THE GODS ARRIVE
The people of the goddess Danu were not the first divine inhabitants of
Ireland. Others had been before them, dwellers in “the dark backward and
abysm of time”. In this the Celtic mythology resembles those of other
nations, in almost all of which we find an old, dim realm of gods
standing behind the reigning Pantheon. Such were Cronos and the Titans,
dispossessed by the Zeus who seemed, even to Hesiod, something of a
_parvenu_ deity. Gaelic tradition recognizes two divine dynasties
anterior to the Tuatha Dé Danann. The first of these was called “The
Race of Partholon”. Its head and leader came—as all gods and men came,
according to Celtic ideas—from the Other World, and landed in Ireland
with a retinue of twenty-four males and twenty-four females upon the
first of May, the day called “Beltaine”, sacred to Bilé, the god of
death. At this remote time, Ireland consisted of only one treeless,
grassless plain, watered by three lakes and nine rivers. But, as the
race of Partholon increased, the land stretched, or widened, under
them—some said miraculously, and others, by the labours of Partholon’s
people. At any rate, during the three hundred years they dwelt there, it
grew from one plain to four, and acquired seven new lakes; which was
fortunate, for the race of Partholon increased from forty-eight members
to five thousand, in spite of battles with the Fomors.
These would seem to have been inevitable. Whatever gods ruled, they
found themselves in eternal opposition to the not-gods—the powers of
darkness, winter, evil, and death. The race of Partholon warred against
them with success. At the Plain of Ith, Partholon defeated their leader,
a gigantic demon called Cichol the Footless, and dispersed his deformed
and monstrous host. After this there was quiet for three hundred years.
Then—upon the same fatal first of May—there began a mysterious epidemic,
which lasted a week, and destroyed them all. In premonition of their
end, they foregathered upon the original, first-created plain—then
called _Sen Mag_, or the “Old Plain”,—so that those who survived might
the more easily bury those that died. Their funeral-place is still
marked by a mound near Dublin, called “Tallaght” in the maps, but
formerly known as _Tamlecht Muintre Partholain_, the “Plague-grave of
Partholon’s People”. This would seem to have been a development of the
very oldest form of the legend—which knew nothing of a plague, but
merely represented the people of Partholon as having returned, after
their sojourn in Ireland, to the other world, whence they came—and is
probably due to the gradual euhemerization of the ancient gods into
ancient men.
Following the race of Partholon, came the race of Nemed, which carried
on the work and traditions of its forerunner. During its time, Ireland
again enlarged herself, to the extent of twelve new plains and four more
lakes. Like the people of Partholon, the race of Nemed struggled with
the Fomors, and defeated them in four consecutive battles. Then Nemed
died, with two thousand of his people, from an epidemic, and the
remnant, left without their leader, were terribly oppressed by the
Fomors. Two Fomorian kings—Morc, son of Dela, and Conann, son of
Febar—had built a tower of glass upon Tory Island, always their chief
stronghold, and where stories of them still linger, and from this
vantage-point they dictated a tax which recalls that paid, in Greek
story, to the Cretan Minotaur. Two-thirds of the children born to the
race of Nemed during the year were to be delivered up on each day of
Samhain. Goaded by this to a last desperate effort, the survivors of
Nemed’s people attacked the tower, and took it, Conann perishing in the
struggle. But their triumph was short. Morc, the other king, collected
his forces, and inflicted such a slaughter upon the people of Nemed
that, out of the sixteen thousand who had assembled for the storming of
the tower, only thirty survived. And these returned whence they came, or
died—the two acts being, mythologically speaking, the same.[95]
One cannot help seeing a good deal of similarity between the stories of
these two mythical invasions of Ireland. Especially noticeable is the
account of the epidemic which destroyed all Partholon’s people and
nearly all of Nemed’s. Hence it has been held that the two legends are
duplicates, and that there was at first only one, which has been adapted
somewhat differently by two races, the Iberians and the Gaels. Professor
Rhys considers[96] the account of Nemed to have been the original Celtic
one, and the Partholon story, the version of it which the native races
made to please themselves. The name “Partholon”, with its initial _p_,
is entirely foreign to the genius of Gaelic speech. Moreover, Partholon
himself is given, by the early chroniclers, ancestors whose decidedly
non-Aryan names reappear afterwards as the names of Fir Bolg chiefs.
Nemed was later than Partholon in Ireland, as the Gaels, or “Milesians”,
were later than the Iberians, or “Fir Bolgs”.
These “Fir Bolgs” are found in myth as the next colonizers of Ireland.
