fomorians, who
assembled against the Tuatha Dé Danann. In the battle Indech wounded
Ogma, and Balor slew Nuada, but was mortally wounded by Lug. Thereupon
the Fomorians fled to their own region.
The Tuatha Dé Danann remained masters of Ireland until the coming of the
Milesians, so named from an eponymous Mile, son of Bile. Ith, having
been sent to reconnoitre, was slain, and the Milesians now invaded
Ireland in force. In spite of a mist raised by the Druids, they landed,
and, having met the three princes who slew Ith, demanded instant battle
or surrender of the land. The princes agreed to abide by the decision of
the Milesian poet Amairgen, who bade his friends re-embark and retire
for the distance of nine waves. If they could then effect a landing,
Ireland was theirs. A magic storm was raised, which wrecked many of
their ships, but Amairgen recited verses, fragments, perhaps, of some
old ritual, and overcame the dangers. After their defeat the survivors
of the Tuatha Dé Danann retired into the hills to become a fairy folk,
and the Milesians (the Goidels or Scots) became ancestors of the Irish.
Throughout the long story of the conquests of Ireland there are many
reduplications, the same incidents being often ascribed to different
personages.[174] Different versions of similar occurrences, based on
older myths and traditions, may already have been in existence, and
ritual practices, dimly remembered, required explanation. In the hands
of the chroniclers, writing history with a purpose and combining their
information with little regard to consistency, all this was reduced to a
more or less connected narrative. At the hands of the prosaic
chroniclers divinity passed from the gods, though traces of it still
linger.
"Ye are gods, and, behold, ye shall die, and the waves be upon you at
last.
In the darkness of time, in the deeps of the years, in the changes of
things,
Ye shall sleep as a slain man sleeps, and the world shall forget you for
kings."
From the annalistic point of view the Fomorians are sea demons or
pirates, their name being derived from _muir_, "sea," while they are
descended along with other monstrous beings from them. Professor
Rh[^y]s, while connecting the name with Welsh _foawr_, "giant" (Gaelic
_famhair_), derives the name from _fo_, "under," and _muir_, and regards
them as submarine beings.[175] Dr. MacBain connected them with the
fierce powers of the western sea personified, like the _Muireartach_, a
kind of sea hag, of a Fionn ballad.[176] But this association of the
Fomorians with the ocean may be the result of a late folk-etymology,
which wrongly derived their name from _muir_. The Celtic experience of
the Lochlanners or Norsemen, with whom the Fomorians are
associated,[177] would aid the conception of them as sea-pirates of a
more or less demoniacal character. Dr. Stokes connects the second
syllable _mor_ with _mare_ in "nightmare," from _moro_, and regards them
as subterranean as well as submarine.[178] But the more probable
derivation is that of Zimmer and D'Arbois, from _fo_ and _morio_ (_mor_,
"great"),[179] which would thus agree with the tradition which regarded
them as giants. They were probably beneficent gods of the aborigines,
whom the Celtic conquerors regarded as generally evil, perhaps equating
them with the dark powers already known to them. They were still
remembered as gods, and are called "champions of the _síd_," like the
Tuatha Dé Danann.[180] Thus King Bres sought to save his life by
promising that the kine of Ireland would always be in milk, then that
the men of Ireland would reap every quarter, and finally by revealing
the lucky days for ploughing, sowing, and reaping.[181] Only an
autochthonous god could know this, and the story is suggestive of the
true nature of the Fomorians. The hostile character attributed to them
is seen from the fact that they destroyed corn, milk, and fruit. But in
Ireland, as elsewhere, this destructive power was deprecated by begging
them not to destroy "corn nor milk in Erin beyond their fair
tribute."[182] Tribute was also paid to them on Samhain, the time when
the powers of blight feared by men are in the ascendant. Again, the
kingdom of Balor, their chief, is still described as the kingdom of
cold.[183] But when we remember that a similar "tribute" was paid to
Cromm Cruaich, a god of fertility, and that after the conquest of the
Tuatha Dé Danann they also were regarded as hostile to agriculture,[184]
we realise that the Fomorians must have been aboriginal gods of
fertility whom the conquering Celts regarded as hostile to them and
their gods. Similarly, in folk-belief the beneficent corn-spirit has
sometimes a sinister and destructive aspect.[185] Thus the stories of
"tribute" would be distorted reminiscences of the ritual of gods of the
soil, differing little in character from that of the similar Celtic
divinities. What makes it certain that the Fomorians were aboriginal
gods is that they are found in Ireland before the coming of the early
colonist Partholan. They were the gods of the pre-Celtic folk--Firbolgs,
Fir Domnann, and Galioin[186]--all of them in Ireland before the Tuatha
Dé Danaan arrived, and all of them regarded as slaves, spoken of with
the utmost contempt. Another possibility, however, ought to be
considered. As the Celtic gods were local in character, and as groups of
tribes would frequently be hostile to other groups, the Fomorians may
have been local gods of a group at enmity with another group,
worshipping the Tuatha Dé Danaan.
