Topic: Celtic Mythology

[Prometheus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk5-ynRPfss
A History of Britain - The Humans Arrive (1 Million BC - 8000 BC)

https://www.google.com/search?q=doggerland  between Britain and Europe Mainland

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A History of Britain - Stone Age Builders (8000 BC - 2200 BC)

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A History of Britain - Bronze and Iron (2200 BC - 600 BC)



https://archive.org/details/mythologyofallra31gray/page/n17


THE MYTHOLOGY OF ALL RACES


Volume III
CELTIC




PLATE I


Brug na Boinne

The tumulus at New Grange is the largest of a
group of three at Dowth, New Grange, and Knowth,
County Meath, on the banks of the Boyne in the
plain known to Irish tales as Brug na Boinne, the
traditional burial-place of the Tuatha De Danann
and of the Kings of Tara. It was also associated
with the Tuatha De Danann as their immortal
dwelling-place, e. g. of Oengus of the Brug (see pp.
50-51, 66-67, 1 76 - 77 )- The tumuli are perhaps of
the neolithic age (for plans see Plate VI, A and B).



THE MYTHOLOGY
OF ALL RACES

IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES
LOUIS HERBERT GRAY, A.M., PH.D., Editor

GEORGE FOOT MOORE, A.M., D.D., LL.D., Consulting Editor


CELTIC

BY

JOHN ARNOTT MACCULLOCH,

HON. D. D. (ST. ANDREWS)


SLAVIC

BY

JAN MACHAL, ph.d.

WITH A CHAPTER ON BALTIC MYTHOLOGY BY
THE EDITOR


VOLUME III



BOSTON

MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
M DCCCC XVIII


mm

r-3


Copyright, 1918
By Marshall Jones Company

Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
All rights reserved




plate facing page

I Brug na Boinne — Coloured Frontispiece

II Gaulish Coins 8


1. Horse and Wheel-Symbol

2. Horse, Conjoined Circles and S-Symbol

3. Man-Headed Horse and Wheel

4. Bull and S-Symbol

5. Bull

6. Sword and Warrior Dancing Before it
7-8. Swastika Composed of Two S-Symbols (?)

9-10. Bull’s Head and two S-Symbols; Bear Eating a
Serpent

11. Wolf and S-Symbols

III Gaulish Coins 14

1. Animals Opposed, and Boar and Wolf (?)

2. Man-Headed Horse and Bird, and Bull Ensign

3. Squatting Divinity, and Boar and S-Symbol or Snake


4. Horse and Bird

5. Bull and Bird

6. Boar

7. Animals Opposed

IV God with the Wheel 20

V Smertullos 40

VI A. Plan of the Brug na Boinne 50

B. Plan of the Brug na Boinne 50

VII Three-Headed God 56

VIII Squatting God 72

IX A. Altar from Saintes 86

B. Reverse Side of the same Altar 86

X Incised Stones from Scotland 94

1. The “Picardy Stone”

2. The “Newton Stone”


X


ILLUSTRATIONS


PLATE FACING PAGE

XI Gauls and Romans in Combat 106

XII Three-Headed God II2

XIII Sucellos jjg

XIV Dispater and Aeracura (?) 120

XV Epona 124

XVI Cernunnos .... 128

XVII Incised Stones from Scotland 134.

1. The “Crichie Stone”

2. An Incised Scottish Stone

XVIII Menhir of Kernuz 140

XIX Bulls and S-Symbols 132

1, 6. Carvings of Bulls from Burghhead
2-5. S-Symbols

XX A. Altar from Notre Dame. Esus 158

B. Altar from Notre Dame. Tarvos Trigaranos . 158

XXI Altar from Treves . . . .• 166

XXII Page of an Irish Manuscript 176

XXIII Artio 186

XXIV Boars 188

XXV Horned God 204

XXVI Sucellos 208

XXVII Zadusnica 237

XXVIII Djadek 244

XXIX Setek 244

XXX Lesni Zenka 261

XXXI Svantovit 279

XXXII Festival of Svantovit 281

XXXIII Radigast 286

XXXIV Idealizations of Slavic Divinities 288

1. Svantovit

2. Ziva

3. Cernobog and Tribog

XXXV Veles 300

XXXVI Ancient Slavic Sacrifice 305

XXXVII The Sacred Oak of Romowe. . . 305


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


BY

JOHN ARNOTT MACCULLOCH, Hon. D.D. (St. Andrews.^

RECTOR OF ST. SAVIOUR’S, BRIDGE OF ALLAN, STIRLINGSHIRE, AND HONORARY
CANON OF CUMBRAE CATHEDRAL




TO


DR. JAMES HASTINGS

Editor of the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics,
the Dictionary of the Bible , etc.

WITH THE GRATITUDE AND RESPECT OF THE AUTHOR



AUTHOR’S PREFACE


r j a former work * I have considered at some length the re-
ligion of the ancient Celts; the present study describes those
Celtic myths which remain to us as a precious legacy from
the past, and is supplementary to the earlier book. These
myths, as I show, seldom exist as the pagan Celts knew them,
for they have been altered in various ways, since romance,
pseudo-history, and the influences of Christianity have all
affected many of them. Still they are full of interest, and it
is not difficult to perceive traces of old ideas and mythical
conceptions beneath the surface. Transformation allied to
rebirth was asserted of various Celtic divinities, and if the
myths have been transformed, enough of their old selves re-
mained for identification after romantic writers and pseudo-
historians gave them a new existence. Some mythic incidents
doubtless survive much as they were in the days of old, but
all alike witness to the many-sided character of the life and
thought of their Celtic progenitors and transmitters. Romance
and love, war and slaughter, noble deeds as well as foul, wordy
boastfulness but also delightful poetic utterance, glamour and
sordid reality, beauty if also squalid conditions of life, are found
side by side in these stories of ancient Ireland and Wales.

The illustrations are the work of my daughter, Sheila Mac-
Culloch, and I have to thank the authorities of the British
Museum for permission to copy illustrations from their publica-
tions; Mr. George Coffey for permission to copy drawings and
photographs of the Tumuli at New Grange from his book New
Grange ( Brugh na Boinne) and other Inscribed Tumuli in Ire-
land; the Librarians of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Bod-

* The Religion of the Ancient Celts, Edinburgh, 1911.


6


AUTHOR’S PREFACE


leian Library, Oxford, for permission to photograph pages
from well-known Irish MSS.; and Mr. R. J. Best for the use
of his photographs of MSS.

In writing this book it has been some relief to try to lose
oneself in it and to forget, in turning over the pages of the
past, the dark cloud which hangs over our modern life in these
sad days of the great war, sad yet noble, because of the freely
offered sacrifice of life and all that life holds dear by so many of
my countrymen and our heroic allies in defence of liberty.

J. A. MACCULLOCH.

Bridge of Allan, Scotland,

May, 16, 1916.


hi — 1


INTRODUCTION


I N all lands whither the Celts came as conquerors there was
an existing population with whom they must eventually
have made alliances. They imposed their language upon them
— the Celtic regions are or were recently regions of Celtic
speech — but just as many words of the aboriginal vernacular
must have been taken over by the conquerors, or their own
tongue modified by Celtic, so must it have been with their
mythology. Celtic and pre-Celtic folk alike had many myths,
and these were bound to intermingle, with the result that such
Celtic legends as we possess must contain remnants of the
aboriginal mythology, though it, like the descendants of
the aborigines, has become Celtic. It would be difficult, in
the existing condition of the old mythology, to say this is of
Celtic, that of non-Celtic origin, for that mythology is now
but fragmentary. The gods of the Celts were many, but of
large cantles of the Celtic race — the Celts of Gaul and of
other parts of the continent of Europe — scarcely any myths
have survived. A few sentences of Classical writers or images
of divinities or scenes depicted on monuments point to what
was once a rich mythology. These monuments, as well as in-
scriptions with names of deities, are numerous there as well as
in parts of Roman Britain, and belong to the Romano-Celtic
period. In Ireland, Wales, and north-western Scotland they
do not exist, though in Ireland and Wales there is a copious
literature based on mythology. Indeed, we may express the
condition of affairs in a formula: Of the gods of the Conti-
nental Celts many monuments and no myths; of those of the
Insular Celts many myths but no monuments.

The myths of the Continental Celts were probably never

III — 2


8


INTRODUCTION


committed to writing. They were contained in the sacred verses
taught by the Druids, but it was not lawful to write them
down ; 1 they were tabu, and doubtless their value would have
vanished if they had been set forth in script. The influences of
Roman civilization and religion were fatal to the oral mythol-
ogy taught by Druids, who were ruthlessly extirpated, while
the old religion was assimilated to that of Rome. The gods
were equated with Roman gods, who tended to take their
place; the people became Romanized and forgot their old
beliefs. Doubtless traditions survived among the folk, and
may still exist as folk-lore or fairy superstition, just as folk-
customs, the meaning of which may be uncertain to those who
practise them, are descended from the rituals of a vanished
paganism; but such existing traditions could be used only
with great caution as indexes of the older myths.

There were hundreds of Gaulish and Romano-British gods,
as an examination of the Latin inscriptions found in Gaul and
Britain 2 or of Alfred Holder’s Altceltischer Sprachschatz 3 will
show. Many are equated with the same Roman god, and most
of them were local deities with similar functions, though some
may have been more widely popular; but we can never be sure
to what aspect of the Roman divinity’s personality a parallel
was found in their functions. Moreover, though in some cases
philology shows us the meaning of their names, it would avail
little to speculate upon that meaning, tempting as this may be
— a temptation not always successfully resisted. This is also
true of the symbols depicted on monuments, though here the
function, if not the myth, is more readily suggested. Why are
some deities horned or three-headed, or why does one god carry
a wheel, a hammer, or an S-symbol? Horns may suggest divine
strength or an earlier beast-god, the wheel may be the sun, the
hammer may denote creative power. Other symbols resemble
those of Classical divinities, and here the meaning is more ob-
vious. The three Matres , or “Mothers,” with their symbols of
fertility were Earth Mothers; the horned deity with a bag of



PLATE II

Gaulish Coins

1. Coin of the Nervii, with horse and wheel-
symbol (cf. Plates III, 4, IV, XV).

2. Gaulish coin, with horse, conjoined circles,
and S-symbol (cf. Plates III, 3, IV, XIX, 2-5).

3. Coin of the Cenomani, with man-headed horse
(cf. Plate III, 2) and wheel.

4. Coin of the Remi (?), with bull (cf. Plates III,
5, IX, B, XIX, 1, 6, XX, B, XXI), and S-symbol.

5. Coin of the Turones, with bull.

6. Armorican coin, showing sword and warrior
dancing before it (exemplifying the cult of weapons;
cf. pp. 33-34).

7. 8. Gaulish coins, with swastika composed of
two S-symbols (?).

9, 10. Gaulish coin, showing bull’s head and two
S-symbols; reverse, bear (cf. Plate XXIII) eating
a serpent.

11. Coin of the Carnutes, showing wolf (cf. Plate
III, 1) and S-symbols.



9


io


ii





INTRODUCTION


9


grain was a god of plenty. Such a goddess as Epona was a
divinity of horses and mules, and she is represented as riding a
horse or feeding foals. But what myths lie behind the repre-
sentation of Esus cutting down a tree, whose branches, extend-
ing round another side of the monument, cover a bull and three
cranes — Tarvos Trigaranos? Is this the incident depicted on
another monument with a bull’s head among branches on
which two birds are perched ? 4

Glimpses of myths are seen in Classical references to Celtic
gods. Caesar, whose information (or that of his source) about
the gods of Gaul is fragmentary, writes: “They worship chiefly
the god Mercury. Of him there are many simulacra ; 5 they
make him inventor of all arts and guide of journeys and
marches, and they suppose him to have great power over the
acquiring of money and in matters of merchandise. After him
come Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. Concerning these
they hold much the same opinions as other nations — Apollo
repels diseases, Minerva teaches the beginnings of arts and
crafts, Jupiter sways celestial affairs, Mars directs wars .” 6
There is no evidence that all the Gauls worshipped a few gods.
Many local deities with similar functions but different names
is the evidence of the inscriptions, and these are grouped col-
lectively by Caesar and assimilated to Roman divinities. There
are many local Mercuries, Minervas, Apollos, and the like,
each with his Celtic name attached to that of the Roman god.
Or, again, they are nameless, as in the case of the Yorkshire
inscription, “To the god who invented roads and paths” —
an obvious Mercury. Caesar adds, “The Gauls declare that
they are descended from Dispater, and this, they say, has been
handed down by the Druids.” 7 If, as the present writer has
tried to show elsewhere , 8 Dispater is the Roman name of a
Celtic god, whether Cernunnos, or the god with the hammer,
or Esus, or all three, who ruled a rich underworld, then this
myth resembles many told elsewhere of the first men emerging
from the earth, the autochthones. The parallel Celtic myth


IO


INTRODUCTION


has not survived. In Ireland, if it ever existed there, it gave
place to stories of descent from fictitious personages, like
Mile, son of Bile, invented by the early scribes, or from Biblical
patriarchs.

Apollonius, writing in the third century b. c., reports a
Celtic myth about the waters of Eridanus. Apollo, driven by
his father’s threats from heaven because of the son whom
Karonis bore to him, fled to the land of the Hyperboreans;
and the tears which he shed on the way formed the tossing
waters . 9 Some Greek myth is here mingled with a local legend
about the origin of a stream and a Celtic god, possibly Belenos,
who had a neighbouring temple at Aquileia. In an island of the
Hyperboreans (a Celtic people dwelling beyond the Rhipaean
Mountains whence Boreas blew) was a circular temple where
Apollo was worshipped. Every year near the vernal equinox
the god appeared in the sky, harping and dancing, until the
rising of the Pleiades . 10 It is natural that this “circular temple”
should have been found in Stonehenge.

Lucian (second century a. d.) describes a Gaulish god Og-
mios, represented as an old man, bald-headed and with
wrinkled and sun-burnt skin, yet possessing the attributes of
Hercules — the lion’s skin, the club, the bow, and a sheath
hung from his shoulder. He draws a multitude by beautiful
chains of gold and amber attached to their ears, and they follow
him with joy. The other end of the chains is fixed to his tongue,
and he turns to his captives a smiling countenance. A Gaul
explained that the native god of eloquence was regarded as
Hercules, because he had accomplished his feats through elo-
quence; he was old, for speech shows itself best in old age; the
chains indicated the bond between the orator’s tongue and the
ears of enraptured listeners . 11

Lucian may have seen such a representation or heard of a
Gaulish myth of this kind, and as we shall see, an Irish god
Ogma, whose name is akin to that of Ogmios, was a divine
warrior and a god of poetry and speech. Ogma is called


INTRODUCTION


ii


grianainech (“sun-faced,” or “shining-faced”), perhaps a par-
allel to Lucian’s description of the face of Ogmios. The head of
Ogmios occurs on Gaulish coins, and from one of his eyes pro-
ceeds a ray or nail. This has suggested a parallel with the
Ulster hero Cuchulainn in his “distortion,” when the Ion laith
(? “champion’s light”) projected from his forehead thick and
long as a man’s fist. Another curious parallel occurs in the
Tain Bo Cualnge , or “Cattle-Spoil of Cualnge,” where, among
the Ulster forces, is a strong man with seven chains on his neck,
and seven men dragged along at the end of each, so that their
noses strike the ground, whereupon they reproach him. Is this
a distorted reminiscence of the myth of Ogmios ?

A British goddess Sul, equated with Minerva at Bath, is
mentioned by Solinus (third century a. d.) as presiding over
warm springs. In her temple perpetual fires burned and never
grew old, for where the fire wasted away it turned into shining
globes . 12 The latter statement is travellers’ gossip, but the
“eternal fires” recall the sacred fire of St. Brigit at Kildare,
tended by nineteen nuns in turn, a day at a time, and on the
twentieth by the dead saint herself. The fire was tabu to
males, who must not even breathe on it . 13 This breath tabu in
connexion with fire is found among Parsis, Brahmans, Slavs,
in Japan, and formerly in Rugen. The saint succeeded to the
myth or ritual of a goddess, the Irish Brigit, or the Brigindo
or Brigantia of Gaulish and British inscriptions, who was like-
wise equated with Minerva.

A tabued grove near Marseilles is mythically described by
Lucan, who wrote in the first century of our era, and doubtless
his account is based on local legends. The trees of the grove
were stained with the blood of sacrifices, and the hollow cav-
erns were heard to roar at the movement of the earth; the
yew trees bent down and rose again; flames burned but did not
consume the wood; dragons entwined surrounded the oaks.
Hence people were afraid to approach the sacred grove, and
the priest did not venture within its precincts at midnight or


12

[Prometheus]

INTRODUCTION


midday, lest the god should appear — “the destruction that
wasteth at noonday.” 14 In Galatia Artemis was thought to
wander with demons in the forest at midday, tormenting to
death those whom she met; while Diana in Autun was re-
garded as a midday demon who haunted cross-roads and for-
ests. Whether these divinities represent a Celtic goddess is
uncertain, and their fateful midday aspect may have been
suggested by the “midday demon” of the Septuagint version
of Psalm xc. 6. Both accounts occur in lives of saints.

Several references suggest that the gods punished the taking
of things dedicated to themselves, and therefore tabu to men.
Caesar says that this was a criminal action punished by torture
and death, 15 and Irish myth also discloses the disastrous results
of breach of tabu. The awe of the priest of the grove is par-
alleled by incidents of Celtic history. After the battle of Allia
in 390 b. c., where the Celts saw divine aid in the flight of the
Romans and stood awestruck before it, they were afraid of the
night. 16 After the battle of Delphi (279 b. c.) “madness from
a god” fell on them at night, and they attacked each other, no
longer recognizing each other’s speech. 17 Another fear based
on a myth is referred to in Classical sources, that of the future
cataclysm. The Celts did not dread earthquakes or high tides,
which, indeed, they attacked with weapons; but they feared
the fall of the sky and the day when fire and water must pre-
vail. An Irish vow perhaps refers to this: something would be
done if the sky with its showers of stars did not fall or the earth
burst or the sea submerge the world. Any untoward event
might be construed as the coming of this catastrophe or analo-
gous to it. How, then, was the sky meanwhile supported?
Perhaps on mountain-peaks like that near the source of the
Rhone, which the native population called “the column of the
sun,” and which was so lofty that it hid the northern sun from
the southern folk. 18 Gaidoz says that “the belief that the earth
rests on columns is the sole debris of ancient cosmogony of
which we know in Irish legends, but we have only the reflexion


INTRODUCTION


13


of it in a hymn and gloss of the Liber Hymnorum. In vaunting
the pre-eminence of two saints who were like great gods of old
Christian Ireland, Ultan says of Brigit that she was ‘half of
the colonnade of the kingdom (of the world) with Patrick the
eminent.’ The gloss is more explicit — ‘as there are two pillars
in the world, so are Brigit and Patrick in Ireland.’” 19 In some
of the romantic Irish voyages islands are seen resting on pillars,
and an echo of these myths is found in the Breton tradition that
the church at Kernitou stands on four columns, resting on a
congealed sea which will submerge the structure when it be-
comes liquid . 20

Divine help is often referred to in Irish myths, and a parallel
instance occurs in Justin’s allusion to the guidance of the
Segovesi by birds to the Danubian regions which they con-
quered . 21 Such myths are depicted on coins, on which a horse
appears led by a bird, which sometimes whispers in its ear.
Heroes were also inspired by birds to found towns. Birds were
objects of worship and divination with the Celts, and divinities
transformed themselves into the shape of birds, or birds formed
their symbols.