Varying traditions say that they came from Greece, or from “Spain”—which
was a post-Christian euphemism for the Celtic Hades.[97] They consisted
of three tribes, called the “Fir Domnann” or “Men of Domnu”, the “Fir
Gaillion” or “Men of Gaillion”, and the “Fir Bolg” or “Men of Bolg”;
but, in spite of the fact that the first-named tribe was the most
important, they are usually called collectively after the last. Curious
stories are told of their life in Greece, and how they came to Ireland;
but these are somewhat factitious, and obviously do not belong to the
earliest tradition.
In the time of their domination they had, we are told, partitioned
Ireland among them: the Fir Bolg held Ulster; the Fir Domnann, divided
into three kingdoms, occupied North Munster, South Munster, and
Connaught; while the Fir Gaillion owned Leinster. These five provinces
met at a hill then called “Balor’s Hill”, but afterwards the “Hill of
Uisnech”. It is near Rathconrath, in the county of West Meath, and was
believed, in early times, to mark the exact centre of Ireland. They held
the country from the departure of the people of Nemed to the coming of
the people of the goddess Danu, and during this period they had nine
supreme kings. At the time of the arrival of the gods, their king’s name
was Eochaid[98] son of Erc, surnamed “The Proud”.
We have practically no other details regarding their life in Ireland. It
is obvious, however, that they were not really gods, but the pre-Aryan
race which the Gaels, when they landed in Ireland, found already in
occupation. There are many instances of peoples at a certain stage of
culture regarding tribes in a somewhat lower one as semi-divine, or,
rather, half-diabolical.[99] The suspicion and fear with which the early
Celts must have regarded the savage aborigines made them seem “larger
than human”. They feared them for the weird magical rites which they
practised in their inaccessible forts among the hills, amid storms and
mountain mists. The Gaels, who held themselves to be the children of
light, deemed these “dark Iberians” children of the dark. Their tribal
names seem to have been, in several instances, founded upon this idea.
There were the _Corca-Oidce_ (“People of Darkness”) and the
_Corca-Duibhne_ (“People of the Night”). The territory of the western
tribe of the _Hi Dorchaide_ (“Sons of Dark”) was called the “Night
Country”.[100] The Celts, who held their own gods to have preceded them
into Ireland, would not believe that even the Tuatha Dé Danann could
have wrested the land from these magic-skilled Iberians without battle.
They seem also to have been considered as in some way connected with the
Fomors. Just as the largest Iberian tribe was called the “Men of Domnu”,
so the Fomors were called the “Gods of Domnu”, and Indech, one of their
kings, is a “son of Domnu”. Thus eternal battle between the gods,
children of Danu, and the giants, children of Domnu, would reflect, in
the supernatural world, the perpetual warfare between invading Celt and
resisting Iberian. It is shadowed, too, in the later heroic cycle. The
champions of Ulster, Aryans and Gaels _par excellence_, have no such
bitter enemies as the Fir Domnann of Munster and the Fir Gaillion of
Leinster. A few scholars would even see in the later death-struggle
between the High King of Ireland and his rebellious Fenians the last
historic or mythological adumbration of racial war.[101]
The enemies alike of Fir Bolg and Fomor, the Tuatha Dé Danann, gods of
the Gaels, were the next to arrive. What is probably the earliest
account tells us that they came from the sky. Later versions, however,
give them a habitation upon earth—some say in the north, others in the
“southern isles of the world”. They had dwelt in four mythical cities
called Findias, Gorias, Murias, and Falias, where they had learned
poetry and magic—to the primitive mind two not very dissimilar
things—and whence they had brought to Ireland their four chief
treasures. From Findias came Nuada’s sword, from whose stroke no one
ever escaped or recovered; from Gorias, Lugh’s terrible lance; from
Murias, the Dagda’s cauldron; and from Falias, the Stone of Fál, better
known as the “Stone of Destiny”, which afterwards fell into the hands of
the early kings of Ireland. According to legend, it had the magic
property of uttering a human cry when touched by the rightful King of
Erin. Some have recognized in this marvellous stone the same rude block
which Edward I brought from Scone in the year 1300, and placed in
Westminster Abbey, where it now forms part of the Coronation Chair. It
is a curious fact that, while Scottish legend asserts this stone to have
come to Scotland from Ireland, Irish legend should also declare that it
was taken from Ireland to Scotland. This would sound like conclusive
evidence, but it is none the less held by leading modern
archæologists—including Dr. W. F. Skene, who has published a monograph
on the subject[102]—that the Stone of Scone and the Stone of Tara were
never the same. Dr. Petrie identifies the real _Lia Fáil_ with a stone
which has always remained in Ireland, and which was removed from its
original position on Tara Hill, in 1798, to mark the tomb of the rebels
buried close by under a mound now known as “the Croppies’ grave”.[103]
Whether the Tuatha Dé Danann came from earth or heaven, they landed in a
dense cloud upon the coast of Ireland on the mystic first of May without
having been opposed, or even noticed by the people whom it will be
convenient to follow the manuscript authorities in calling the “Fir
Bolgs”.[104] That those might still be ignorant of their coming, the
Morrígú, helped by Badb and Macha, made use of the magic they had
learned in Findias, Gorias, Murias, and Falias. They spread
“druidically-formed showers and fog-sustaining shower-clouds” over the
country, and caused the air to pour down fire and blood upon the Fir
Bolgs, so that they were obliged to shelter themselves for three days
and three nights. But the Fir Bolgs had druids of their own, and, in the
end, they put a stop to these enchantments by counter-spells, and the
air grew clear again.