The strife of Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Danann suggests the dualism of all
nature religions. Demons or giants or monsters strive with gods in
Hindu, Greek, and Teutonic mythology, and in Persia the primitive
dualism of beneficent and hurtful powers of nature became an ethical
dualism--the eternal opposition of good and evil. The sun is vanquished
by cloud and storm, but shines forth again in vigour. Vegetation dies,
but undergoes a yearly renewal. So in myth the immortal gods are wounded
and slain in strife. But we must not push too far the analogy of the
apparent strife of the elements and the wars of the gods. The one
suggested the other, especially where the gods were elemental powers.
But myth-making man easily developed the suggestion; gods were like men
and "could never get eneuch o' fechtin'." The Celts knew of divine
combats before their arrival in Ireland, and their own hostile powers
were easily assimilated to the hostile gods of the aborigines.
The principal Fomorians are described as kings. Elatha was son of Nét,
described by Cormac as "a battle god of the heathen Gael," i.e. he is
one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and has as wives two war-goddesses, Badb
and Nemaind.[187] Thus he resembles the Fomorian Tethra whose wife is a
_badb_ or "battle-crow," preying on the slain.[188] Elatha's name,
connected with words meaning "knowledge," suggests that he was an
aboriginal culture-god.[189] In the genealogies, Fomorians and Tuatha Dé
Danann are inextricably mingled. Bres's temporary position as king of
the Tuatha Déa may reflect some myth of the occasional supremacy of the
powers of blight. Want and niggardliness characterise his reign, and
after his defeat a better state of things prevails. Bres's consort was
Brigit, and their son Ruadan, sent to spy on the Tuatha Dé Danann, was
slain. His mother's wailing for him was the first mourning wail ever
heard in Erin.[190] Another god, Indech, was son of Déa Domnu, a
Fomorian goddess of the deep, i.e. of the underworld and probably also
of fertility, who may hold a position among the Fomorians similar to
that of Danu among the Tuatha Dé Danann. Indech was slain by Ogma, who
himself died of wounds received from his adversary.
Balor had a consort Cethlenn, whose venom killed Dagda. His one eye had
become evil by contact with the poisonous fumes of a concoction which
his father's Druids were preparing. The eyelid required four men to
raise it, when his evil eye destroyed all on whom its glance fell. In
this way Balor would have slain Lug at Mag-tured, but the god at once
struck the eye with a sling-stone and slew him.[191] Balor, like the
Greek Medusa, is perhaps a personification of the evil eye, so much
feared by the Celts. Healthful influences and magical charms avert it;
hence Lug, a beneficent god, destroys Balor's maleficence.
Tethra, with Balor and Elatha, ruled over Erin at the coming of the
Tuatha Dé Danann. From a phrase used in the story of Connla's visit to
Elysium, "Thou art a hero of the men of Tethra," M. D'Arbois assumes
that Tethra was ruler of Elysium, which he makes one with the land of
the dead. The passage, however, bears a different interpretation, and
though a Fomorian, Tethra, a god of war, might be regarded as lord of
all warriors.[192] Elysium was not the land of the dead, and when M.
D'Arbois equates Tethra with Kronos, who after his defeat became ruler
of a land of dead heroes, the analogy, like other analogies with Greek
mythology, is misleading. He also equates Bres, as temporary king of the
Tuatha Dé Danann, with Kronos, king of heaven in the age of gold.
Kronos, again, slain by Zeus, is parallel to Balor slain by his grandson
Lug. Tethra, Bres, and Balor are thus separate fragments of one god
equivalent to Kronos.[193] Yet their personalities are quite distinct.
Each race works out its mythology for itself, and, while parallels are
inevitable, we should not allow these to override the actual myths as
they have come down to us.