The birth of heroes from a god and a human mother occurs in
Irish myth. One Classical parallel to this is found in the ac-
count of the origin of the northern Gauls given by Diodorus.
They were descended from Hercules and the beautiful giant
daughter of the King of Celtica, and hence they were taller and
handsomer than other peoples . 22 This is perhaps the Greek
version of a native myth, which is echoed in the Irish tale of
the gigantic daughter of the king of Maidens’ Land and her
love for Fionn . 23 Again, when Diodorus speaks of Hercules as-
sembling his followers, advancing into Celtica, improving the
laws, and founding a city called Alesia, honoured ever since by
the Celts as the centre of their kingdom, he is probably giving
a native myth in terms of Greek mythology . 24 Some native
god or hero was concerned, and his story fitted that of Her-
cules, who became popular with the Celts.


14


INTRODUCTION


The Celts had beliefs resembling those of the Greeks and
Romans about incubi. Demons called dusii sought the couches
of women out of lust, a belief reported by sub-Classical authors.
The Classical evidence for Celtic belief in divine descent is also
furnished by the form of several proper names which have
been recorded, while lineage from a river or river-god is as-
sociated with the Belgic Viridomar . 25

A legend reported by Pliny concerns some natural product,
perhaps a fossil echinus , in explanation of the origin of which
this myth was current, or to it an existing serpent-myth had
been attached. Numerous serpents collected on a day in sum-
mer and, intertwining, formed a ball with the foam from their
bodies, after which their united hissings threw it into the air.
According to the Druids, he who would obtain it must catch it
on a mantle before it touched the ground and must escape
hastily, putting running water between himself and the pur-
suing serpents. The ball was used magically . 26

Classical observers cite vaguely some myths about the other-
world and they admired profoundly the Celtic belief in im-
mortality, which, if Lucan’s words are correct, was that of the
soul animating a new body there. Diodorus also affirms this,
though he compares it with the Pythagorean doctrine of trans-
migration ; 27 yet in the same passage he shows that the dead
passed to another world and were not reborn on earth. Irish
mythology tells us nothing about the world of the dead, though
it has much to say of a gods’ land or Elysium, to which the
living were sometimes invited by immortals. This Elysium
was in distant islands, in the hollow hills, or under the waters.
Plutarch, on the authority of Demetrius, who may have been a
Roman functionary in Britain, reports that round Britain are
many desert islands, named after gods and heroes. Demetrius
himself visited one island lying nearest these, inhabited by a
people whom the Britons regarded as sacred, and while he was
there, a storm arose with fiery bolts falling. This the people
explained as the passing away of one of the mighty, for when a



PLATE III


Gaulish Coins

1. Coin of the Senones, showing on one side two
animals opposed, and on the reverse a boar and a
wolf (?) opposed (cf. Plates II, n, XXIV).

2. Gaulish coin, with man-headed horse and bird,
and, below, a bull ensign (cf. Plates II, 3-5, 9, IX,
B, XIX, 1, 6, XX, B, XXI).

3. Coin of the Remi, showing squatting divinity
with a torque in the right hand (cf. Plates VIII, IX,
XXV), and on the reverse a boar and S-symbol or
snake.

4. Armorican coin, with horse and bird.

5. Coin of the Carnutes, with bull and bird.

6. Gaulish coin from Greek model, with boar.

7. Gaulish coin of the Senones, with animals
opposed.







INTRODUCTION


15


great soul died, the atmosphere was affected and pestilences
were caused. Demetrius does not say whither the soul went,
either to the islands or elsewhere, but islands named after gods
and heroes suggest the Irish divine Elysium, and this is con-
firmed by what Demetrius adds, and by what Plutarch reports
in another work. On one of the islands Kronos is imprisoned,
and Briareos keeps guard over him , 28 along with many deities
(Sadovas) who are his attendants and servants. What Celtic
divinities or heroes lurk under these names is unknown,
but the myth resembles traditions of Arthur in Avalon (Ely-
sium), or of Fionn or Arthur sleeping in a hollow hill, waiting
to start up at the hour of their country’s need. Elsewhere
Plutarch speaks of an island in which the barbarians say that
Kronos is imprisoned by Jupiter in a cavern. There Kronos
sleeps, fed by birds with ambrosia, while his son lies beside him
as if guarding him. The surrounding sea, clogged with earth, ap-
pears to be solid, and people go to the island, where they spend
thirteen years waiting on the god. Many remain, because there
is no toil or trouble there, and devote their time to sacrificing,
singing hymns, or studying legends and philosophy. The cli-
mate is exquisite, and the island is steeped in fragrance. Some-
times the god opposes their departure by appearing to them
along with those who minister to him, and these divine min-
istrants themselves prophesy or tell things which have been
revealed to them as dreams of Saturn when they visit his
cave. Plutarch’s alleged informant had waited on the god and
studied astrology and geometry, and before going to another
island he carried with him golden cups . 29 In this latter story
the supposed studies and ritual of the Druids are mingled with
some distorted tradition of Elysium, and the reference to cups
of gold carried from the island perhaps points to the myth of
things useful to man brought from the land of the gods . 30

The sixth century Byzantine historian Procopius has a
curious story about the island of “ Brittia,” which was divided
by a wall from north to south. West of the wall none could


i6


INTRODUCTION


live, so foul was the air, so many the vipers and evil beasts;
but in its inhabited part dwelt Angles, Frisians, and Britons.
The island lay between Britannia and Thule. Thule is prob-
ably Scandinavia; Britannia, which is, strictly speaking,
Britain, is confused with the region lying between Brittany
and the mouths of the Scheldt and Rhine. Brittia is Britain;
the wall is the Roman Wall, shown on Ptolemy’s map running
north and south at the present Scottish border, because Scot-
land was represented as lying at right angles to England. The
region beyond the wall, mountainous, forest-clad, and inac-
cessible, was easily conceived as a sinister place by those who
heard of it only vaguely. Procopius then says that on the coast
of the Continent fishermen and farmers are exempt from taxa-
tion because it is their duty to ferry souls over to Brittia, doing
this in turn. At midnight they hear a knocking at their door
and muffled voices calling; but when they reach the shore, they
see only empty boats, not their own. In these they set out and
presently perceive that the boats have become laden, the gun-
wale being close to the water; and within an hour Brittia is
reached, though ordinarily it would take a day and a night to
cross the sea. There the boats are invisibly unladen, and al-
though no one has been seen, a loud voice is heard asking
each soul his name and country . 31 The Roman poet Claudian,
writing toward the close of the fourth and the beginning of the
fifth century of our era, had perhaps heard such a story, though
he confuses it with that of Odysseus and the shades . 32 At the
extremity of the Gaulish coast is a place protected from the
tides, where Odysseus by sacrifice called up the shades. There
is heard the murmur of their complaint, and the inhabitants
see pale phantoms and dead forms flitting about . 33 This
strictly concerns the Homeric shades, for Classical testimony
to the Celtic other-world, as well as Irish stories of the return
of the dead, never suggests “pale phantoms.” Claudian may
have heard some story like that of Procopius, though it is by
no means certain that the latter is reporting a Celtic belief


INTRODUCTION


17


for other peoples than the Celts dwelt in his time opposite
Britain. Possibly, however, the Celts believed that the dead
went to distant islands. Even now the Bretons speak of the
“Bay of Souls” at Raz, at the extreme point of Armorica, while
folk-lore tells how the drowned are nightly conveyed by boat
from Cape Raz to the isle of Tevennec . 34 If the Celtic dead
went to an island, this may explain the title said by Pliny,
quoting Philemon (second century b. c.), to have been given
by the Cimbri to the northern sea, Morimarusam = Mortuum
Mare or possibly Mortuorum Mare (“ Sea of the Dead”) — the
sea which the dead crossed. The title may refer, however, to an
unchangeably calm sea, and such a sea has always been feared,
or to the ice-covered sea, which Strabo 35 regarded as an im-
passable spongy mixture of earth, water, and air. The sup-
posed Celtic belief in an island of the dead might also explain
why, according to Pliny, no animal or man beside the Gallic
ocean dies with a rising tide 36 — a belief still current in Brit-
tany; the dead could be carried away only by an outflowing
tide. But whether or not the Celts believed in such an island,
it is certain that no Irish story of the island Elysium connects
that with them, but associates it only with divine beings and
favoured mortals who were lured thither in their lifetime.

In Wales and Ireland, where Roman civilization was un-
known, mythology had a better chance of survival. Yet here,
as in Gaul, it was forced to contend with triumphant Chris-
tianity, which was generally hostile to paganism. Still, curi-
ously enough, Christian verity was less destructive of Celtic
myths than was Roman civilization, unless the Insular Celts
were more tenacious of myth than their Continental cousins.
Sooner or later the surviving myths, more often fragments than
finished entities, were written down; the bards and the filid
(learned poets) took pride in preserving the glories of their
race; and even learned Christian monks must have assisted in
keeping the old stories alive. Three factors, however, played
their part in corrupting and disintegrating the myths. The


i8


INTRODUCTION


first of these was the dislike of Christianity to transmit what-
ever directly preserved the memory of the old divinities. In
the surviving stories their divinity is not too closely descried;
they are made as human as possible, though they are still super-
human in power and deed; they are tolerated as a kind of
fairy-folk rather than as gods. Yet they are more than fairies
and they have none of the wretchedness of the decrepit, skin-
clad Zeus of Heine’s Gods in Exile. Side by side with this there
was another tendency, natural to a people who no longer wor-
shipped gods whose names were still more or less familiar.
They were regarded as kings and chiefs and were brought into
a genealogical scheme, while some myths were reduced to
annals of supposititious events. Myth was transmuted into
pseudo-history. This euhemerizing 37 process is found in all
decaying mythologies, but it is outstanding in that of the
ancient Irish. The third factor is the attempt of Christian
scribes to connect the mythical past and its characters with
persons and events of early Scriptural history.

These factors have obscured Irish divine legends, though
enough remains to show how rich and beautiful the mythology
had been. In the two heroic cycles — those of Cuchulainn
and Fionn respectively — the disturbance has been less, and
in these the Celtic magic and glamour are found. Some stories
of the gods escaped these destructive factors, and in them these
delectable traits are also apparent. They are romantic tales
rather than myths, though their mythical quality is obvious.

Two mythical strata exist, one older and purely pagan, in
which gods are immortal, though myth may occasionally have
spoken of their death; the other influenced by the annalistic
scheme and also by Christianity, in which, though the unlike-
ness of the gods to humankind is emphasized, yet they may be
overcome and killed by men. The literary class who rewrote
the myths had less simple ideals than even the Greek mythog-
raphers. They imagined some moving situations and majestic
episodes or borrowed these from the old myths, but they had


INTRODUCTION


19


little sense of proportion and were infected by a vicious rhetori-
cal verbosity and exaggeration. Many tales revel monoto-
nously in war and bloodshed, and the characters are spoiled by
excessive boastfulness. Yet in this later stratum the mytho-
poeic faculty is still at work, inasmuch as tales were written in
which heroes were brought into relation with the old divinities.

The main sources for the study of Irish mythology are the
documents contained in such great manuscripts as the Book
of Leinster and the Book of the Dun Cow ( Leabhar na hUidhre ), 38
written in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but based on
materials of older date. Later manuscripts also contain im-
portant stories. Floating tales and traditions, fairy- and folk-
lore, are also valuable, and much of this material has now been
published . 39

Among the British Celts, or those of them who escaped the
influence of Roman civilization, the mythological remains are
far less copious. Here, too, the euhemerizing process has been at
work, but much more has the element of romance affected the
old myths. They have become romantic tales arranged, as in
the Mabinogion, in definite groups, and the dramatis personae
are the ancient gods, though it is difficult to say whether the
incidents are myths transformed or are fresh romantic inven-
tions of a mythic kind. Still, the Welsh Mabinogion is of great
importance, as well as some parts of Arthurian romance, the
poems about Taliesin, and other fragments of Welsh literature.
The euhemerizing process is still more evident in those portions
of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History which tell of the names and
deeds of kings who were once gods.

Thus if materials for Irish and British mythology are copious,
they must be used with caution, for we cannot be certain that
any one story, however old, ever existed as such in the form of
a pagan myth. As the mountain-peaks of Ireland or Wales or
the Western Isles are often seen dimly through an enshrouding
mist, which now is dispersed in torn wisps, and now gathers
again, lending a more fantastic appearance to the shattered


20


INTRODUCTION


crags, so the gods and their doings are half-recorded and half-
hidden behind the mists of time and false history and romance.
Clear glimpses through this Celtic mist are rare. This is not to
be wondered at when we consider how much of the mythology
has been long forgotten, and how many hands have worked
upon the remainder. The stories are relics of a dead past, as
defaced and inexplicable as the battered monuments of the old
religion. Romancers, would-be historians, Christian opponents
of paganism, biographers of saints, ignorant yet half-believing
folk, have worked their will with them. Folk-tale incidents
have been wrought into the fabric, perhaps were originally
part of it. Gods figure as kings, heroes, saints, or fairies, and a
new mythical past has been created out of the debris of an older
mythology. There is little of the limpid clearness of the myths
of Hellas, and yet enough to delight those who, in our turbulent
modern life, turn a wistful eye upon the past.

[Prometheus]

To make matters worse, modern writers on Celtic tradition
have displayed a twofold tendency. They have resolved every
story into myths of sun, dawn, and darkness, every divinity or
hero into a sun-god or dawn-goddess or ruler of a dark world.
Or those with a touch of mysticism see traces of an esoteric
faith, of mysteries performed among the initiate. In mediaeval
Wales the “Druidic legend” — the idea of an esoteric wisdom
transmitted from old priests and philosophers — formed itself
among half-crazy enthusiasts and has been revived in our own
time by persons of a similar genus. Ireland and the West High-
lands have always been remarkably free of this nonsense,
though some Celts with a turn for agreeing with their interlocu-
tor seem to have persuaded at least one mystic that he was on
the track of esoteric beliefs and ritual there . 40 He did not know
his Celt! The truth is that the mediaeval and later Welsh
Druidists were themselves in the mythopceic stage — crude
Blakes or Swedenborgs — and invented stories of the creed of
the old Druids which had no place in it and are lacking in any
document of genuine antiquity, Welsh or Irish. This is true



PLATE IV

God with the Wheel

This deity, who carries S-symboIs as well as the
wheel, was probably a solar divinity (see p. 8; for
the wheel as a symbol cf. Plate II, i, 3, and for the
S-symbol Plates II, 2, 4, 7-9, 11, III, 3, XIX, 2-5).
The statue was found at Chatelet, Haute-Marne,
France.




INTRODUCTION


21


also of the modern “mythological” school. Not satisfied with
the beautiful or wild stories as they stand, they must mytholo-
gize them still further. Hence they have invented a pretty but
ineffectual mythology of their own, which they foist upon our
Celtic forefathers, who would have been mightily surprised to
hear of it. The Celts had clearly defined divinities of war, of
agriculture, of the chase, of poetry, of the other-world, and they
told romantic myths about them. But they did not make all
their goddesses dawn-maidens, or transform every hero into a
sun-god, or his twelve battles into the months of the solar year.
Nor is it likely that they had mystic theories of rebirth, if that
was a wide-spread Celtic belief; and existing examples of it
always concern gods and heroes, not mere mortals. They are
straightforward enough and show no esoteric mystic origin or
tendency, any more than do similar myths among savages, nor
do they set forth philosophic theories of retribution, such as were
evolved by Pythagorean and Indian philosophy. Modern inves-
tigators, themselves in the mythopoeic stage, easily reflect back
their ideas upon old Celtic tales. Just as little had the Celts an
esoteric monotheism or a secret mystery-cult; and such genu-
ine notices of their ancient religion or its priests as have reached
us know nothing of these things, which have been assumed to
exist by enthusiasts during the last two centuries.





CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


CHAPTER I

THE STRIFE OF THE GODS

T HE annalistic account of the groups of people who succes-
sively came to Ireland, some to perish utterly, others to re-
main as colonists, represents the unscientific historian’s attempt
to explain the different races existing there in his time, or of
whom tradition spoke. He wrote, too, with an eye upon Biblical
story, and connected the descendants of the patriarchs with the
folk of Ireland. Three different groups of Noah’s lineage arrived
in successive waves. The first of these, headed by Noah’s grand-
daughter, Cessair, perished, with the exception of her husband.
Then came the Fomorians, descendants of Ham; and finally
the Nemedians, also of the stock of Noah, arrived. According
to one tradition, they, like Cessair’s people and another group
unconnected with Noah — the race of Partholan (Bartholo-
mew) — died to a man, although another legend says that they
returned to Spain, whence they had come. Spain figures
frequently in these annalistic stories, and a close connexion be-
tween it and Ireland is taken for granted. This may be a remi-
niscence of a link by way of trade between the two countries in
prehistoric days, of which, indeed, archaeology presents some
proof. Possibly, too, early Celtic colonists reached Ireland di-
rectly from Spain, rather than through Gaul and Britain.
Still another tradition makes Nemedian survivors wander over
the world, some of their descendants becoming the Britons,
while others returned to Ireland as a new colonizing group —
Firbolgs, Fir-Domnann, and Galioin. A third group of their

descendants who had learned magic came to Ireland — the
hi— 3


24


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


Tuatha De Danann. Finally the Milesians, the ancestors of
the Irish, arrived and conquered the Tuatha De Danann, as
these had defeated the Fomorians . 1

Little of this is actual history, but how much of it is invention,
and how much is based on mythic traditions floating down from
the past, is uncertain. What is certain is that the annalists,
partly as a result of the euhemerizing process, partly through
misunderstanding, mingled groups of gods with tribes or races
of men and regarded them as more or less human. These
various traditions are introductory to the story of the two
battles of Mag-Tured, enlarged from an earlier tale of a single
conflict. An interval of twenty-seven years elapsed between the
two battles, and they were fought in different parts of Ireland
bearing the same name, one in Mayo and the other in Sligo, the
first battle being fought against the Firbolgs, and the second
against the Fomorians, by the Tuatha De Danann.