The Tuatha Dé Danann, advancing westward, had reached a place called the
“Plain of the Sea”, in Leinster, when the two armies met. Each sent out
a warrior to parley. The two adversaries approached each other
cautiously, their eyes peeping over the tops of their shields. Then,
coming gradually nearer, they spoke to one another, and the desire to
examine each other’s weapons made them almost friends.
The envoy of the Fir Bolgs looked with wonder at the
“beautifully-shaped, thin, slender, long, sharp-pointed spears” of the
warrior of the Tuatha Dé Danann, while the ambassador of the tribe of
the goddess Danu was not less impressed by the lances of the Fir Bolgs,
which were “heavy, thick, pointless, but sharply-rounded”. They agreed
to exchange weapons, so that each side might, by an examination of them,
be able to come to some opinion as to its opponent’s strength. Before
parting, the envoy of the Tuatha Dé Danann offered the Fir Bolgs,
through their representative, peace, with a division of the country into
two equal halves.
The Fir Bolg envoy advised his people to accept this offer. But their
king, Eochaid, son of Erc, would not. “If we once give these people
half,” he said, “they will soon have the whole.”
The people of the goddess Danu were, on the other hand, very much
impressed by the sight of the Fir Bolgs’ weapons. They decided to secure
a more advantageous position, and, retreating farther west into
Connaught, to a plain then called Nia, but now Moytura, near the present
village of Cong, they drew up their line at its extreme end, in front of
the pass of Balgatan[105], which offered a retreat in case of defeat.
The Fir Bolgs followed them, and encamped on the nearer side of the
plain. Then Nuada, King of the Tuatha Dé Danann, sent an ambassador
offering the same terms as before. Again the Fir Bolgs declined them.
“Then when”, asked the envoy, “do you intend to give battle?”
“We must have a truce,” they said, “for we want time to repair our
armour, burnish our helmets, and sharpen our swords. Besides, we must
have spears like yours made for us, and you must have spears like ours
made for you.”
The result of this chivalrous, but, to modern ideas, amazing, parley was
that a truce of one hundred and five days was agreed upon.
It was on Midsummer Day that the opposing armies at last met. The people
of the goddess Danu appeared in “a flaming line”, wielding their
“red-bordered, speckled, and firm shields”. Opposite to them were ranged
the Fir Bolgs, “sparkling, brilliant, and flaming, with their swords,
spears, blades, and trowel-spears”. The proceedings began with a kind of
deadly hurley-match, in which thrice nine of the Tuatha Dé Danann played
the same number of the Fir Bolgs, and were defeated and killed. Then
followed another parley, to decide how the battle should be carried on,
whether there should be fighting every day or only on every second day.
Moreover, Nuada obtained from Eochaid an assurance that the battles
should always be fought with equal numbers, although this was, we are
told, “very disagreeable to the Fir Bolg king, because he had largely
the advantage in the numbers of his army”. Then warfare recommenced with
a series of single combats, like those of the Greeks and Trojans in the
“Iliad”. At the end of each day the conquerors on both sides went back
to their camps, and were refreshed by being bathed in healing baths of
medicinal herbs.
So the fight went on for four days, with terrible slaughter upon each
side. A Fir Bolg champion called Sreng fought in single combat with
Nuada, the King of the Gods, and shore off his hand and half his shield
with one terrific blow. Eochaid, the King of the Fir Bolgs, was even
less fortunate than Nuada; for he lost his life. Suffering terribly from
thirst, he went, with a hundred of his men, to look for water, and was
followed, and pursued as far as the strand of Ballysadare, in Sligo.