Professor Rh[^y]s makes Bile, ancestor of the Milesians who came from
Spain, a Goidelic counterpart of the Gaulish Dispater, lord of the dead,
from whom the Gauls claimed descent. But Bile, neither a Fomorian nor of
the Tuatha Dé Danann, is an imaginary and shadowy creation. Bile is next
equated with a Brythonic Beli, assumed to be consort of Dôn, whose
family are equivalent to the Tuatha Dé Danann.[194] Beli was a mythic
king whose reign was a kind of golden age, and if he was father of Dôn's
children, which is doubtful, Bile would then be father of the Tuatha Dé
Danann. But he is ancestor of the Milesians, their opponents according
to the annalists. Beli is also equated with Elatha, and since Dôn,
reputed consort of Beli, was grandmother of Llew, equated with Irish
Lug, grandson of Balor, Balor is equivalent to Beli, whose name is
regarded by Professor Rh[^y]s as related etymologically to Balor's.[195]
Bile, Balor, and Elatha are thus Goidelic equivalents of the shadowy
Beli. But they also are quite distinct personalities, nor are they ever
hinted at as ancestral gods of the Celts, or gods of a gloomy
underworld. In Celtic belief the underworld was probably a fertile
region and a place of light, nor were its gods harmful and evil, as
Balor was.
On the whole, the Fomorians came to be regarded as the powers of nature
in its hostile aspect. They personified blight, winter, darkness, and
death, before which men trembled, yet were not wholly cast down, since
the immortal gods of growth and light, rulers of the bright other-world,
were on their side and fought against their enemies. Year by year the
gods suffered deadly harm, but returned as conquerors to renew the
struggle once more. Myth spoke of this as having happened once for all,
but it went on continuously.[196] Gods were immortal and only seemed to
die. The strife was represented in ritual, since men believe that they
can aid the gods by magic, rite, or prayer. Why, then, do hostile
Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Danann intermarry? This happens in all
mythologies, and it probably reflects, in the divine sphere, what takes
place among men. Hostile peoples carry off each the other's women, or
they have periods of friendliness and consequent intermarriage. Man
makes his gods in his own image, and the problem is best explained by
facts like these, exaggerated no doubt by the Irish annalists.
The Tuatha Dé Danann, in spite of their euhemerisation, are more than
human. In the north where they learned magic, they dwelt in four cities,
from each of which they brought a magical treasure--the stone of Fal,
which "roared under every king," Lug's unconquerable spear, Nuada's
irresistible sword, the Dagda's inexhaustible cauldron. But they are
more than wizards or Druids. They are re-born as mortals; they have a
divine world of their own, they interfere in and influence human
affairs. The euhemerists did not go far enough, and more than once their
divinity is practically acknowledged. When the Fian Caoilte and a woman
of the Tuatha Dé Danann appear before S. Patrick, he asks, "Why is she
youthful and beautiful, while you are old and wrinkled?" And Caoilte
replies, "She is of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who are unfading and whose
duration is perennial. I am of the sons of Milesius, that are perishable
and fade away."[197]
After their conversion, the Celts, sons of Milesius, thought that the
gods still existed in the hollow hills, their former dwellings and
sanctuaries, or in far-off islands, still caring for their former
worshippers. This tradition had its place with that which made them a
race of men conquered by the Milesians--the victory of Christianity over
paganism and its gods having been transmuted into a strife of races by
the euhemerists. The new faith, not the people, conquered the old gods.
The Tuatha Dé Danann became the _Daoine-sidhe_, a fairy folk, still
occasionally called by their old name, just as individual fairy kings or
queens bear the names of the ancient gods. The euhemerists gave the
Fomorians a monstrous and demoniac character, which they did not always
give to the Tuatha Dé Danann; in this continuing the old tradition that
Fomorians were hostile and the Tuatha Dé Danann beneficent and mild.
The mythological cycle is not a complete "body of divinity"; its
apparent completeness results from the chronological order of the
annalists. Fragments of other myths are found in the _Dindsenchas_;
others exist as romantic tales, and we have no reason to believe that
all the old myths have been preserved. But enough remains to show the
true nature of the Tuatha Dé Danann--their supernatural character, their
powers, their divine and unfailing food and drink, their mysterious and
beautiful abode. In their contents, their personages, in the actions
that are described in them, the materials of the "mythological cycle,"
show how widely it differs from the Cúchulainn and Fionn cycles.[198]
"The white radiance of eternity" suffuses it; the heroic cycles, magical
and romantic as they are, belong far more to earth and time.