Having reached Ireland, the Tuatha De Danann established
themselves at Mag-Rein in Connaught. The Firbolgs sent a
huge warrior, Sreng, to parley with them, and to him ap-
proached Bres, son of Elatha, of the Tuatha De Danann. The
warriors gazed long upon each other; then they mutually ad-
mired their weapons, and finally exchanged them, Bres receiv-
ing the heavy, broad-pointed spears of the Firbolg, and Sreng
the light, sharp-pointed lances of Bres. The demand of the in-
vaders was surrender of the half of Ireland, but to this the Fir-
bolgs would not agree. Meanwhile the Tuatha De Danann,
terrified at the heavy Firbolg spears, retreated to Mag-Tured,
Badb, Morrigan, and Macha, three of their women, producing
frogs, rain of fire, and streams of blood against the Firbolgs.
By mutual agreement an armistice was arranged for prepara-
tion, and some from each side even engaged in a hurling match.
Such were the tactics of the time! Each party prepared a heal-
ing well for the wounded, in which medicinal herbs were placed.
Dagda led the forces on the first day, when the Tuatha De
Danann were defeated; but under the command of Ogma,


THE STRIFE OF THE GODS


25


Midir, Bodb Dearg, Diancecht, Aengaba of Norway, Badb,
Macha, Morrigan, and Danann, they were successful on the
second day. On the third day Dagda again led, “for in me you
have an excellent god”; on the fourth day badba, bledlochtana,
and amaite aidgill (“furies,” “monsters,” “hags of doom”)
cried aloud, and their voices resounded in the rocks, waterfalls,
and hollows of the earth. Sreng severed the arm of Nuada,
king of the Tuatha De Danann; Bres was slain by Eochaid,
who, overpowered by thirst, sought water throughout Ireland,
but the wizards of the Tuatha De Danann hid all streams from
him, and he was slain. The Firbolgs, reduced to three hundred,
were still prepared to fight, but when the Tuatha De Danann
offered them peace and the province of Connaught, this was
accepted . 2

As we shall see, the Tuatha De Danann were gods, and their
strife against the Firbolgs, a non-Celtic group, is probably
based on a tradition of war between incoming Celts and abori-
gines. Meanwhile the Tuatha De Danann made alliance with
the Fomorians. Ethne, daughter of Balor, married Cian, son
of Diancecht, her son being the famous Lug. Nuada’s mutila-
tion prevented his continuing as King, for no maimed person
could reign; and the women insisted that the Fomorian Bres,
their adopted son, should receive the throne, since he was son
of Elatha, the Fomorian King. Eri, sister of Elatha, was
counted of the Tuatha De Danann, perhaps because their
mother was also of them, an instance of succession through the
female line; and this would account for Bres becoming King,
though these genealogies are doubtless inventions of the annal-
ists. Bres was son of Elatha and Eri. Such unions of brother
and sister (or half-sister) are common in mythology and were
not unknown in royal houses, e. g. in Egypt and Peru, as a
means of keeping the dynasty pure. One day Eri saw a silver
boat approaching. A noble warrior with golden locks stepped
ashore, clad in an embroidered mantle and wearing a jewelled
golden brooch, and five golden torques round his neck. He


26


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


carried two silvery pointed spears with bronze shafts, and a
golden-hilted sword inlaid with silver. Eri was so overcome by
his appearance that she easily surrendered to him and wept
bitterly when he rose to leave her. Then he drew from his
finger a golden ring and bade her not part with it save to one
whose finger it should fit. Elatha was his name, and she would
bear a son Eochaid Bres, or “the Beautiful.” At seven years
old Bres was as a boy of fourteen . 3

Bres was miserly and caused much murmuring among the
Tuatha De Danann. “Their knives were not greased by him;
and however often they visited him their breaths did not smell
of ale.” No poets, bards, or musicians were in his household,
and no champions proved their prowess, save Ogma, who had
the slavish daily task of carrying a load of fuel, two-thirds of
which were swept from him by the sea, because he was weak
through hunger . 4 Bres claimed the milk of all brown, hairless
cows, and when these proved to be few in number, he caused
the kine of Munster to pass through a fire of bracken so that
they might become hairless and brown , 6 this tale being possibly
connected with the ritual passing of cattle through fires at Bel-
tane (May-Day). Another version of the tale, however, makes
it less pleasant for Bres. He demanded a hundred men’s drink
from the milk of a hornless dun cow or a cow of some other
colour from every house in Ireland; but by the advice of Lug
and Findgoll, Nechtan, King of Munster, singed the kine in a
fire of fern and smeared them with a porridge of flax-seed.
Three hundred wooden cows with dark brown pails in lieu of
udders were made, and the pails were dipped in black bog-
stuff. When Bres inspected them, the bog-stuff was squeezed
out like milk; but since he was under geis , or tabu, to drink
whatever was milked, the result of his swallowing so much bog-
stuff was a gradual wasting away, until he died when traversing
Ireland to seek a cure. Stokes conjectures that Bres required
the milk of one-coloured cows as a means of removing his wife’s
barrenness . 6


THE STRIFE OF THE GODS


2 7


Another account of Bres’s death tells how Corpre the poet
came to his house. It was narrow, dark, and fireless, and for
food the guest received only three small unbuttered cakes.
Next morning, filled with a poet’s scorn, he chanted a satire:

“Without food quickly on a dish,

Without a cow’s milk whereon a calf grows,

Without a man’s abode under the gloom of night,

Without paying a company of story-tellers,

Let that be the condition of Bres.”

This was the first satire made in Ireland, but it had all the
effect which later belief attributed to satire, and Bres declined
from that hour. Surrendering his sovereignty and going to his
mother, he asked whence was his origin; and when she tried
the ring on his finger, she found that it fitted him. Bres and she
then went to the Fomorians’ land, where his father recognized
the ring and upbraided Bres for leaving the kingdom. Bres
acknowledged the injustice of his rule, but asked his father’s
help, whereupon Elatha sent him to Balor, grandson of Net,
the Fomorian war-god, and to Indech, who assembled a huge
force in order to impose their rule on the Tuatha De Danann . 7

Some curious incidents may be mentioned here. While Bres
ruled, the Fomorian Kings, Indech, Elatha, and TethYa, bound
tribute on Ireland and reduced some of the Tuatha De Danann
to servitude. The Fomorians had formerly exacted tribute of
the Nemedians, and it was collected by one of their women in
an iron vessel — fifty fills of corn and milk, of butter, and of
flour. This may be a memory of sacrifice. Ogma had to carry
fuel, and even Dagda was obliged to become a builder of raths,
or forts. In the house where he lived was a lampooner named
Cridenbel who demanded from him the three best bits of his
ration, and thus Dagda’s health suffered; but Oengus, Dagda’s
son, hearing of this*, gave him three gold coins to put into Cri-
denbel’s portion. These would cause his death, and Bres would
be told that Dagda had poisoned him. Then he must tell the
story to Bres, who would cause the lampooner’s stomach to be


28


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


opened; and if the gold were not found there, Dagda would
have to die. In the sequel Oengus advised Dagda to ask as
reward for his rath - building only a black-maned heifer; and
although this seemed weakness to Bres, the astuteness of Oen-
gus was seen when, after the second battle, the heifer’s lowing
brought to Dagda the cattle exacted by the Fomorians . 8

This mythical story of Bres’s sovereignty, and of the servi-
tude of beings who are gods, is probably parallel to other myths
of the temporary eclipse of deities, as when the Babylonian
high gods were afraid of Tiamat and her brood, or cowered in
terror before the flood. It may also represent an old nature
dualism — the apparent paralysis of gods of sunshine and
fruitfulness in the death and cold of winter; or it may hint at
some temporary defeat of Celtic invaders, which even their
gods seemed to share. Whatever the Fomorians be, their final
defeat was at hand.

When Bres retired, Nuada was again made King because his
hand was restored. Diancecht (a divinity of leechcraft), as-
sisted by Creidne, god of smith-work, made for him a silver
hand, but Miach, Diancecht’s son, not content with this, ob-
tained the mutilated hand and by means of such a spell as is
common to many races — “joint to joint, sinew to sinew” —
he set it to the stump, caused skin to grow, and restored the
hand. In another version he made a new arm with a swine-
herd’s arm-bone . 9 Through envy Diancecht struck Miach
four blows, three of which Miach healed, but the fourth was
fatal. His father buried him, and from his grave sprang as
many herbs as he had joints and sinews. Airmed, his sister,
separated them according to their properties, but Diancecht
confused them so that none might know their right values . 10
These incidents reflect beliefs about magico-medical skill, and
the last may be a myth of divine jealousy at man’s obtaining
knowledge. Nuada now made a feast for the gods, and as they
banqueted, a warrior, coming to the portal, bade the door-
keepers announce him as Lug, son of Cian, son of Diancecht,


THE STRIFE OF THE GODS


29


and of Ethne, Balor’s daughter. He was also known as samil-
danach (“possessing many arts”), and when asked what he
practised, he answered that he was a carpenter, only to hear
the door-keeper reply, “Already we have a carpenter.” In
succession he declared himself smith, champion, harper, hero,
poet, magician, leech, cup-bearer, and brazier, but the Tuatha
De Danann possessed each one of these. Lug, however, be-
cause he knew all these arts, gained entrance and among other
feats played the three magic harp-strains so often referred to
in Irish texts — sleep-strain, wail-strain, and laughter-strain,
which in turn caused slumber, mourning, and joy . 11

In another version of Lug’s coming, from The Children of
Tuirenn ( Aided Chlainne Tuirenn ), as he approached, “like the
setting sun was the splendour of his countenance,” and none
could gaze on it. His army was the fairy cavalcade from the
Land of Promise , 12 and with them were his foster-brothers,
Manannan’s sons. Lug rode Manannan’s steed, Enbarr,
fleet as the spring wind, and on whose back no rider could
be killed; he wore Manannan’s lorica which preserved from
wounds, his breastplate which no weapon could pierce, and his
sword, the wound of which none survived, while the strength
of all who faced it became weakness. When the Fomorians came
for tribute, Lug killed some of them, whereupon Balor’s wife,
Cethlionn, told him that this was their grandson and that it
had been prophesied that when he arrived, the power of the
Fomorians would depart. As Lug went to meet the Fomo-
rians, Bres was surprised that the sun seemed rising in the west,
but his Druids said that this was the radiance from the face of
Lug, who cast a spell on the cattle taken for tribute, so that they
returned to the Tuatha De Danann. When his fairy cavalcade
arrived, Bres begged his life on condition of bringing over the
Fomorians, while he offered sun, moon, sea, and land as guar-
antees that he would not again fight; and to this Lug agreed.
The guarantee points to an animistic view of nature, for it
means that sun, etc., would punish Bres if he was unfaithful . 13


30


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


To return to the other account, Nuada gave Lug his throne,
and for a year the gods remained in council, consulting the wiz-
ards, leeches, and smiths. Mathgen the wizard announced
that the mountains would aid them and that he would cast
them on the Fomorians; the cup-bearer said that through his
power the Fomorians would find no water in lough or river;
Figol the Druid promised to rain showers of fire on the foe and
to remove from them two-thirds of their might, while increase
of strength would come to the Tuatha De Danann, who would
not be weary if they fought seven years; Dagda said that he
would do more than all the others together. For seven years
weapons were prepared under the charge of Lug . 14

At this point comes the episode of Dagda’s assignation with
the war-goddess Morrigan, who was washing in a river, one
foot at Echumech in the north, the other at Loscuinn in the
south. This enormous size is a token of divinity in Celtic
myths, and the place where Dagda and Morrigan met was now
known as “the couple’s bed.” She bade him summon the men
of knowledge and to them she gave two handfuls of the blood
of Indech’s heart, of which she had deprived him, as well as
valour from his kidneys. These men now chanted spells
against the Fomorians — a practice invariably preceding
battle among the Celts . 15

[Prometheus]

Another incident shows that the Celts, like other races, could
recount irreverent stories about their gods. Dagda had been
sent to spy out the Fomorians’ camp and to ask a truce. Much
porridge was made for him, boiled with goats, sheep, and
swine, and the mess being poured into a hole in the ground, he
was bidden to eat it under pain of death. Taking a ladle big
enough for a man and woman to lie in, he began his meal and
ate it all, after which sleep overcame him, and the Fomorians
mocked his distended paunch. When he rose, uneasy was his
movement, but he bravely bore his huge branched fork or club,
dragging it till its track was like a boundary-ditch, so that men
call that “the track of Dagda’s club.” An obscene story fol-


THE STRIFE OF THE GODS 31

lows regarding his amour with Indech’s daughter, who agreed
to practise magic against her father’s army. 16

Before the battle each chief promised Lug prodigies of val-
our, craftsmanship, or magic — weapons, and armour in unfail-
ing abundance, enfeeblement and destruction of the enemy,
the power of satire upon them, magical healing of wounded or
slain. Lug’s two witches said, “We will enchant the trees and
the stones and the sods of the earth so that they shall become
a host under arms against the foe”; but Lug was prevented
from going to the fray, because “they feared an early death for
the hero owing to the multitude of his arts.” Preliminary com-
bats occurred in which the superior magic of the Tuatha De
Danann was apparent. Weapons were restored or new ones
made in a twinkling by Goibniu, Luchtine, and Creidne.
Goibniu (cf. Old Irish goba, “smith”) had promised that though
the battle lasted seven years, he would replace every broken
sword or spear-head; no spear-head forged by him would miss,
and none whom it pierced would continue in life. He kept his
promise, making weapons by three turns in his forge, and re-
newed the blunted or broken instruments of war. Elsewhere we
learn that Goibniu’s immortal ale, like nectar and soma, made
the divinities immortal, 17 so that he is the equivalent of the
Greek Hephaistos, god of craftsmen, who poured out nectar
for the gods at their banquet, and of the Vedic deity Tvastr,
who made the cup from which the gods drank. 18 Why divine
smiths should be associated with the drink of the gods is not
clear, but probably we have here different forms of a myth
common to the Indo-European peoples. Goibniu is still re-
membered in Irish folk-tales.

Creidne, the cerd, or brazier, promised to supply rivets for
the spears, hilts for the swords, and bosses and rims for the
shields; he made the rivets in three turns and cast the rings to
them. Creidne, whom euhemerizing tradition described as hav-
ing been drowned while bringing golden ore from Spain to
Ireland, may be compared with Len Linfiaclach, cerd of the


32


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


god Bodb, who lived in Loch Lein, making the bright vessels
of Fand, daughter of Flidais. Every evening he threw his
anvil eastward as far as a grave-mound at Indeoin na nDese
and it in turn cast three showers toward the grave, of water,
of fire, and of purple gems . 19

Luchta the carpenter (saer) promised to supply all the shields
and javelin-shafts required for the battle. These shafts he
made with three chippings, the third completing them and set-
ting them in the rings of the spears, or he threw them with
marvellous accuracy at the sockets of the spear-heads stuck by
Goibniu in the door-lintels, this being precisely paralleled by
the art of Caoilte, the survivor of the Feinn . 20

The mortally wounded were placed in a well over which
Diancecht and his children sang spells, or into which he put
healing herbs; and thus they became whole . 21 The Fomorians
sent Ruadan, son of Bres and of Brig, daughter of Dagda,
to discover the reason of these things; and a second time he
was sent to kill one of the divine craftsmen. He obtained one
of the magic spears and wounded Goibniu, who slew Ruadan
and then entered the healing well, while Brig bewailed her
son with the first death-keen heard in Ireland. Here, as so
often, the origin of mourning chants and runes is ascribed to
divinities . 22

Before the battle Lug escaped from his guards and heart-
ened the host by circumambulating them on one foot with one
eye closed, chanting a spell for their protection — the attitude
of the savage medicine-man, probably signifying concentra-
tion. Then came the clash of battle, “gory, shivering, crowded,
sanguineous, the river ran in corpses of foes.” Nuada and Ma-
cha were slain by Balor, who possessed an evil eye, or was a
personification of the evil eye, so much feared by the Celts.
Once when his father’s Druids were concocting magic potions,
the fumes gave his eye poisonous power, and his eyelid was
raised by four men, but only on the battle-field, where no army
could resist it. When Lug appeared, Balor desired it to be


THE STRIFE OF THE GODS


33


lifted, but Lug cast a stone at the eye, so that it was carried
through his head, blasting some of his own men . 23 In a ballad
account of this, Balor was beheaded by Lug, but asked him to
set the head upon his own and earn his blessing. Fortunately
for himself, however, Lug set it on a hazel, and it dropped
poison which split the hazel in two. The tree became the abode
of vultures and ravens for many years, until Manannan caused
it to be dug up, when a poisonous vapour from its roots killed
and wounded many of the workmen. Of the wood Luchta
made a shield for Manannan, which became one of the famous
shields of Erin. It could not be touched in battle and it always
caused utter rout. Finally it became Fionn’s shield . 24

The war-goddess Morrigan sang a magic rune to hearten
the host, and the battle became a rout for the Fomorians,
though not before Ogma and Indech had fallen in single com-
bat. Bres was found unguarded by Lug and others, and made
three offers for his life; but two of these — that Ireland’s kine
should always be in milk, and that corn would be reaped every
quarter — were rejected. Life was offered him, however, if he
would tell how the men of Erin should plough, sow, and reap;
and when Bres said that these things should always be done on
a Tuesday, he was set free . 25 In another account four Fomorians
escaped, ruining corn, milk, fruit, and sea produce; but on
November Eve (Samhain) they were expelled by Bodb, Midir,
Oengus, and the Morrigan, so that never more should their dep-
redations occur . 26 This points to the conception of the Fomo-
rians as powers of blight; that of Bres suggests rather that they
were pre-Celtic gods of fertility.