Here he turned to bay, but was killed, his grave being still marked by a
tumulus. The Fir Bolgs, reduced at last to three hundred men, demanded
single combat until all upon one side were slain. But, sooner than
consent to this, the Tuatha Dé Danann offered them a fifth part of
Ireland, whichever province they might choose. They agreed, and chose
Connaught, ever afterwards their especial home, and where, until the
middle of the seventeenth century, men were still found tracing their
descent from Sreng.
The whole story has a singularly historical, curiously unmythological
air about it, which contrasts strangely with the account of the other
battle of the same name which the Tuatha Dé Danann waged afterwards with
the Fomors. The neighbourhood of Cong still preserves both relics and
traditions of the fight. Upon the plain of “Southern Moytura” (as it is
called, to distinguish it from the “Northern Moytura” of the second
battle) are many circles and tumuli. These circles are especially
numerous near the village itself; and it is said that there were
formerly others, which have been used for making walls and dykes. Large
cairns of stones, too, are scattered over what was certainly once the
scene of a great battle.[106] These various prehistoric monuments each
have their still-told story; and Sir William Wilde, as he relates in his
_Lough Corrib_,[107] was so impressed by the unexpected agreement
between the details of the legendary battle, as he read them in the
ancient manuscript, and the traditions still attaching to the mounds,
circles, and cairns, that he tells us he could not help coming to the
conclusion that the account was absolutely historical. Certainly the
coincidences are curious. His opinion was that the “Fir Bolgs” were a
colony of Belgæ, and that the “Tuatha Dé Danann” were Danes. But the
people of the goddess Danu are too obviously mythical to make it worth
while to seek any standing-ground for them in the world of reality. In
their superhuman attributes, they are quite different from the Fir
Bolgs. In the epical cycle it is made as clear that the Tuatha Dé Danann
are divine beings as it is that the Fir Bolg, the Fir Domnann, and the
Fir Gaillion stand on exactly the same footing as the men of Ulster.
Later history records by what Milesian kings and on what terms of
rack-rent the three tribes were allowed settlements in other parts of
Ireland than their native Connaught. They appear in ancient, mediæval,
and almost modern chronicles as the old race of the land. The truth
seems to be that the whole story of the war between the gods and the Fir
Bolgs is an invention of comparatively late times. In the earliest
documents there is only one battle of Moytura, fought between the people
of the goddess Danu and the Fomors. The idea of doubling it seems to
date from after the eleventh century;[108] and its inventor may very
well have used the legends concerning this battle-field, where two
unknown armies had fought in days gone by, in compiling his story. It
never belonged to the same genuine mythological stratum as the legend of
the original battle fought by the Tuatha Dé Danann, the gods of the
Gaels, against the Fomors, the gods of the Iberians.
-----
Footnote 95:
De Jubainville: _Cycle Mythologique_, chap. V.
Footnote 96:
Rhys: “The Mythographical Treatment of Celtic Ethnology”, _Scottish
Review_, Oct. 1890.
Footnote 97:
De Jubainville: _Cycle Mythologique_, chap. V. Rhys: _Hibbert
Lectures_, pp. 90, 91.
Footnote 98:
Pronounced _Ecca_ or _Eohee_.
Footnote 99:
Gomme: _Ethnology in Folklore_, chap. III—“The Mythic Influence of a
Conquered Race”.
Footnote 100:
Elton: _Origins of English History_, note to p. 136.
Footnote 101:
It has been contended that the Fenians were originally the gods or
heroes of an aboriginal people in Ireland, the myths about them
representing the pre-Celtic and pre-Aryan ideal, as the sagas of the
Red Branch of Ulster embodied that of the Celtic Aryans. The question,
however, is as yet far from being satisfactorily solved.
Footnote 102:
_The Coronation Stone_, by William Forbes Skene.
Footnote 103:
See _History and Antiquities of Tara Hill_.
Footnote 104:
Our authorities for the details of this war between the Tuatha Dé
Danann and the Fir Bolgs are the opening verses of the Harleian MS.
5280, as translated by Stokes and De Jubainville, and Eugene O’Curry’s
translations, in his _MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History_ and his
_Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_, from a manuscript
preserved at Trinity College, Dublin.
Footnote 105:
Now called Benlevi.
Footnote 106:
See Dr. James Fergusson: _Rude Stone Monuments_, pp. 177-180.
Footnote 107:
_Lough Corrib, Its Shores and Islands_, by Sir William R. Wilde, chap.
VIII.
Footnote 108:
De Jubainville: _Cycle Mythologique Irlandais_, p. 156.
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