FOOTNOTES:
[153] For some Highland references to the gods in saga and _Märchen_,
see _Book of the Dean of Lismore_, 10; Campbell, _WHT_ ii. 77. The
sea-god Lir is probably the Liur of Ossianic ballads (Campbell, _LF_
100, 125), and his son Manannan is perhaps "the Son of the Sea" in a
Gaelic song (Carmichael, _CG_ ii. 122). Manannan and his daughters are
also known (Campbell, _witchcraft_, 83).
[154] The euhemerising process is first seen in tenth century poems by
Eochaid hua Flainn, but was largely the work of Flainn Manistrech, _ob._
1056. It is found fully fledged in the _Book of Invasions_.
[155] Keating, 105-106.
[156] Keating, 107; _LL_ 4_b_. Cf. _RC_ xvi. 155.
[157] _LL_ 5.
[158] Keating, 111. Giraldus Cambrensis, _Hist. Irel._ c. 2, makes
Roanus survive and tell the tale of Partholan to S. Patrick. He is the
Caoilte mac Ronan of other tales, a survivor of the Fians, who held many
racy dialogues with the Saint. Keating abuses Giraldus for equating
Roanus with Finntain in his "lying history," and for calling him Roanus
instead of Ronanus, a mistake in which he, "the guide bull of the herd,"
is followed by others.
[159] Keating, 164.
[160] _LL_ 5_a_.
[161] Keating, 121; _LL_ 6_a_; _RC_ xvi. 161.
[162] Nennius, _Hist. Brit._ 13.
[163] _LL_ 6, 8_b_.
[164] _LL_ 6_b_, 127_a_; _IT_ iii. 381; _RC_ xvi. 81.
[165] _LL_ 9_b_, 11_a_.
[166] See Cormac, _s.v._ "Nescoit," _LU_ 51.
[167] _Harl. MSS._ 2, 17, pp. 90-99. Cf. fragment from _Book of
Invasions_ in _LL_ 8.
[168] _Harl. MS._ 5280, translated in _RC_ xii. 59 f.
[169] _RC_ xii. 60; D'Arbois, v. 405 f.
[170] For Celtic brother-sister unions see p. 224.
[171] O'Donovan, _Annals_, i. 16.
[172] _RC_ xv. 439.
[173] _RC_ xii. 71.
[174] Professor Rh[^y]s thinks the Partholan story is the aboriginal,
the median the Celtic version of the same event. Partholan, with initial
_p_ cannot be Goidelic (_Scottish Review_, 1890, "Myth. Treatment of
Celtic Ethnology").
[175] _HL_ 591.
[176] _CM_ ix. 130; Campbell _LF_ 68.
[177] _RC_ xii. 75.
[178] _US_ 211.
[179] D'Arbois, ii. 52; _RC_ xii. 476.
[180] _RC_ xii. 73.
[181] _RC_ xii. 105.
[182] _RC_ xxii. 195.
[183] Larmime, "Kian, son of Kontje."
[184] See p. 78; _LL_ 245_b_.
[185] Mannhardt, _Mythol. Forsch._ 310 f.
[186] "Fir Domnann," "men of Domna," a goddess (Rh[^y]s, _HL_ 597), or a
god (D'Arbois, ii. 130). "Domna" is connected with Irish-words meaning
"deep" (Windisch, _IT_ i. 498; Stokes, _US_ 153). Domna, or Domnu, may
therefore have been a goddess of the deep, not the sea so much as the
underworld, and so perhaps an Earth-mother from whom the Fir Domnann
traced their descent.
[187] Cormac, _s.v._ "Neith"; D'Arbois, v. 400; _RC_ xii. 61.
[188] _LU_ 50. Tethra is glossed _badb_ (_IT_ i. 820).
[189] _IT_ i. 521; Rh[^y]s, _HL_ 274 f.
[190] _RC_ xii. 95.
[191] _RC_ xii. 101.
[192] See p. 374.
[193] D'Arbois, ii. 198, 375.
[194] _HL_ 90-91.
[195] _HL_ 274, 319, 643. For Beli, see p. 112, _infra_.
[196] Whatever the signification of the battle of Mag-tured may be, the
place which it was localised is crowded with Neolithic megaliths,
dolmens, etc. To later fancy these were the graves of warriors slain in
a great battle fought there, and that battle became the fight between
Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Dananns. Mag-tured may have been the scene of a
battle between their respective worshippers.
[197] O'Grady, ii. 203.
[198] It should be observed that, as in the Vedas, the Odyssey, the
Japanese _Ko-ji-ki_, as well as in barbaric and savage mythologies,
_Märchen_ formulæ abound in the Irish mythological cycle.