Two curious incidents, revealing the magic powers of weap-
ons, which were worshipped by the Celts, and of musical instru-
ments, occur here. Ogma captured the sword of the war-god
Tethra, and when unsheathed it told the deeds it had done,
as was the custom with swords in those days, for, as the Chris-
tian compiler adds, “the reason why demons spake from weap-
ons was because weapons were then worshipped and acted as


34


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


safe-guards.” The other incident tells how Dagda’s harp was
carried off and was found by Lug, Ogma, and Dagda in the
house where Bres and his friends were. No melody would sound
from it until Dagda uttered a charm; but then the harp came
to him, killing nine men on its way, after which he played the
three magic strains of sleep, mourning, and laughter. 27 This
harp resembles that of Teirtu in the Welsh tale of Kulhwch
and 0 liven, which played or stopped playing of itself when so
desired. 28

Thus the Tuatha De Danann conquered, and the Morrigan
proclaimed the victory to the royal heights of Ireland, its hosts
of the side, its chief waters, and its river-mouths — a reminis-
cence of the animistic view or the personalization of nature.
Then she sang of the world’s end and of the evils to come —
one of the few eschatological references in Irish mythology,
though it is most likely of Christian origin. 29

This curious story is undoubtedly based on old myths of
divine wars, but what these denoted is uncertain. Both Tuatha
De Danann and Fomorians are superhuman. Vaguely we dis-
cern behind the legend a strife of anthropomorphic figures of
summer, light, growth, and order, with powers of winter, dark-
ness, blight, and disorder. Such powers agree but ill. There
is strife between them, as, to the untutored eye, there is strife
in the parts of nature for which they stand; and this apparent
dualism is reflected on the life of the beings who represent the
powers of nature. All mythologies echo the strife. The Baby-
lonian Marduk and the gods battle with Tiamat and her brood;
gods and Titans (or Jotuns), Re‘ and ‘Apop, fight, and those
hostile to gods of light and growth, gods dear to man’s heart,
are represented in demoniac guise. If Tuatha De Danann and
Fomorians were both divine but hostile groups of the Irish
Celts, the sinister character of the latter would not be for-
gotten by the annalists, who regarded both with puzzled eyes
and sought vainly to envisage them as mortals. Or, again, the
two may be hostile sets of deities, because divinities respec-


THE STRIFE OF THE GODS


35


tively of Celts and aborigines. The Fomorians are, in fact, called
gods of the menial Firbolgs, who are undoubtedly an aborig-
inal race, while Fomorians are described in later Christian
times as ungracious and demoniac, unlike the Tuatha De
Danann; and the pagan Celts must already have regarded them
as evil. The gods of a conquering race are often regarded as
hostile to those of the aborigines, and vice versa , and now new
myths arise. In either case the close relationship in which the
groups stand by marriage or descent need not be an invention
of the compiler. Pagan mythology is inconsistent, and com-
promise is inevitable. Conquerors and conquered tend to
coalesce, and this is true of their gods; or, as different tribes of
one race now intermarry, now fight, so also may their evil and
their friendly divinities. Zeus was son of the Titan Kronos,
yet hostile to him. Vile, Ve, and Odin, father of the gods, were
sons of a giant, and the gods fought with giants. Other paral-
lels might be cited; but what is certain is that gods of an
orderly world — of growth, craftsmanship, medicine, poetry,
and eloquence, if also of magic and war — are opposed to
beings envisaged, on the whole, as harmful. In this combat
some of the gods are slain. If this were told of them in the old
myths, probably it did not affect the continuance of their cult.
Pagan gods are mortal and immortal; their life is a perennial
drama, which ever begins and ends, and is ever being renewed
— a reflexion of the life of nature itself.

In another story the strife of powers of light and growth with
those of darkness and blight is suggested, though the latter are
euhemeristically described as mortals. Three men came from
Athens with their mother Carman — Valiant, Black, and Evil,
sons of Extinction, who was son of Darkness, and he son of Ail-
ment. By her incantations Carman ruined every place where
she came, while her sons destroyed through plundering and dis-
honesty. They came to Ireland to blight the corn of the Tuatha
De Danann, who sent against them Ai, a poet, Cridenbel the
lampooner, Lugh Laebach, a wizard, and Bechuille, a witch,


36


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


some of whom have already played a part in the story of Mag-
Tured. By spells they drove the men oversea, but not until
they gave the Seven Things which they served as security that
they would not return, and left their mother as a hostage. She
died of grief, begging the gods to hold an annual festival at her
burial-place and to call it by her name; and as long as they
kept it the Leinstermen were promised plenty of corn, fruit,
milk, and fish . 30 No explanation is given as to what the
mysterious “ Seven Things ” were.

In other tales groups of gods are seen at strife with each other
and in their conflict they were sometimes not too mighty to
seek the help of heroes. An example of this occurs in the story
of Cuchulainn’s visit to Elysium. In spite of the prowess of the
god Labraid, sung by the goddesses Fand and Liban, the time
has come when he must give battle to supernatural foes —
Senach the Unearthly, Eochaid, Eol, and Eogan the Stream,
the last mentioned in the Book of Invasions ( Leabhar Gabala) as
hostile to the Tuatha De Danann . 31 These were united, appar-
ently, with Manannan, whose consort Fand, Labraid’s sister,
had left him . 32 Labraid was afraid, for the contest would be of
doubtful issue. Glad indeed would he be of the hero Cuchu-
lainn’s aid, and for that assistance he was willing to give him
his sister Fand. When Cuchulainn arrived in the gods’ domain
and was welcomed by Labraid, they gazed on the vast armies of
the foe, while two ravens, skilled in Druidic secrets, announced
the hero’s presence to the hosts. Next morning Eochaid went
to wash at a stream, when Cuchulainn slew him; and a great
fight followed between Cuchulainn and Senach, who also was
slain. Cuchulainn then put forth all his might, and so great
was the carnage that Labraid himself entreated him to end it;
and then Labraid sang:

“A mighty host, with multitudes of horses,

Attacked me on every side;

They were the people of Manannan, son of the sea,

Whom Eogan had called to his aid.”


THE STRIFE OF THE GODS


37


Another instance occurs in the story of Loegaire, son of the
King of Connaught. The people of Connaught were met in
assembly near the Loch of the Birds in the plain of Ai, when a
stranger approached them through the mist which rose from
the lake. He wore a purple cloak, and his yellow hair fell upon
his shoulders. A golden-hilted sword hung at his side; in his
right hand he carried a five-pointed spear, and on his left arm
a shield with a golden boss. Loegaire welcomed him, and he
told how he had come from the gods’ land to seek the aid of
warriors. Fiachna was his name, and he had slain his wife’s
ravisher, but had been attacked by his nephew, Goll, son of the
king of the fort of Mag Mell, and in seven battles had been
vanquished, so that in view of a new conflict he had come for
succour. He sang of the beauty of the land and of the bloody
combats fought there among the people of majestic race, and
how silver and gold awaited those who would help him. Beau-
tiful were the divine warriors, with blue eyes of powerful sight,
teeth brilliant as glass, and red lips. Mighty in conflict, in
their assemblies they sang in melodious verse of learned mat-
ters . 33 Fiachna disappeared into the lake, and now Loegaire
appealed to his men. Fifty warriors plunged with him into the
water and in the divine land under the loch joined Fiachna
against his foe, besieging the fort of Mag Mell, where his wife
was a prisoner. The defenders released her, and she followed
the vanquishers, singing of her love for Goll. Fiachna gave
his daughter, Sun Tear, to Loegaire, and each of his men also
received a wife. For a year they remained in the divine land,
until they became home-sick; and as they left him Fiachna
bade them mount on horseback and not alight on the earth if
they wished to return to him. The people of Connaught re-
joiced to see them again, for sorely had they mourned them,
but now Loegaire announced their return to the gods’ land,
nor would he remain, although his father offered him the king-
dom, its gold, and its women. The unmoved son sang of the
divine land, where beer fell in showers, and every army was of


38


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


a hundred thousand warriors, while as one went from kingdom
to kingdom, the melodious music of the gods was heard. He
told of his goddess wife and those of his comrades and of the
cauldrons and drinking-horns taken from the fort; for one
night of the nights of the sid he would not accept his father’s
kingdom. With these words he quitted the king for ever and
returned to Mag Mell, there to share the sovereignty with
Fiachna — a noble divine reward to a mortal . 34 In the heroic
cycle of Fionn other instances of heroes helping gods will be
found.

War between different divine groups is also found in the
story of Caibell and Etar, Kings of the side (divine or fairy-
folk), each of whom had a beautiful daughter. Two Kings who
sought the maidens in marriage were offered battle for them.
If, however, the combat was fought in the sid, the sid would be
polluted — an idea contrary to that of these other instances of
war in the gods’ land; and if the sid - folk were seen among
men, they would no longer be invisible at will. The fight,
therefore, took place at night, lest there should be no distinc-
tion between them and men; and the side took the form of deer.
So terrible was the struggle that four hillocks were made of the
hoofs and antlers of the slain; and to quell it, water broke
forth from a well and formed Loch Riach, into which if white
sheep are cast every seventh year at the proper hour, they
become crimson. Etar alone of the kings survived . 35

The Christian scribes were puzzled over the Tuatha De
Danann. The earliest reference to them says that because of
their knowledge they were banished from heaven, arriving in
Ireland in clouds and mists — the smoke of their burning ships,
says an euhemerizing tradition. Eochaid ua Flainn, in the tenth
century, calls them “phantoms” ( siabhra ) and asks whether
they came from heaven or earth; were they demons or men.
They were affiliated to Japhet, yet regarded as demons in the
Book of Invasions. Another tradition makes them a branch
of the descendants of Nemed who, after being in the Northern


THE STRIFE OF THE GODS


39


isles learning wizardry, returned to Ireland. The annalists
treated them more or less as men; official Christianity more or
less as demons; popular belief and romance as a kind of beau-
tiful fairy race with much of their old divine aspect.

[Prometheus]

D’Arbois translates Tuatha De Danann as “people of the
god whose mother is called Danu ”; 36 Stokes renders it “folk
or folks of the goddess Danu ” ; 37 Stern prefers to regard Danann
as a later addition and to take the earlier name as Tuatha De or
Fir Dea — “the divine tribe,” or “the men of the god.” 38
Three insignificant members of the group, Brian, Iuchar, and
Iucharba, are sometimes called “three gods of Danu”; and
hence also, perhaps, the whole group is designated “men of
the three gods.” Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba are also termed
tri dee dana , or “three gods of dan” i. e. “knowledge,” or
“fate.” Danand (Danu) is mentioned with Bechuille as a
separate goddess, and both are called foster-mothers of the
gods. Cormac’s Glossary knows nothing of Danu, but speaks
of a goddess Anu, mater deorum hibernensium — “ It was well she
nursed the gods” — while he refers to two hills in Kerry as “the
paps of Anu,” which a later glossary calls “the paps of Danu.”
Ireland is called lath n’Anann, and Anu is mentioned with
Macha, Morrigan, and Badb, the war-goddesses, though other
passages give Danu along with these. Possibly Danu is a mis-
take for Anu, through confusion with dan, “knowledge,”
knowledge as a function of Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba being
personified as Danu, so that they would then be called gods or
sons of Danu, though they were actually sons of Brigit. As
Stern points out, Danu can scarcely be mother of the whole
group, since she herself is daughter of Delbaeth, who was
brother of Dagda, Ogma, Bres, etc. If Anu was mother of the
group, the likeness of her name to Danu would also lead to the
mistake; and Anu as goddess is perhaps a personification of
Ireland, a kind of earth mother. On the whole, the general
relationship of the euhemerized gods evolved by the annalists
is as mythical as the pagan stories themselves.

hi— 4


40


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


In the story of The Children of Tuirenn Brian, Iuchar, and
Iucharba are sons of Tuirenn, son of Ogma. One day Cian, at
enmity with them, saw them approaching. Striking himself
with a Druidic wand, he became a pig, but Brian noticed this
and changed himself and his brothers into hounds which chased
and killed Cian with stones, because he said that weapons
would tell the deed to his son. They buried his body seven
times ere the earth ceased to reject it. Lug, Cian’s son, was
told of this deed by the earth, and he forced the children of
Tuirenn to bring many magical treasures, in getting which
danger was incurred. By their father’s advice they crossed the
sea in Manannan’s canoe and succeeded in obtaining the treas-
ures, but now had to give “three shouts on Cnoc Miodh-
chaoin,” a hill on which Miodhchaoin and his sons prohibited
all shouting. Here, then, they were wounded by these men,
and their father asked Lug for the magic pig’s skin which
healed all wounds. He refused it, even when Brian was carried
before him, and thus the murderers perished miserably . 39

Most of the names of the chief gods have already been men-
tioned — Dagda or Eochaid Ollathair, who in one place is called
an “earth god” to the Tuatha De Danann, and also their
“god of wizardry” — probably a deity of fruitfulness and fer-
tility; Oengus; Nuada; Ogma, god of poetry; Goibniu, god of
smiths; Creidne, of braziers; Diancecht, of medicine; Manan-
nan, son of Ler; Midir; Bodb Dearg; Lug, perhaps a sun-god;
and other lesser divinities. Of goddesses there are Anu or Danu ;
Brigit, goddess of poetry and primitive culture; Etain; and the
war-goddesses — Morrigan, Macha, and Neman, while Badb
constitutes a fourth or sometimes takes the place of one of the
triple group. The Tuatha De Danann had power over agri-
culture and cattle, but they had other functions, while all of
them had great magic potency. Unfortunately few myths
about these functions exist, and their precise nature must be
matter of conjecture. The mythico-magical nature of the
gods’ possessions survives even in records which regard them






• - - • . -








?








r’ '/? i • I.. ,J. • ? •-.!

? ' ; ? i-ii- • ' ;/ [ ?

' - . / '• -.'I Jjpl.n ..

.


'






’


.


























PLATE V

Smertullos


This deity is perhaps a god of the underworld,
particularly as the serpent is a chthonian creature.
See p. 158. From an altar found at Notre Dame,
Paris. For other Celtic deities of Elysium see
Plates VII-IX, XII-XIV, XVI, XXV-XXVI.




THE STRIFE OF THE GODS


41


as mortals. The preface to the story of the battle of Mag-Tured
tells how from Falias was brought the stone of Fal, which
roared under every king who would assume the sovereignty.
From Gorias was brought Lug’s spear; no battle was ever won
against it or against him who bore it. From Findias came
Nuada’s sword, which none could escape when it was drawn.
From Murias came Dagda’s cauldron, from which no com-
pany ever went away unthankful . 40 Their magic food and
other possessions will be mentioned later. Some things of
which no myths remain are said to have been in the Brug na
Boinne — the bed of Dagda, the two paps of Morrigan, the
comb and casket of Dagda’s wife (i. e. two hills), the stone wall
of Oengus, the shot of Midir’s eye, and the like.


CHAPTER II

TUATHA DE DANANN AND MILESIANS


T HE annalistic account of the conquest of the Tuatha De
Danann by the Milesians cannot conceal the divinity of
the former nor the persistence of the belief in Druidic magic
and supernatural power. M. d’Arbois has shown that the
scheme which makes the Tuatha De Danann masters of Ire-
land for one hundred and sixty-nine years until the Milesians
came is the invention of Gilla Coemain, who died in 1072.
The Book of Invasions adopted it, and it assumes that the gods
reigned in succession as kings until 1700 b. c. Even in Gilla
Coemain’s time, however, this scheme was not always ac-
cepted, for Tigernach in his Annals knows no historic Irish date
before 305 b. c., while current tales showed that the gods were
still alive at a much later date, e. g. in the time of Conchobar
and Cuchulainn, alleged Irish contemporaries of Christ. 1

When the Milesians arrived, three Kings of the Tuatha De
Danann ruled — MacCuill (“Son of the Hazel”), MacCecht
(“Son of the Plough”), and MacGreine (“Son of the Sun”),
married respectively to Banba, Fotla, and Eriu, whose names
are ancient names of Ireland, the last still surviving as “Erin.”
Were these old eponymous goddesses, from whom parts of
Ireland were supposed to have taken their names, or were they
inventions of the annalists, derived from titles given to the
country? The former is suggested by an incident in the story.
The three Kings may have been gods of nature and agriculture,
and in fighting the Milesians they were respectively slain by
Eber, Airem (“Ploughman”), and Amairgen, singer of spells
and giver of judgements. The Milesians were descendants of a


TUATHA DE DANANN AND MILESIANS 43

Scythian noble expelled from Egypt, who came to Spain, where
his descendant Bregon built a tower and was father or grand-
father of Mile, whose father is sometimes called Bile. Another
son, Ith, gazing one evening from the tower, saw the coast of
Ireland. With ninety followers he sailed thither and was wel-
comed by the Kings, who begged him to settle a dispute. Very
different was his fate from that of folk-tale heroes called in to
adjust quarrels. While bidding the Kings act according to jus-
tice, he so praised the fertility of the land that they suspected
him of designs upon it and slew him. His followers carried
his body to Spain, and the chiefs of the Milesians, resolving
to avenge him, sailed to Ireland, but the Tuatha De Danann
made a magic mist, so that the island appeared like a hog’s
back — hence its name Muic-Inis, or “Pig Island.” At last
they landed, and the poet Amairgen, son of Mile, sang: —

“I am a wind at sea,

I am a wave of the sea,

I am a roaring of the sea,

I am an ox in strength,

I am a bird of prey on a cliff,

I am a ray of the sun,

I am an intelligent navigator,

I am a boar of fierceness,

I am a lake on a plain,

I am an effective artist,

I am a giant with a sharp sword hewing down an army,” etc . 2

Some see in this a species of Celtic pantheism, but if so it is
pantheism of a curious kind, for it is, rather, the vain-glorious
bombast of the Celt, to which there are parallels in Welsh
poems, where Taliesin speaks of the successive forms which
he has assumed. The comparison should not be made with the
pantheism of the Irishman Erigena, but with the bragging
utterances of savage medicine-men.

The Milesians met in succession Banba, Fotla, and Eriu,
each of whom asked that they would call the isle after her
name. The Kings then begged an armistice, ostensibly to dis-


44


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


cuss the question of battle or capitulation, but really in order
to give their Druids time to prepare incantations; while they
agreed to accept the judgement of Amairgen, save that, if it
were false, he must die. Amairgen then told the Milesians that
they must embark for the magic distance of nine waves; and
if they succeeded in returning, the land would be theirs. This
was the first judgement ever given in Ireland. The Milesians
now returned to their ships, but no sooner had they gained the
desired distance than the Druids and poets of the gods raised a
storm. Eber recognized it as a Druidic storm, which did not
rage beyond the top of the masts; and Amairgen now invoked
the aid of the natural features of Erin — an archaic animistic
rune, embedded in the later story, and one which preserves a
primitive stage of thought:

“I invoke thee, Erin,

Brilliant, brilliant sea,

Fertile, fertile hill,

Wood with valleys,

Flowing, flowing stream,” etc.

Now the storm ceased, and Eber joyfully boasted that he
would strike the people of Erin with spear and sword; but that
moment the tempest burst forth again, scattering and wreck-
ing the ships, and drowning many. The survivors landed at the
Boyne and gave battle to the Tuatha De Danann. The three
queens are said to have created a magic army which was a
delusion to the Milesians , 3 as Lug’s witches had done to the
Fomorians; but in spite of this the Tuatha De Danann were
defeated.

“We boldly gave battle
To the sprites ( siabhra ) of the isle of Banba,

Of which ten hundred fell together
By us, of the Tuatha De Danann.”

At another conflict a further rout took place, in which the
three Kings and Queens were slain; and it was now that the
survivors of the Tuatha De Danann took refuge in the under-
ground sid, the Milesians remaining masters of Ireland . 4


TUATHA DE DANANN AND MILESIANS 45

On whatever this account is based, it is not itself an ancient
pagan myth, for gods worshipped by men are not defeated by
them or by their supposititious ancestors. By the annalists,
real races, imaginary races, and divine groups were regarded
more or less from one standpoint; all were human and might
be made to fight each other. Next came the question — How
were the old gods abandoned, and why had they been, or were
even now, supposed popularly to live in the sid? It was known
that the Christianized tribes had forsaken the gods, though
these had come to be regarded by them as a kind of fairy race
living out of sight, to whom in time of need and sub rosa they
might appeal. Obviously, then, Christianity must have caused
their defeat. To this idea we may trace one source of the ac-
count just summarized. It is, in effect, what is said in the
Colloquy with the Ancients ( Acallamh na Senorach ), in which,
regardless of the annalistic scheme, the gods are powerful long
after their supposed defeat. Caoilte, survivor of the Feinn into
the days of St. Patrick, says that soon the Tuatha De Danann
will be reduced in power, for the saint “will relegate them to
the foreheads of hills and rocks, unless that now and again
thou see some poor one of them appear as transiently he re-
visits the earth,” i. e. the haunts of men. 5 Hence, perhaps, the
Colloquy elsewhere represents them as possessing not so much
land as will support themselves. 6 In St. Patrick’s Life this
victory is dramatically represented. He went to Mag Slecht,
where stood an image of Cenn Cruaich (“Head of the Mound”),
covered with gold and silver, and twelve others covered with
bronze. The chief image bowed downward when he raised his
crozier, and the earth swallowed the others, while their in-
dwelling demons, cursed by the saint, fled to the hill.

Why, then, was the defeat ascribed to the Milesians? Of
the different hostile Celtic groups dwelling in different parts of
Ireland, two at last became pre-eminent shortly before St. Pat-
rick’s time, governed by great dynastic families and reigning
respectively at Cashel and Tara. It was for their aggran-


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


46

dizement that the legend of descent from Mile and his ances-
tors was invented; but as the gods had come to be regarded as
a powerful race who had conquered earlier races in Ireland,
so it became necessary to show that the Milesians had over-
come them. This pushed the Milesians back to remote anti-
quity and showed that they had been masters of Ireland since
1700 b.c., while the Tuatha De Danann, whose power had
passed at the coming of Christianity, were now alleged to have
been conquered by them. Thus the central theory of those
mediaeval reconstructors of Irish history was “that Ireland
had been subjected to the Milesian race for ages before the
Christian era.” Later, the Ulster heroes were brought into
relationship with Mile, as at last were all the Irish aristocracy. 7

Mile (Latin miles , “soldier”) and Bile are men of straw
with no place in the older mythology, and hence the attempts
of Rhys and d’Arbois to equate Bile with Balor and with a
Celtic Dispater, as god of death and ancestor of the Celts, are
nothing but modern mythologizing. The account of the con-
quest doubtless made use of earlier conceptions of supernatural
power and magic, while still apt to consider the Tuatha De
Danann as somehow different from men ( siabhra , “sprites”),
this being the popular view and also current in literary tales
embodying older myths. The gods were a superhuman race,
the side , helping men on occasion; and this influenced the
official view, for euhemeristic documents tell how, after their
defeat, the Tuatha De Danann retired to subterranean pal-
aces, emerging now and then to help or to harm mortals. Even
the Milesians were not yet free of their power, especially that
of Dagda. Their corn and milk were being destroyed by the
Tuatha De Danann, and to prevent this in future they made
friends with Dagda, so that now these things were spared to
them. 8 This story seems to be the late form of the earlier
mythic idea that corn and milk depend on the gods, who, when
offended by men, withhold these gifts. They were also obtained
by sacrifice, e. g. by offerings of children and animal firstlings


TUATHA DE DANANN AND MILESIANS 47

to Cenn Cruaich; 9 and elsewhere we find that the Fomorians
exacted two-thirds of their corn and milk annually from the
Nemedians. 10 Perhaps there is here a mingling of the idea of
destruction by gods of blight with that of the withholding of
such gifts and with that of the offering of these things. A sur-
vival of such sacrifices occurs in the food and milk left out for
the fairies in Ireland and in the West Highlands.

The functions of some of the divinities as controllers of fer-
tility are suggested by references of this character, as well as
by the symbols on Gaulish monuments; and some folk-lore
collected by Mr. D. Fitzgerald in Limerick shows how the mem-
ory of these functions vaguely persisted under a romantic dress.
Cnoc Aine ( Knockainy , or “ Aine’s Hill”) has always been con-
sidered the dwelling of Aine, queen of the fairies of South Mun-
ster and daughter of Eogabal, of the Tuatha De Danann. Aine,
“the best-hearted woman that ever lived,” is still seen in Loch
Guirr or on Cnoc Aine. She married Lord Desmond after he
had captured her — the usual fairy bride incident — and bore
him a son. Both she and the son left him, but appeared from
time to time afterward, the son becoming Earl of Desmond in
due course. Once he spoke to his mother about the barrenness
of the hill, and next morning it was planted with pease set by
her at night — a significant hint of her functions. Remnants
of the agricultural ritual survived into last century in the form
of a procession round the hill on St. John’s Eve with clears —
bunches of straw tied on poles and lit, these being afterward
carried through fields and cattle to bring luck to both. One
year this was neglected, but a mysterious procession, with clears,
headed by Aine, was seen on the hill. On another occasion girls
who had remained after the usual procession had gone met
Aine, who thanked them for the honour done to her but begged
them to depart as “ they wanted the hill to themselves,” “ they ”
being Aine’s retinue, seen by the girls through a ring which
she produced. 11 Aine was thus obviously associated with
fertility-rites.


4 8


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


It now remains to be seen how, according to the annalistic
account, after their defeat and retirement to the hollow hills
or sid, the gods divided these among themselves, while at the
same time one of their number acted as king.


CHAPTER III

THE DIVISION OF THE SID

C ELTIC deities may have been associated in pagan times
with hills and pre-historic tumuli, especially those near
the Boyne; and within these was the subterranean land of the
gods, who also dwelt on distant islands. If this were the case,
it would help to explain why mounds were regarded as the re-
treats of the Tuatha De Danann, and why they are still sup-
posed to emerge thence as a kind of fairies. If the folk believed
that the old gods had always been associated with mounds,
it was easy for the euhemeristic writers to evolve a legend of
their having retired there after being defeated by the Milesians.

Within these hills and mounds were their gorgeous palaces,
replete with all Elysian joys. These hollow hills were known as
si d, a word possibly cognate with Latin sedes, and hence per-
haps meaning “seats of the gods”; and their divine inhabit-
ants were the aes side, fir side, mna side, “the people [or “men”
or “women”] of the sid,” or simply “the side.” These are
everywhere regarded as the Tuatha De Danann or their de-
scendants. Men used to worship the side, says St. Fiacc’s
hymn, while the daughters of King Loegaire regarded St.
Patrick and his white-robed bishops as aes side, appearing on
earth . 1 In later times the side were held to be fairies and were
called by various names, but these fairies closely resemble
the earlier side, the Tuatha De Danann, while they are not
necessarily of small stature. In this they are very like the fees
of mediaeval French belief — romantic survivals of earlier
goddesses.

In some stories the side are associated both with the sid and

[Prometheus]

50 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY

with the island Elysium, these being regarded as synonymous
— the goddess with whom Connla elopes is of the aes side, yet
she comes from the island overseas. The confusion may be
due to the fact that the gods were supposed to have various
dwelling-places, not necessarily to the priority of one belief
over the other. On the other hand, the Mesca Ulad , or Intoxi-
cation of the Ulstermen , says that after their defeat the Tua-
tha De Danann went underground to speak with the side , 2
although this may be only the confused notion of an annalist
who knew of the side, yet regarded the Tuatha De Danann as
human.

The mingled romantico-annalistic view was that the Tuatha
De Danann retired to the sid. An early text, The Conquest of
the Sid (De Gabail int sida ), tells how Dagda apportioned the
sid among them, his son Oengus, who was absent, being omitted.
This story is clearly based upon an earlier myth which narrates
how the chief god divided their various spheres among the
divinities, as the Babylonian Marduk prepared the mansions
of the deities and made them inhabit these as their strongholds.
Of Dagda’s sid another document says:

“ Behold the sid before your eyes,

It is manifest to you that it is a king’s mansion
Which was built by the firm Dagda;

It was a wonder, a court, an admirable hill.” 3

This was the Brug na Boinne. Oengus Mac Ind 6c, or “Son
of the Young Ones,” viz. Dagda and Boann, was then with his
foster-father Midir, but soon claimed his abode as Esau did his
blessing. The claim, however, could not be granted, whereupon
Oengus asked to spend the night in Dagda’s palace, to which his
father agreed, granting him also the next day. When this had
elapsed, Oengus was bidden to go, but refused, because, time
being composed of day and night, his tenancy must be per-
petual. Thus Dagda was dispossessed; and the sid, passing to
Oengus, took his name, Brug Maic Ind 6c. 4

In another version of this story from the Book of Fermoy , in-









'
















.






PLATE VI

A AND B


Plan of the Brug na Boinne

1. General view of the tumulus.

2. Cross-section of the mound.

3. Plan of the central chamber.

4. View of the stone-work of the Brug and its
entrance, after the removal of the earth.

5. General ground-plan of the Brug.

See also Plate I and cf. pp. 66-67, 1 76—77.





4




5



THE DIVISION OF THE SID


5i


fluenced by the view that some of the Tuatha De Danann had
died as mortals, Dagda has long since passed away, and the
mounds are places of sepulture, perhaps a reflection of the fact
that kings were interred there. Yet they are apportioned by the
chief survivors, Bodb Dearg and Manannan, the latter having
the task of selecting concealed dwellings. These he found in
beautiful hills and valleys, and drew round them an invisible
and impenetrable wall, though the Tuatha De Danann them-
selves could see and pass through it. He gave them Goibniu’s
ale, which preserved them from old age, disease, and death,
and his own swine, which, killed and eaten one day, were alive
the next and fit again for use. Thus even from this euhemeris-
tic narrative the real divinity of its personages appears . 5

In this account Bodb Dearg is made sovereign of the Tuatha
De Danann, as he is also in the story of The Children of Ler
{Aided Chlainne Lir). Ler, disgusted at the choice, retired,
whereupon the others resolved to punish him, but were over-
ruled by Bodb, who gave Ler his daughter Aobh as wife, pro-
vided he would pay allegiance to him. Aobh bore him two
daughters and two sons before her death, and to comfort him
Bodb now gave him her sister Aoife who, jealous of her step-
children, transformed them into swans — a shape which they
must keep for nine hundred years, though they retained speech
and reason and the power of exquisite song. As a punishment
Bodb changed Aoife into a “demon of the air.” Not till the
time of St. Patrick and St. Mochaomhog did Ler’s children
resume their own form. Withered and old, they now accepted
the Christian faith and died, after having found their father’s
palace a roofless ruin . 6

In the version given in the Book of Fermoy Elcmar, foster-
father of Oengus, received the Brug na Boinne, and Manannan
advised Oengus to ask it from him. Through Manannan’s
magic power Elcmar was expelled, and Oengus gained the sid,
where he dwells invisibly, eating the swine and drinking the ale
of immortality. In still another version a curious account of the


52


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


origin of Oengus is given. He was a natural son of Dagda, by
Elcmar’s wife. Dagda sent Elcmar on a journey and wrought
spells, bringing darkness and “strayings” upon him, and ward-
ing off hunger and thirst from him. He obtained access to the
goddess, perhaps because, like Uther and Manannan on like
occasions, he assumed the appearance of the real husband.
Elcmar was still absent when Oengus was born, but he may
later have discovered the truth, for Oengus was taunted, as
Merlin was, with having no parents. He went in tears to the
god Midir, who took him to Dagda, and the latter acknowl-
edged him as his son, bidding him go to Elcmar’s sid and
threaten him with death if he would not promise him “the
sovereignty of a day and night in his land” — the same trick
which Oengus played on Dagda in the first version . 7 This story
is introductory to the beautiful myth of Etain, to be told later;
but here it should be noted that in a poem by the euhemerizing
monk, Flann Manistrech, Elcmar slew Midir and was himself
slain by Oengus . 8 This, however, need be no part of an earlier
myth.

Still another account is given in verse by the tenth century
poet, Cinaed ua hArtacain. Boann, Nechtain’s wife, came to
stay with her brother Elcmar, vassal of Dagda, who sought her
love in vain. His Druids advised him to send Elcmar on a
mission, but the latter bargained that it should not keep him
away over night, whereupon Dagda “kept the sun in the lofty
ridge of the heavens till the end of nine months.” Elcmar
thought that only a day had passed, but on his return he saw by
the change in the flowers how long the time had been. Mean-
while Dagda and Boann had deceived him, but now they were
afraid, and birth-pangs seized the faithless wife. They left her
child Oengus by the road-side near Midir’s sid, and there he
was brought up until his companions jeered at his unknown
origin. Taxed by Oengus, Midir told the truth, and taking him
to Dagda’s sid, obtained it for him for a day and a night, thus
tricking him . 9


THE DIVISION OF THE SID


53


Whether the earliest story told of Dagda’s or of Elcmar’s
dispossession, Oengus is a god who tricks his father or his foster-
father, and perhaps the latter was the sufferer in the primitive
form. Rhys makes Dagda an equivalent of Kronos and Oengus
of Zeus; but apart from the disinheriting incident, which is not
exactly parallel in the respective Greek and Celtic stories , 10
Dagda and Oengus have no clear traits in common with Kronos
and Zeus, nor is there the slightest evidence that Dagda, like
Kronos, ruled over the dead, either before or after his expul-
sion. The possible basis of the story, as the present writer has
suggested elsewhere, is a myth explaining why the cult of one
god came to supersede that of another . 11


CHAPTER IV

MYTHIC POWERS OF THE GODS


A S in most mythologies, the Celtic deities have powers which
reflect those supposed to be possessed by medicine-men,
as well as others peculiar to themselves. These were the subject
of myths taught by the Druids, who knew many things concern-
ing the might of the immortal gods . 1 The gods were undying,
and their abode was that of “the ever-living ones,” where none
ever died. Caoilte describes the Tuatha De Danann to St.
Patrick as beings “who are unfading, and whose duration is
perennial” in contrast with himself or men ; 2 or they are
“fairies or sprites with corporeal forms, endowed with immor-
tality.” Yet immortality is said to have been given them by
Manannan through their drinking Goibniu’s immortal beer, so
that “no disease nor sickness ever attacks them,” nor “decay
nor old age comes upon them.” 3 The daughter of Bodb Dearg
was asked by St. Patrick what it was which maintained the gods
in form and comeliness, and her answer was, “All such of us as
partook of Goibniu’s banquet, nor pain nor sickness troubles
them.” 4 Elsewhere this immortality seems to be dependent
upon the eating of certain fragrant berries, of which it is said
that “no disease attacks those who eat them, but they feel the
exhilaration of wine and old mead; and were it at the age of a
century, they would return again to be thirty years old.”
Once the Tuatha De Danann had played a match with the
Feinn and brought from the Land of Promise crimson nuts,
catkin apples, and these fragrant berries; but one of them fell
to earth, and from it grew a quicken (rowan) tree, whose ber-
ries possessed these virtues. The gods sent one of their people


MYTHIC POWERS OF THE GODS


55


to guard the tree — a savage, one-eyed giant, Searbhan Loch-
lannach, who could not be slain until struck with three blows of
his iron club; and around the tree he made a wilderness, sleep-
ing in it by night, and watching at its foot by day. Fionn
demanded as eric, or fine, from two warriors either the head
of Diarmaid or a handful of these berries; but Diarmaid over-
came them, and then asked the giant for the berries. Searbhan
refused them, but by skill and strength the hero seized his club
and slew him . 5

Yet, even in their own immortal land, gods are slain. Per-
haps this was not altogether the result of the annalistic view of
the gods, for myth may have told of their death, as it did of
gods elsewhere — Dionysus, Attis, Balder, Osiris. The anal-
ytic view did not hinder the continuance of myths, and divini-
ties whose death is recorded in the Annals are found to be alive
long after, while gods and goddesses born in pagan times ap-
pear thousands of years later to persons living in the Christian
period. In spite of this perennial duration, they remained
youthful and beautiful. Yet while the gods’ land was pic-
tured as a deathless, peaceful place, men still gave it certain of
the traits of human life. War, wounds, and death were there,
according to some stories; gods might even be slain by men;
and as gods have human passions, so they may also have
human weaknesses. Such is always the inconsistency of myth.

Invisibility was another divine power, innate, or acquired by
donning a mantle, or from Manannan’s spell, Feth Fiada , which
was known also to Druids, poets, and Christian saints, who by it
became unseen or took other forms. When the sons of Midir,
assisted by the Feinn, fought against Bodb, Midir’s son and
Caoilte went to the sid of Oengus for a physician to heal Oscar’s
wounds; and then “there arose a Feth Fiada around us, so that
we were invisible.” In one passage Dagda is invisible, and Midir
said, “We behold and are not beheld.” When Manannan
came to fetch his consort Fand, none saw him but the goddess,
and when Lug arrived to assist Cuchulainn, he was unseen by
hi— s


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


56

the hero’s foes. Divinities sometimes hid in a magic mist, as
the Tuatha De Danann did on arriving in Ireland; they could
appear to such mortals as they pleased, remaining unseen by
others. Gods were probably not regarded as spiritual beings.
Like the dead in Celtic belief, they had resplendent corporeal
forms and ate and drank; but their bodily form differed from
men’s in that it could become invisible and was not subject to
the laws of gravitation. The gods travelled through the air or
appeared above men’s heads.

How, then, did they appear when visible? Sometimes in the
magnificence of divinity, yet still in anthropomorphic form.
Sometimes they were of vast size, like the Morrigan or the Welsh
Bran, while a goddess who sought the aid of Fionn was enor-
mous compared even with the gigantic Feinn. Sometimes they
appear merely as mortals and are not recognized as gods. In-
stances of this are found in the story of Cuchulainn’s birth,
where Lug is seen, as a mortal host in a mysterious house, and
in that of Merlin’s father; invisible to all but his mother, and
later taking human shape. Sometimes a disguise was as-
sumed. Oengus and Midir appeared to Rib and Eochaid in the
shape of hospitallers, with a haltered pack-horse, and bade
them begone. Gods also took the appearance of particular
mortals, as when Midir appeared to Etain as her lover Ailill,
or Manannan as Fiachna to the latter’s wife, or as when Pwyll
and Arawn exchanged forms . 6

Animal forms were also assumed. Of these one favourite
shape was that of birds. Morrigan appeared to Cuchulainn as
a bird; so also do Devorgilla and her handmaid, the former
being in love with the hero. Llew took the form of an eagle;
Bude and his foster-brother that of birds when the former
wished to visit his paramour, whose husband Nar slew them.
Midir and Etain, Fand and Liban were seen as birds linked
together. The gods, or side, appear as deer in one story. Again,
the idea of divine shape-shifting, expressed, however, in the
well-known folk-tale formula of the “Transformation Com-




PLATE VII

Three-Headed God

This triple-headed divinity (cf. p. may possibly
be another form of Cernunnos (see Plate XVI).
For another representation see Plate XII, and for a
three-headed deity of the Elbe Slavs cf. pp. 284-85
and see Plate XXXIV, 3. From a block of stone
found at Paris, now in the Musee Carnavalet in that
city.





MYTHIC POWERS OF THE GODS


57


bat,” is combined with the Celtic idea of rebirth in Welsh and
Irish tales; and the Welsh story, Hanes Taliesin , a sixteenth
century tale, is based on earlier poems in which this formula is
already prefixed to the rebirth incident. Shape-shifting is so
commonly ascribed to Taliesin that it is no wonder that the
formula was attached to his story, as it also was to the Greek
myth of Proteus and the Hindu story of Vikramaditya: In the
poem Taliesin describes his transformations and adds,

“I have been a grain discovered
Which grew on a hill . . .

A hen received me

With ruddy claws and parting comb.

I rested nine nights
In her womb a child.” 7

The Hanes Taliesin represents earlier myths about the hero
and Cerridwen, the latter being a Brythonic goddess. Cerrid-
wen, who dwelt below a lake, became hostile to Gwion Bach
because he obtained the inspiration which she had intended for
her son. The goddess pursued him, but he changed himself to
a hare, and she took the form of a greyhound, after which the
pair successively became fish and otter, bird and hawk, grain
of wheat and hen. Cerridwen as a hen swallowed the grain, and
gave birth to a beautiful child, whom she cast into the sea, but
he was rescued by Elphin and obtained the name of Taliesin . 8

In most versions of the Transformation Combat the op-
ponents are males, and therefore one cannot give birth to the
other; but by an ingenious device the compiler of the Irish
myth of The Two Swine-Herds ( Cophur in da muccida ), an in-
troductory story to the Tain Bo Cualnge , surmounted this diffi-
culty. The swine-herds were subordinate divinities — Friuch,
herd of the god Bodb, king of the sid of Munster, and Rucht,
herd of Ochall Oichni, king of the sid of Connaught. They
could take any shape, and there was friendship between them.
When there was mast in Munster, Rucht fed his swine there;
and Friuch brought his herd to Connaught in the same way.


58


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


People stirred up a quarrel between them, however, and Friuch
put spells on Rucht’s swine so that they should not eat the mast
of Munster, while Rucht did the same to Friuch’s pigs. When
the swine became thin, the gods took their office from the herds,
and Friuch and Rucht turned themselves into ravens and for a
year reviled each other in Connaught and for a year in Munster.
Resuming their own shape, they announced that there would
yet be many corpses and much wailing because of them. Now
they took the form of water-beasts and were seen for a year in
the Suir and.for another in the Shannon, devouring each other,
and appearing as large as hills, until they came ashore as men,
telling Ochall that they must still take other shapes to test their
strength. They became champions, one of Bodb’s host, the
other of Fergna, King of the sid of Nento-fo-hiuscne, their term
in this form ending with a fight which lasted three days and
nights, and in which they gave such wounds that their lungs
were visible. Next they became demons, a third of the people
dying with fright at seeing them; while in another version
transformations into stags and dragons are added. Finally
they became worms, one in a spring in Connaught, the other in
the river Cruind in Ulster. Queen Medb came one day to the
spring to draw water, and the little animal, speckled with all
colors, jumped into her dish. She spoke to it, and it told her
that it had been in many shapes, and bade her take Ailill as her
husband, after which it returned into the spring. That day
Fiachna washed in the river Cruind and was frightened at
seeing a tiny beast which told him of the luck about to befall
him, and how it was Bodb’s swine-herd. It besought Fiachna to
feed it for a year, as the other had begged of Medb, and later
it told him of a future combat with the other beast. Next day
one of Fiachna’s cows would swallow it when .drinking, as one
of Medb’s kine would swallow the other; and as a result
Medb’s cow bore Findbennach (“White-Horn”), and Fiachna’s
the Donn or Brown Bull of Cualnge. No bull dared bellow
before either, and great war was caused in Ireland on their


MYTHIC POWERS OF THE GODS


59


account . 9 The Dindsenchas speaks of seven shapes which the
swine-herds took, but describes five only — swine-herds, birds,
wolves, trout, and worms — and it also tells how a bull-calf of
the Donn’s was killed by White-Horn . 10

A folk-tale analogy to this myth occurs in a West Irish col-
lection. Two heroes at enmity fought until they were old men,
then as puppies until they were old dogs, then as young bulls,
as stallions, and as birds, until one was slain, his body falling
on the other and killing him. The rebirth incident is lacking
here . 11

[Prometheus]

In the story which narrates how King Mongan recovered his
wife from the King of Leinster his feats were originally those
of a divine namesake. Taking the form of a cleric, he gave
that of another cleric to his attendant and won entrance to the
King’s fort and to his wife. He kissed her, but when the at-
tendant hag cried out, he sent a magic breath at her, and what
s,he had seen was no longer clear in her mind, after which he
shaped a sharp spike on which she fell and was killed. His at-
tempt to recover his wife failed, however, and at a later time
he took the guise of Aed, son of the King of Connaught, trans-
forming a hag into the shape of Aed’s beautiful wife, Ibhell.
The King of Leinster fell in love with her.and exchanged Mon-
gan’s wife to the pretended Aed for her; but the pair escaped,
and great was the King’s disgust to find Ibhell in the form of a
hag. Mongan also made a river with a bridge over it, where
none had ever been before, and in it he set the two clerics whose
shapes he had borrowed . 12

The gods could likewise transform each other. Etain was
changed by Fuamnach into an insect, as a preliminary to her
rebirth, and we have seen how the children of Ler were trans-
formed into swans by their jealous step-mother. Ler heard
them singing, yet god though he was, he could not disenchant
them, just as Manannan was unable to change Aoife from the
shape of a crane into which the jealous Iuchra had turned her . 13
The gods remained for three hundred years listening to the


6o


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


music of the swans, which caused happiness to all who heard
it; and after many sufferings the birds met the sons of Bodb,
who spoke to them of the divinities, while Fionnghula sang of
her former happiness when she enjoyed the guileless teaching
of Manannan, the convocations of Bodb, the voice of Oengus,
and the sweetness of his kisses. We have seen how the chil-
dren, after their disenchantment, died in the Christian faith.
This old and touching myth has received a Christian ending:
how it originally told the further fate of Ler’s children is
unknown.

The gods also transformed mortals. Morrigan brought a
bull to a cow over which Odrus watched, and which followed
the bull when Morrigan went into the cave of Cruachan. Odrus
pursued through the cave to the sid within, but there she fell
asleep, and the goddess awoke her, sang spells over her, and
made of her a pool of water . 14 This is partly paralleled by
another story in which elves, or siabhra, transformed Aige into
a fawn and sent her round Ireland. Later she was killed, and
nothing remained of her but a bag of water which was thrown
into a river, thenceforward named after her . 15 A more curious
transformation is that by which the god Oengus changed his
four kisses into as many birds, in order that they might satirize
the nobles of Erin, until a Druid by a stratagem stopped
them . 16 As has been seen, the kisses of Oengus were dear to
Fionnghula. The souls of the righteous appear sometimes as
white birds, and those of the wicked as ravens, in Christian
documents — a conception which is probably of pagan origin . 17

Finally, to show how the memory of the Tuatha De Danann
and their powers survived into later centuries the story of
O'DonnelVs Kern may be cited. In this, Manannan appears
as a kern, or serving-man, at the houses of historic personages
of sixteenth century Ireland. He plays such music as never
was heard, bewitching men to slumber; he is a marvellous
conjuror, producing out of his bag hound, hare, dog-boy, and
lady, who all climb a silken thread which he tosses upward to a


MYTHIC POWERS OF THE GODS


61


cloud; he performs miracles of healing; he takes off a man’s
head and puts it on again; and from each place where he goes
he suddenly disappears from human sight, none knowing
whither he has vanished . 18 Folk-memory thus preserved much
of the old conception of the gods.


CHAPTER V


GODS HELPING MORTALS

I N Greek mythology the gods were represented as coming to
man’s help, and in Christian legend saints were seen hover-
ing above an army in battle and giving it substantial aid. So
in Celtic myth deities were often kindly disposed toward men
or assisted them, sometimes for ends of their own.

Such a myth is associated with the historic King Mongan
of Ulster in the sixth and seventh centuries. He is shown to
be son of the god Manannan by a mortal mother, and as has
been seen, he had powers of shape-shifting, and besides being
brought up in the divine land, had free access to it. He was
also regarded as a rebirth of the hero Fionn; hence the stories
told of this king of the Christian historic period must already
have been narrated of some far earlier mythic king or god,
perhaps possessed of the same name. Two of these legends nar-
rate how the god assisted Mongan’s putative father out of
desire for his wife. In the shorter story Fiachna, King of Ul-
ster, had gone to help Aedan in Scotland against Saxon hosts
who had with them a terrible warrior, and during the fight a
noble stranger appeared to Fiachna’s wife and asked her love.
She refused him with scorn, but later relented in order to save
her husband’s life, which, said the visitant, was in danger from
the terrible warrior. “Our son will be famous, and his name
will be Mongan. I shall tell thy husband our adventures, and
that thou didst send me to his help.” This the stranger did,
afterward slaying the warrior and giving victory to Fiachna;
and when Mongan was born, he was known as Manannan’s
son, for Manannan had announced his name when leaving the
Queen at dawn . 1


GODS HELPING MORTALS 63

In the longer version Fiachna had become security for the
exchange of four kine offered by the King of Lochlann to a
Black Hag for her cow, the flesh of which alone could cure his
disease. Later the hag compelled Fiachna to fight with the
King, who had broken his promise to her; but all went well
until the King of Lochlann let loose venomous sheep, before
which Fiachna’s men fell in hundreds. A warrior in a green
cloak fastened by a silver brooch, with a circlet of gold on his
head and golden sandals on his feet, appeared and asked what
reward Fiachna would give him who would drive off the sheep.
Fiachna replied that he would give anything he had, whereupon
the warrior begged his ring “as a token for me when I go to
Ireland to thy wife to sleep with her,” to which the com-
placent Fiachna assented. The stranger — Manannan — an-
nounced that he would beget a glorious child, called Mongan
Finn, or the “Fair”; “and I shall go there in thy shape, so
that thy wife shall not be defiled by it.” Fiachna would also
become King of Lochlann. Taking a venomous hound from
his cloak, Manannan launched it successfully at the sheep and
then appeared to the Queen as Fiachna. On the night of Mon-
gan’s birth the Queen’s attendant had a son, Mac an Daimh,
while the wife of Fiachna’s opponent, Fiachna the Black, bore
a daughter, Dubh Lacha, these possibly also being children of
the amorous god. When Mongan was three days old, Manan-
nan took him to the Land of Promise and brought him back
when he was sixteen. Meanwhile Fiachna Dub having killed
the other Fiachna, the Ulstermen bargained that Mongan
should retain half the province, with Dubh Lacha as his wife.
One day when he and his Queen were playing together, “a
dark, black-tufted little cleric” reproached Mongan for his
inactivity and offered to help him to regain his land. Mongan
went with him; they slew Fiachna; and ail Ulster became
Mongan’s. The cleric was Manannan, though his transforma-
tion, in this as in the other version, is the result of the revision
of the story by a Christian scribe. At a later time Mongan


64


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


exchanged Dubh Lacha for the kine of the King of Leinster,
but she, while living in the King’s house, persuaded him to
wait a year ere she was his . 2 How Mongan regained her through
his magic powers learned in the divine land has already been
described. A prophecy about Mongan is put into Manannan’s
mouth in The V oyage of Bran , where he tells Bran how he will
go to Fiachna’s Queen, that by her he will have a son who will
delight the folk of the sid, will make known secrets and take
all forms — dragon, wolf, stag, salmon, seal — and how the
god will place the valiant hero with princes and will be his
tutor.

Apart from the Christian colouring in these tales, they are
of pagan origin and reflect pagan ideas about semi-divine sons
of gods and the help given by gods to men. The late Mr. Nutt
maintained that the story of Mongan was one form of a Celtic
myth which might be fitted to any real or imaginary hero —
that of a wonder-child, born of a mortal mother and a super-
natural father, gifted magically by him, associated with him
in the divine land, and passing thence at death. He assumed
that Mongan had finally gone there, basing this assumption on
verses which mention Mongan’s wandering with Manannan
in “the land with living heart,” and his coming thence to see
St. Columba. Mongan was the hero of such a myth in Ulster;
Fionn of another local myth, later popular all over Ireland;
Arthur of a similar Brythonic myth . 3

The myth of the help given by gods to mortals is seen again
in the story of Cuchulainn, son of the god Lug, who assists him
in time of need. Cuchulainn stood alone against Medb’s hosts,
because she invaded Ulster when its men were in their periodic
sickness . 4 He had slain hundreds of them and was now distorted
with fury and in sore distress, when Loeg, his charioteer, an-
nounced that he saw a warrior approaching, fair, tall, with
yellow hair, clad in a green mantle with a silver brooch. Shield,
five-pointed spear, and javelin were in his hands. He plied
these as he came, but “no one attacks him and he attacks no


GODS HELPING MORTALS 65

one,” for he was invisible to Medb’s warriors. Cuchulainn
cried that this must be one of his friends of the side coming to
his aid, and so it turned out, for the warrior was his father
Lug from the sid. “My wounds are heavy,” said Cuchulainn,
“it is time they were healed.” Lug bade him sleep for three
days while he himself fought the hosts; and as he sang a charm,
the hero slept. Lug not only battled for him, but as he had
claimed the power of healing in the story of the battle of Mag-
Tured, so now he cured his son’s wounds with medicinal herbs;
and when Cuchulainn awoke, he was refreshed and strong. The
god, however, would not stay to help him further, lest the
fame of the deeds wrought by both should accrue to Cuchulainn;
and the hero now donned a dress of invisibility given him by
Manannan, a precious garment of the Land of Promise.
Manannan is also called his foster-father in Druidism or wiz-
ardry, 5 and Cuchulainn’s “friends of the side” may be com-
pared with the leannan sighe, fairies who befriend mortals when
human powers fail them. 6 His opponent, Ferdia, reproached
him for not telling him how his friends of the side came to his
aid when he thought of them, but Cuchulainn replied that
since the Feth fiada was shown to all by the sons of Mile, the
Tuatha De Danann could not use invisibility or work magic. 7
This passage, however, from the Stowe manuscript of the
Tain Bo Cualnge is, in its final statement, inconsistent with the
incidents of the other manuscripts.

Other heroes were helped by Manannan. In The Tragic
Death of the Sons of Usnech ( Longes mac nlJsnig) Naisi has a
sword given to him by the god, its virtue being that it leaves
no trace of stroke or blow behind it; 8 and some of his weapons
were possessed by the Feinn. Diarmaid had his crann huidhe
— a yellow-shafted spear — but its properties were less power-
ful than another magic spear with a red shaft, the gai dearg.
It could do nothing against the boar which slew Diarmaid, and
he lamented that he had not taken with him the gai dearg , as
Grainne advised. With the shafts of these spears he twice


66


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


leaped beyond the ring of his surrounding enemies and escaped
them, and he also used “Manannan’s magic staves” on an-
other occasion to leap up a precipice. Besides these he pos-
sessed the moralltach, the sword of Manannan or of Oengus . 9

Of Diarmaid it is said that “with most potent Manannan
mac Ler thou studiedst and wast brought up in the Land of
Promise and in the bay-indented coasts; with Oengus too, the
Dagda’s son, thou wast most accurately taught .” 10 Oengus
freely helped Diarmaid when he and Grainne were pursued by
Fionn. Oengus learned that they were surrounded in a wood,
and passing through the foe, unknown to the Feinn, he bade
the eloping pair come under his mantle, when he would remove
them without their pursuer’s knowledge. Diarmaid refused to
go, but asked the god to take Grainne, which Oengus did,
reaching a distant wood unseen. There Diarmaid came to
them and found a fire and a meal prepared by Oengus, who ere
he left them warned Diarmaid of the places into which he must
not go. When Diarmaid and Grainne took refuge in the
quicken-tree of Dubhros, Oengus came invisibly as before, but
now as each warrior in succession climbed the tree to take
Diarmaid’s head, he gave them the hero’s form as he threw
them down. When the Feinn cut the heads off, however, their
true form was restored, and the ruse was discovered. Oengus
would fain have carried both away, but again had to be satis-
fied with taking Grainne, bearing her invisibly in his magic
cloak to the Brug na Boinne, where Diarmaid joined them,
carrying the head of the witch whom Fionn had sent against
him. Oengus now made peace between Diarmaid and Fionn,
arranging the conditions which his foster-son demanded.
Finally, when Diarmaid’s death was caused by Fionn’s craft,
the latter advised that he and the others should escape lest
Oengus and the Tuatha De Danann should capture them.
Oengus, aware of the tragedy, arrived with the swiftness of the
wind, and seeing the body, cried: “There has never been one
night, since I took thee with me to the Brug na Boinne, at the


GODS HELPING MORTALS


67


age of nine months, that I did not watch thee and carefully
keep thee against thy foes, until last night, O Diarmaid; and
alas for the treachery that Fionn hath done thee, for all that
thou wast at peace with him.” Then he sang a lament, and
bearing the body to his Brug, he said, “Since I cannot restore
him to life, I will send a soul into him, so that he may talk to
me each day.” 11 Oengus has less power than savage medicine-
men or gods in myth, who bring the dead back to life, or than
Demeter, who gave life to Dionysos after he was dismembered
by the Titans. But the story is an almost unparalleled example
of a god’s love for a mortal. Fionn himself bears witness to the
love which Oengus had for Diarmaid as a child in his Brug,
and how when spells were put upon a boar that it should have
the same length of life as he, the god conjured him never to
hunt a boar . 12

Another interesting instance is found in the story of Fraoch,
whose mother was a goddess. When he killed a dragon, women
of the sid came and carried him there, curing him of his wounds;
and so, too, when he was slain at a ford by Cuchulainn, those
divine women, clad in green, came and lamented over him and
carried his body into the sid. Fraoch should not have gone
near water, for this was dangerous for him, and his mother’s
sister, the goddess Boann, had said, “Let him not swim Black
Water, for in it he will shed his blood.” 13 In another story the
goddess Morrigan helped Tulchainde, Conaire’s Druid, who
wished Dil, daughter of Lugmannair, to elope with him from
the Isle of Falga — the Isle of Man regarded as the divine land.
Dil loved an ox born at the same time as herself and insisted
that Tulchainde should take it with her; and the Morrigan
was friendly to him and at his wish brought it to Mag mBreg . 14
The Morrigan was both hostile and friendly to Cuchulainn,
thus resembling that supernatural but ambiguous personage,
the Lady of the Lake in Arthurian tradition, now helping, now
opposing.


CHAPTER VI

DIVINE ENMITY AND PUNISHMENT


HE gods were sometimes hostile to men, not always for


obvious reasons, as is curiously illustrated in the Echtra
Nerai , or Adventures of Nera, an introductory tale to the Tain
Bo Cualnge. Here the gods are regarded as demons appearing
with great power on Samhain Eve (Hallowe’en). King Ailill
offered a reward to anyone who on that night would tie a withe
round the foot of a captive hanged the previous day; and sev-
eral tried, but were afraid. Nera was bolder, but his withe kept
springing off the corpse until it told him to put a peg in it, after
which the dead body asked him to carry it on his back to the
nearest house for a drink, because “I was thirsty when I was
hanged.” The house was surrounded by a fiery lake, and into
it and a second, surrounded by a lake of water, they could not
enter. In a third house the corpse found water and squirted it
on the faces of the sleepers so that they died, after which Nera
carried the dead body to the gallows. This part of the story
is connected with the vampire belief. Nera returned to Ailill’s
fort, but found it burnt, and a heap of human heads lay near
it. He followed a company leaving it and thus came to the sid
of Cruachan, where its king sent him to a woman in one of its
dwellings, bidding him bring firewood daily to the royal house.
At this task he noticed a lame man carrying a blind man to a
well, and daily the blind man asked, “Is it there?” to which
the lame man answered, “It is indeed; let us go away.” The
woman told Nera that they were guardians of the king’s crown
in the well, and when he described his adventures and the de-
struction of Ailill’s fort, she explained that this was merely the

[Prometheus]

DIVINE ENMITY AND PUNISHMENT 69

glamour of an elfin host ( sluag siabhra ), but that it would hap-
pen, unless he warned his friends. When he returned, he would
find them as he left them — a clear proof that he was in a time-
less region. They must watch next Samhain Eve, unless they
first destroyed the sid , and as proof of his statement he must
take from the sid fruits of summer — wild garlic, primrose,
and golden fern. Before his people came to destroy the sid, he
must warn her so that she with his cattle and the child she
would bear him might not lose their lives. Nera returned and
obtained the reward, and Ailill resolved to destroy the sid.
Meanwhile the woman carried the firewood, pretending that
Nera was ill; and when he came to warn her, she bade him
watch the cattle, one of which was to be his son’s after his
birth. The goddess Morrigan stole this cow while Nera slept
and took it to the bull of Cualnge, by whom it had a calf.
Cuchulainn is now introduced pursuing Morrigan and restor-
ing the cow; and on its return the woman sent Nera back to
his people — a reduplication of the first sending back. The
rid-folk could not destroy Ailill’s fort until next Samhain Eve
when the sid would be open, and Nera now told his people of
the wonderful sid and how its dwellers were coming to attack
the fort. AiliU bade him bring anything of his own out of the
sid, and from it he fetched the cattle, including his child’s bull-
calf which now fought the famous Findbennach, or white-
horned bull. Warned to beware of its sire, the bull of Cualnge,
Medb swore by her gods that she would not rest until her bull
fought it. Meanwhile Ailill’s men destroyed the sid , taking
from it the crown, Loegaire’s mantle, and Dunlaing’s shirt;
but Nera was left in the sid and will not come thence till doom
— like other mortals, he has become an inhabitant of the
gods’ land. 1 Here also, as in the story of Etain, mortals wage
successful war with hostile divinities. Nevertheless the deities
survive, and only the outer works of their sid are destroyed.

The hostility of Morrigan to the hero Cuchulainn is seen in
the Tain Bo Regamna, or Cattle-Raid of Regamon. In his sleep


70


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


he heard a great cry, and setting off with his charioteer Loeg
to discover its meaning, they came to a chariot drawn by a
one-legged horse, the chariot-pole passing through its body and
emerging from its head. On it was a red woman, clad in red,
and near it marched a giant in a red tunic, carrying a spear
and a huge forked branch, and driving a cow. Cuchulainn
maintained that all the cows in Ulster were his, but the woman
denied this, and when he asked why she spoke for the man, she
announced that his name was Uar-gaeth-sceo Luachair-sceo.
Then the giant cried out that her name was Faebor beg-beoil
cuimdiuir folt scenbgairit sceo uath. Irritated at this gibber-
ish — an instance of the well-known concealment of divine
names — the hero leaped into the chariot, placing his feet on
the woman’s shoulders and his spear at her head, and de-
manded her true name, to which she replied that she was a
sorceress and that the cow was her reward for a poem. Cuchu-
lainn begged to hear it, and the woman consented, provided
that he would retire from the chariot. After the poem was re-
cited, Cuchulainn prepared to leap again into the chariot, when
woman, giant, cow, and chariot vanished; but on the branch
of a tree was a black bird — the woman changed to this form.
Now he recognized her as Badb or the Morrigan, the battle-
goddess, and she told him that for his conduct she would pur-
sue him with vengeance. She was carrying the cow from the
sid of Cruachan, that it might be covered by the bull of Cualnge
and when their calf was a year old, Cuchulainn would die.
She would attack him when facing his opponent at the ford
during the foray of Cualnge, and as an eej she would twine
round his feet. “I will crush thee against the stones of the
ford, and thou wilt never obtain healing from me,” answered
Cuchulainn. “As a she-wolf I will bite thy right hand and
devour thee,” she replied. “I shall strike thee with my lance
and put out an eye, and never wilt thou obtain healing from
me,” he returned. “As a white cow with red ears I will enter
the water, followed by a hundred cows. We shall dash upon


DIVINE ENMITY AND PUNISHMENT


7 1


thee. Thou wilt fall, and thy head will be taken.” “I shall
throw a sling-stone at thee, and thy heel shall be broken, and
no help wilt thou get from me,” cried Cuchulainn; and with
that Morrigan disappeared into the sid of Cruachan . 2

In a variant of this tale (where the cow-driving incident is
perhaps the one which is mentioned in the Echtra Nerai) a
different reason for this hostility is given. Morrigan appeared
as a beautiful woman offering Cuchulainn her love, her treas-
ures, and her herds, but he replied that the opportunity was
not fitting, since he was engaged in a desperate contest, and
contemptuously refused her help. She uttered threats as in
the previous version; and when he was fighting at the ford, he
was overturned by an eel which he crushed in his hand, and
again as a wolf and a heifer Morrigan was defeated. Now no
one wounded by Cuchulainn could be healed save by himself,
and Morrigan therefore appeared as a lame and blind old
woman milking a cow with three teats. Cuchulainn asked for
milk, which she gave him from each teat, and at every draught
he pronounced the blessing of “gods and not-gods ” 3 upon
her. At each benediction one of her wounds was healed, and
now she revealed herself, but wastold that, had he known, she
would never have had healing from him . 4 Perhaps because of
this healing, or because of a subsequent reconcilement, before
Cuchulainn went to the last fatal fight, the goddess broke his
chariot, “for she liked not his going to the battle, knowing
that he would not come again to Emain Macha.” 5 The story
also shows how divinities have the gift of shape-shifting,
though it does not always avail them against the prowess of a
hero.

The idea that gods punish neglect of their worship or com-
mands, or avenge other sinful actions, is found in most reli-
gions, and some stories seem to be derived from it, as when
Welsh legend knows of Nynnyaw and Peibaw transformed to
oxen for their sins by God — a probable substitution for a
pagan divinity . 6 Instances of the destruction of corn and milk

in — 6


72


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


by divinities have been cited, and these perhaps signify pun-
ishment for neglecting the gods, seeing that, in the case of the
Milesians with Dagda, this was followed by a compact made
with him — the equivalent of the fresh covenant made with
God by His careless worshippers in the Old Testament. Pos-
sibly stories like that of Aillen mac Midhna of the Tuatha De
Danann, coming out of the sid every year to burn Tara , 7 point
to the same conception. The gods even punished members of
their own group for wrongdoing, as in the case of Aoife, who
was transformed by Bodb; and Becuma was banished from
the gods’ land because of her sin with Manannan’s son. She
came to earth in a self-moving boat and by spells bound Conn,
high king of Ireland, to do her will and to banish his son Art;
but while she remained in dalliance with Conn for a year, there
was neither corn nor milk in Ireland — a direct divine punish-
ment, for it was held that an evil king’s reign was marked by
famine and destruction. The Druids told Conn that nothing
would avail save the sacrifice of “the son of a sinless couple,”
i. e. the son of the queen of a divine land, whom Conn brought
thence. To rescue the boy his mother came with a marvellous
cow, which was accepted as a sacrifice, while the queen told
Conn that he must renounce Becuma, else Ireland would lose
a third of its corn and milk. Later, when the jhf-folk stole the
chess-men with which Becuma was playing with Art, she put
spells on him not to eat until he had brought Delbchaem from
a mysterious island, intending thus to cause his death. He
sailed till he reached an Elysian island, whose fair women
taught him how to escape the dangers before him and to find
Delbchaem; but when he brought her to Tara, Becuma in
disgust left Conn for ever . 8 Punishment of a divine befog is also
seen in the story of Manannan’s slaying Fer Fedail because of
his misdeed, which resulted in the drowning of Tuag . 9 Con-
chean slew Dagda’s son Aed for seducing his wife, and though
Dagda did not kill him, he made him carry the corpse until
he found a stone as long as Aed to put upon his grave . 10



PLATE VIII

Squatting God


The deity has torques on his neck and lap, and
is encircled by two serpents with rams’ heads.
Traces of horns appear on his head. He may
possibly be a form of Cernunnos (see Plate XVI),
and would thus be a divinity of the under-
world. From an altar found at Autun, Saone-et-
Loire. For a representation on a Gaulish coin see
Plate III, 3; cf. also Plates IX, XXV.




DIVINE ENMITY AND PUNISHMENT


73


Trespass on a sacred place is implied in the story of Eochaid,
who eloped with his step-mother. Oengus, in disguise, told
him not to camp on his meadow; and when he persisted, the
god sent plagues upon him, killing his cattle and horses, and
threatening to slay his household if he would not go. Oengus
then gave him a horse on which to depart with his goods, and
the lake which was formed afterward from the bursting of an
uncovered well produced by the micturation of this horse
drowned Eochaid and all his household, save his daughter
Liban. This, as well as the similar story told of Eochaid’s
brother Rib, who trespassed on the ground of Oengus and
Midir, has affinity with tales of the bursting of a sacred well
upon the impious trespasser, as in the legend of Boann . 11

In another story Oilill pastured his cattle on the exterior of a
sid, the grass of which the sid - folk now destroyed. While
Oilill watched there with Ferchess, he saw fairy cattle leaving
the sid, followed by Eogabal, son of its King, and his daughter
Aine. Eogabal was slain by Ferchess, and Aine was outraged
by Oilill, but she struck his right ear, leaving no flesh on it,
whence his epithet “Bare Ear.” Aine promised vengeance,
which was wrought thus. Eogan, Oilill’s son, and Lugaid
mac Con heard music proceeding from a yew formed by magic
as part of the means employed for vengeance, and in it
was found a little harper, who was brought by them to Oilill.
Before he went away, however, he made contention between
Eogan and Lugaid; the latter was slain, and this caused the
battle of Mag Mucrime, where Oilill’s seven sons perished . 12
In this story gods are within men’s power, though the latter
cannot finally escape punishment. So also is it in the tale of
Macha, “sun of women-folk,” daughter of Midir, or of Sainred,
son of Ler, who came to the house of the rich peasant, Cronn-
chu, and served him, bringing him prosperity and living with
him as his wife. Cronnchu went to a feast of the Ulstermen,
but was bidden by Macha not to say an imprudent word or
mention her name. At the horse-racing, however, he boasted


74 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY

that his wife was swifter than the horses, whereupon King
Conchobar insisted that she should be sent for, and though
she was with child, forced her to run against his chariot. She
said that all who saw it would suffer for the deed, and when at
the goal she gave birth to twins, she condemned every Ulster-
man to undergo for five days and four nights each year all the
pangs which she had felt, and to have no strength during that
time. Cuchulainn alone escaped the curse. 13

The automatic working out of punishment is seen in the
tragic results of the breaking of personal tabus, e. g. in the case
of Cuchulainn and Fionn. 14 This is sometimes regarded as the
inevitable operation of fate or as divine vengeance for wrong
done to gods, not necessarily by the victim, and it receives
its most mysterious illustration in the doom of Conaire Mor in
the long tale of Da Derga’s Hostel. In some versions Conaire’s
origin is connected with incest — itself caused by a vengeful
god — while his death at the height of his prosperity is re-
garded as the consequence of injury done by his ancestor to
the god Midir, whose wife Etain was retaken from him by
Conaire’s forefather Eochaid. 15 Through a trick of Midir’s,
Eochaid had a child, Mess Buachalla, by his daughter Ess,
and Mess Buachalla was mother of Conaire. Who, then, was
Conaire’s father? One account regards him as King Eterscel,
while Mess Buachalla is here daughter of Ess and one of the
side, or of Ess and Eterscel — the latter version thus intro-
ducing the incest incident in another form. Another account
tells how Eochaid married Etain, daughter of Etar, King of
the cavalcade from the sid; and their daughter Etain became
Cormac’s wife, but was put away because she bore him no son.
Cormac ordered his infant daughter to be slain, but she smiled
so sweetly on his thralls that they took her to King Eterscel’s
cowherds, who guarded her in a hut with a roof-light, whence
her name Mess Buachalla, or “the Cowherds’ Foster-Child.”
Through the roof-light Eterscel’s people saw her when she was
grown up, and told the king of her beauty. Now it was proph-


DIVINE ENMITY AND PUNISHMENT


75


esied that he would have a son by a woman of unknown race,
but before he sent for her, a bird flew through the roof-light,
and doffing its plumage, became a man, to whom Mess Buach-
alla yielded herself. Before leaving her he told how she would
have a son, Conaire, by him, who must never hunt birds; and
Conaire was regarded as Eterscel’s child when born. At
Eterscel’s death the new king was to be selected by divination
at the “bull-feast.” A bull was killed, probably as a sacrifice,
and after the diviner had eaten its flesh, he dreamed of the
future king — - in this case a naked man with a sling coming to
Tara. Meanwhile Conaire hunted a flock of wonderful birds,
which suddenly became armed men, one of them telling him
that he was Nemglan, King of the birds, his father, and that
he was breaking his geasa (tabus) in hunting his kinsmen.
Conaire replied that he knew nothing of this gets, whereupon
Nemglan bade him go naked toward Tara, where watchers
would meet him. In this incident there is doubtless some dim
memory of clan totem-myths.

A different account of his becoming king makes Mess
Buachalla tell him for the first time who his father is, viz.
Eterscel, her own father, when he had just died. His succes-
sor must fulfil certain apparently impossible conditions, but
Conaire met the terms and became king. Mysterious hosts
brought to him by his mother stayed with him for a time and
then departed, none knew whither; they were side from Bri
Leith, Midir’s sid. 16 This appears to mean that Conaire was
divinely assisted to become king, so that the approaching dis-
aster might be all the greater.

To return to the other account, Nemglan told Conaire the
geasa which he must observe. He became king, and none ever
had a more prosperous reign; plenty abounded, and murder
and rapine were banished. At last, however, the vengeance
of the god began to work. Through a fate which he could not
resist Conaire one day settled a quarrel between two of his
serfs, thus breaking one of the geasa, and on his return he saw


76


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


the whole country in flame and smoke — a delusion of the
side. To avoid the fire he and his men went sunwise round
Tara and counter-clockwise round Bregia. These were tabued
directions; and as he went, he pursued the evil beasts of Cerna,
disobeying another tabu. Then, belated, he resolved to stay in
the hostel of Derga (“Red”), and three red-haired horsemen
clad in red and on red steeds 17 were seen preceding him to the
house of Red — another of his geasa. He sent messengers after
them begging them to fall behind, but they only went the
faster and] announced: “We ride the steeds of Donn Tet-
scorach (Midir’s son) from the sid. Though we are alive, we
are dead. Great are the signs. Destruction of life. Sating of
ravens. Feeding of crows. Strife of slaughter. Wetting of
sword-edge. Shields with broken bosses in hours after sun-
down. Lo, my son!” With this boding prophecy they van-
ished, and the gods themselves thus caused the violation of
Conaire’s geasa. After arriving at the hostel he broke yet an-
other, for there came a hideous woman who, standing on one
foot, holding up one hand, and casting an evil eye on Conaire
and his men, foretold their doom. Then she begged to be taken
in, appealing to Conaire’s generosity, and he said, “Let her
in, though it is a geis of mine.”

At this time Ingcel, whose single eye had three pupils, in-
vaded Ireland with Conaire’s foster-brothers, and they were
now on their way to attack the hostel. Ingcel is described as
going toward it to spy upon the inmates, returning with ever
fresh reports of the wonders and the people seen by him, some
of them gigantic and monstrous, with magic weapons. When
the hostel was surrounded, a terrible battle began. Conaire
was parched with thirst, but no water was to be obtained,
though his ally MacCecht sought it in all Ireland. Lakes and
rivers had been dried up, apparently by the gods, as at the first
battle of Mag-Tured, and one loch alone was reached before its
water disappeared. MacCecht returned with a draught, but
all too late. Conaire’s host was scattered and dead, and he


DIVINE ENMITY AND PUNISHMENT


77


himself was being decapitated by two of his foes, whom Mac-
Cecht slew, and then poured the water into Conaire’s mouth.
The head thanked him for his act, and thus perished Conaire,
through no fault of his own, victim of fate and of a god’s ven-
geance . 18 The story is as tragic as a Greek drama, if its art is
less consummate.

[Prometheus]

CHAPTER VII

THE LOVES OF THE GODS


L IKE the gods of Greece and India, the deities of the Celts
had many love adventures, and the stories concerning
these generally have a romantic aspect. An early tale of this
class records that one night, as Oengus slept, he saw a beau-
tiful maiden by his bed-side. He would have caught hold of
her, but she vanished, and until next night he was restless and
ill. Again she appeared, singing and playing on a cymbal, and
so it continued for a year till Oengus was sick of love. Fergne,
a cunning leech, diagnosed the cause of his patient’s illness
and bade Boann, Oengus’s mother, search all Ireland for the
maiden, but though she sought during a whole year, the girl
could not be found. Fergne therefore bade Boann summon
Dagda, Oengus’s father, and he advised him to ask the help
of Bodb, King of the side of Munster, famed for knowledge.
Bodb discovered the maiden, and Oengus set out to see whether
he could recognize her. By the sea they found many girls,
linked two and two by silver chains; and one, taller than the
rest, was the maiden of the vision, Caer, daughter of Ethal of
sid Uaman. Dagda, advised by Bodb, sought help from Ailill
and Medb, King and Queen of Connaught — another instance
of mortals aiding gods; but Ethal refused Ailill’s request to
give up Caer, whereupon Dagda’s army with Ailill’s forces
destroyed his sid and took him prisoner. Still he refused, be-
cause he had no power over his daughter, for every second
year she and her maidens took the form of birds at Loch Bel
Draccan (the “Lake of the Dragons’ Mouths”); and thither
Dagda bade Oengus go. At this loch, says incidental refer-


THE LOVES OF THE GODS


79


ence to the story, the maidens were wont to remain all the
year of their transformation, Caer as the most lovely of all
birds, wearing a golden necklace, from which hung an hundred
and fifty chains, each with a golden ball . 1 When Oengus saw
the birds, he called to Caer. “Who calls me?” she cried. “It
is Oengus that calls thee; come to him that he may bathe with
thee.” The bird-maiden came, and Oengus also took the form
of a bird. Together they plunged three times in the lake, and
then flew to Brug na Boinne, singing so sweetly that everyone
fell asleep for three days and nights. Caer now became Oen-
gus’s wife . 2

In this story the god Bodb is famed for knowledge, and in
the incidental reference cited he is said for a whole year to have
kept off by his magic power the harper Cliach, who sought his
daughter’s hand . 3 Possibly the shape-shifting of Caer and her
maidens was the result of a curse or spell, as in other instances,
unless — being goddesses — the power was in their own hands.
The myth uses the folk-tale formula of the Swan-Maiden,
though its main incident is lacking, viz. her capture by obtain-
ing the bird-dress, which she has doffed.

In the story of Oengus’s disinheriting Elcmar, he later ap-
pears as a suitor for Etain, daughter of Ailill, who refused her
to him; but Midir was more successful, whence there was
enmity between him and Oengus. The long tale which follows
is extant in several manuscripts and is here pieced together
mainly from the versions in the Egerton Manuscript and the
Leabhar na hJJidre. Besides Etain, Midir had another consort,
Fuamnach, who was jealous of her. With the help of a Druid’s
spells and by her own sorceries she changed Etain into an in-
sect and by a magic wind blew her about for seven years; but
Oengus found her in this state and made for her a grianan, or
bower filled with shrubs and flowers, on which she fed and
thrived. Perhaps by night she was able to resume her true
form, for Oengus slept with her; and when Fuamnach heard
of this, she caused Midir to send for Oengus, so that a recon-


8o


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


ciliation might be effected. Meanwhile, however, Fuamnach
went to the grianan and again by a magic wind ejected Etain,
who was blown upon the breeze until she fell through the roof
of Etair’s house into his wife’s golden cup. She swallowed the
insect and later gave birth to the divinity as an infant called
Etain, who, more than a thousand years before, had been born
as a goddess. When she now grew up, as she and her maidens
were bathing, a warrior appeared, singing about Etain, and
then vanished, this being Midir, or possibly Oengus, who had
discovered Fuamnach’s treachery and struck off her head.
Here, however, is interpolated a verse telling how not Oengus
but Manannan slew or burned her, as well as her grandson,
Siugmall . 4

The next section of the story exists in two forms and relates
how Etain was married by Eochaid Airem, King of Ireland.
His brother, Ailill Anglonnach, felljn love with her, and when
at last he disclosed this to Etain, she, after much persuasion,
arranged a meeting-place with him. At the appointed time
however, Ailill did not come, being hindered by sleep; but one
in his likeness appeared to Etain on successive occasions and
at last announced himself to be Midir, who had thus dealt with
Ailill, and told her how she was his consort, parted from him
by magic. Nevertheless, she refused to go with him; but
when she told Ailill, he was cured of his love. The Egerton
version then relates how Midir, appearing in hideous form,
carried off Etain and her handmaid Crochan to his sid of Bri
Leith, near the rising of the sun, first staying on the way at the
sid of his divine relative Sinech; and when Crochan com-
plained of wasting time there, Midir said that this sid would
now bear her name.

In the version given by the Leabhar na hUidre the incident of
Midir’s disclosing himself is more mythical in character. He
invited Etain to the gods’ land, “the Great Plain,” or Mag
Mor — a marvellous land, wherein is music. Its people are
graceful, and nothing is called “mine” or “thine.” The plains


THE LOVES OF THE GODS


81


of Ireland are fair, but fairer is this plain, its ale more intoxi-
cating than that of Erin! There is choice of mead and wine,
and conception is without sin or crime (hence Segda in the
story of Becuma was “son of a sinless couple”). Its people
are invisible: they see but are not seen, and none ever grows
old. The magic food of the gods’ land will be Etain’s — un-
salted pork, new milk, and mead. Midir now met Eochaid
and proposed a game of chess with him, allowing him to win,
whereupon Eochaid demanded that Midir and his folk should
perform four tasks — clear the plains of Meath, remove
rushes, cut down the forest of Breag, and build a causeway
across the moor of Lamrach. In the Dindsenchas, a topo-
graphical treatise, these tasks are an eric, or fine, on Midir for
taking Eochaid’s wife, and in performing them the divine folk
taught a new custom to the men of Erin, viz. placing the yoke
over the oxen’s shoulders instead of on their foreheads, whence
Eochaid’s cognomen, Airem (“Ploughman”). 5 In a second
game Midir won and asked that he might hold Etain and kiss
her. Eochaid would not consent until a month had passed,
and then Midir arrived in splendour for his reward, surrounded
by armies. Etain blushed when she heard his demand, but he
reminded her that by no will of hers had he won her. “Take
me then,” said she, “if Eochaid is willing to give me up.”
“For that I am not willing,” cried Eochaid, “but he may cast
his arms around thee.” So Midir took her and then rose with
her through the roof, and the assembly saw the pair as two
swans winging their way to the sid.

The Egerton version ends by telling, how through the div-
ination of a Druid, Eochaid discovered Midir’s sid, destroyed
it, and recovered Etain. The version in the Leabhar na hUidre
is defective after narrating how Eochaid and his men dug up
several sid one after another; but the Dindsenchas relates that
Ess, Etain’s daughter, brought tribute of cattle and was fos-
tered by Midir for nine years, during which Eochaid besieged
the sid, thwarted by his power. Midir brought out sixty women


82


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


in Etain’s form, among them Ess, Eochaid’s daughter; but
Eochaid mistook her for Etain and by her had a daughter
Mess Buachalla, mother of Conaire. Recognizing his mistake,
he went to Midir, who restored Etain to him; and in revenge
Siugmall, Midir’s grandson, afterwards killed Eochaid . 6

Although folk-tale formulae are found in this story, it is
based on myths of divine love and magic power and of a god-
dess’s rebirth as a mortal. Midir’s poetic description of the
gods’ land is archaic and may only later have been connected
with the underground sid. Curious, too, is the idea, which we
have noted above, of the subjection of gods to mortals —
performing tasks and permitting their abode to be spoiled or a
consort taken from them — but it may reflect the belief in
magic power to which even divinities must yield. Never-
theless, the deities get their own back: Etain’s recapture is
preceded by the incest incident; Midir is slain; and his de-
scendant, Conaire, dies because the god causes him to break
his tabus, as already described.

The story of the birth of the hero Cuchulainn is based on
the love of a god, Lug, for a mortal, Dechtere, sister of Concho-
bar, King of Ulster. It is told in two versions, one found in
two recensions, the Leabhar na hUidre and the Egerton Manu-
script; the other is also given in the Egerton Manuscript.
We follow the latter (c), noting the chief points of difference
between it and the others (a and b). Dechtere, with fifty
maidens, left Conchobar’s house for three years, at last return-
ing in the form of birds which devoured everything, so that
Conchobar organized a hunt which continued unsuccessfully
till nightfall. The other version begins with the devastation
wrought by nine flocks of mysterious birds, joined two and
two by silver chains, the leading pair in each group being
many-coloured; but these birds are not Dechtere and her
companions, for she accompanies Conchobar in his chariot on
the hunt. The next incident is obscurely told in version c, but
comparing it with the other, it is evident that the hunters en-


THE LOVES OF THE GODS


83


tered a small house where were a man and a woman, and that
it was suddenly enlarged, beautified, and filled with all desir-
able things, for it was one of the gods’ magic dwellings, which
they could produce on earth by glamour. The man was Lug,
the woman Dechtere, though this was known only to Bricriu.
Conchobar believed that they were his vassals and demanded
his right of sleeping with the woman, who escaped by saying
she was enceinte; and in the morning an infant was discovered,
the child of Dechtere by Lug, though it had the appearance of
Conchobar. The child was called Setanta, but afterward was
known as Cuchulainn.

In version b the host told his guests that his wife was in
childbed. Dechtere assisted her and took the child to foster
him; and at the same time the host’s mare gave birth to two
foals — a common folk-tale coincidence. In the morning all
had vanished, and Conchobar’s party returned home with the
child, which died soon after. When the funeral was over, Dech-
tere in drinking swallowed a mysterious tiny animal, and that
night Lug appeared, telling her that she was with child by him,
for it was he who had carried her off with her companions as
birds — an incident lacking in this version. His was the child
whom she had fostered, and now he himself had entered her
as the little animal. Her child, when born, would be called
Setanta. Here Setanta is at once Lug’s son and his rebirth;
but the two ideas are not exclusive if we take into account
ancient ideas. In early Indian belief the father became an
embryo and was reincarnated in his first-born son, whence
funeral rites were performed for the father in the fifth month
of pregnancy, and he was remarried after the birth . 7 Probably
for a similar reason, preserved in Celtic myth after it was no
longer believed of mortals, a god who had a child by a mortal
was thought to be reborn while still existing separately him-
self; and this explains why the Ulstermen sought a wife for
Cuchulainn so that “his rebirth might be of himself.” In
various texts Cuchulainn is called son of Lug.


8 4


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


When Dechtere was found to be with child, it was thought
that Conchobar himself was the father, for she slept by him
— a glimpse of primitive manners in early Ireland. Elsewhere
Cuchulainn calls Conchobar his father , 8 and this may represent
another form of the story, with Conchobar as Cuchulainn’s
parent by his sister Dechtere. Dechtere was meanwhile
affianced to Sualtam, but ashamed of her condition, she
vomited up the animal and again became a virgin; yet the
child whom she bore to Sualtam was the offspring of the three
years’ absence — Setanta or Cuchulainn. On the whole this
is a much distorted myth, but two things emerge from it —
Lug’s amour with Dechtere and his fatherhood of Setanta . 9

Another tale, with Christian interpolations, tells how
Connla, son of Conn, who reigned from 122 to 157 a . d., one
day saw a strange woman who announced that she was from
Tir na mBeo (“the Land of the Living”), where was no death,
but perpetual feasting, and her people dwelt in a great sid,
whence they were called aes side , or “people of the sid .” The
goddess was invisible to all but Connla, whence Conn asked
him with whom he spoke, to which she replied that she was
one who looked for neither death nor old age and that she
loved Connla and desired him to come to Mag Mell (“the
Pleasant Plain”), where reigned a victorious king. Conn bade
his Druid use powerful magic against her and her brichta ban ,
or “spells of women,” against which at a later time St. Patrick
made his prayer. The Druid pronounced an incantation to
hinder Connla from seeing, and all others from hearing, the
goddess, who withdrew after giving an apple to Connla. He
would eat nothing but this, nor did it ever grow less; and in a
month the love-lorn Connla saw her reappear in a boat of glass,
calling him to come, for “the ever-living ones” invited him,
so that he might escape death. Conn again called his Druid,
whereupon the goddess sang that the Druids would soon pass
away before a righteous one, St. Patrick — a Christian inter-
polation, 'post eventum ; and Conn then spoke to his son, but


THE LOVES OF THE GODS 85

the goddess sang that once on the waves Connla’s grief at leav-
ing his friends would be forgotten, and the land of joy would
soon be reached, where there were none but women. Connla
sprang into the boat, which sped across the sea into the un-
known, whence he has never returned. 10 In this tale the land
of women is obviously but a part of the divine land, since that
is ruled by a king; and there is also confusion between the
idea of an overseas region of the immortals — Mag Mell —
and that of the subterranean sid. Connla’s adventure is men-
tioned in the Coir Anmann, or Fitness of Names, where an-
other account is given, viz. that he was slain by enemies. 11 A
parallel myth, perhaps of Celtic origin, is found in one of the
Lais of Marie de France concerning the knight Lanval, with
whom a fairy fell in love. When she declared herself, he sprang
on horseback behind her and went away to Avalon, a beau-
tiful island, the Elysium of the Brythonic Celts. 12

The Land of Ever-Living Women recurs in some tales of the
imm-rama , or romantic voyage, type, e. g. in The Voyage of
Maelduin, an old pagan story reconstructed in Christian
times. Maelduin and his companions went on a quest for his
father’s murderers and met with the strangest adventures,
one of which describes their arrival at an island where they
saw seventeen girls preparing a bath. A warrior appeared who,
on bathing, proved to be a woman and sent one of the girls
to bid the men enter her house. There a splendid repast was
given them, and the woman, Queen of the isle, desired each to
take the girl who best pleased him, reserving herself for Mael-
duin. In the morning she begged all to remain. Their age
would not increase; they would be immortal; and perpetual
feasting and excessive love without toil would be theirs. She
had been wife of the King of the island, the girls were her
daughters, and now she reigned alone, so that she must leave
them each day to judge cases for the people of the isle. The
voyagers remained three months, when all but Maelduin grew
home-sick; yet he consented to go with them, and all entered


86


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


their boat in the Queen’s absence. Suddenly she appeared and
threw out a rope which Maelduin seized, with the result that
they were drawn back to the shore, where they remained three
months longer, escaping then once more. This time one of
Maelduin’s men caught the rope thrown by the Queen, but the
others severed his hand, and seeing this, she wept bitterly at
their going . 13 These women were not mortals but goddesses,
eager for the love of men.

Another myth tells of a goddess’s love for Cuchulainn. A
flock of beautiful birds appeared in Ulster, and caused all the
women to long for them. Cuchulainn, in distributing his catch
among them, omitted his mistress Ethne, and to appease her
he promised that the two most beautiful birds which next ap-
peared would be hers. Soon after, two birds linked together
flew over the lake, singing a song which made everyone but
Cuchulainn sleep. He pursued, but failing to catch them, he
rested, angry in soul, against a stone, and while sleeping saw
two women approaching, one in a green mantle, and the other
in a purple, each armed with a horse-whip with which they
attacked him. When he was all but dead, his friends found
him, and on his awaking, he remained ill for a year. Then
appeared a stranger who sang of the healing which could be
given him by Aed Abrat’s daughters, Liban and Fand, wife of
Manannan. Fand desired his love, would he but come to her
wondrous land; and had he been her friend, none of the things
seen by him in vision would have happened. The stranger,
Oengus, son of Aed Abrat, disappeared, and after the Ulster-
men had persuaded Cuchulainn to tell his vision, he was ad-
vised to return to the pillar-stone. There he found Liban, who
told him that Manannan had abandoned Fand, and she
brought him a message from her own husband, Labraid, that
he would give him Fand in return for one day’s service against
his enemies . 14 Labraid dwelt in Mag Mell, and there Cuchu-
lainn would recover his strength; but the hero desired his
charioteer Loeg first to go and report upon this land.

[Prometheus]

PLATE IX

A AND B

Altar from Saintes

A. The obverse shows a seated god and goddess.
The god is squatting (cf. Plates III, 3, VIII, XXV),
and holds a torque in his hand. The goddess has a
cornucopia (cf. Plates XIV, XV), and a small fe-
male figure stands beside her.

B. On the reverse is a squatting god with a purse
in his right hand; to the left is a god with a hammer
(see Plates XIII, XIV, XXVI), and to the right is
a goddess. Three bulls’ heads are shown below
(cf. Plates II, 4-5, 9, III, 5, XIX, 1, 6, XX, B, XXI).
From an altar found at Saintes, Charente-Inferieure,
France.






THE LOVES OF THE GODS


87


At this point we hear of Loeg’s visit and return, and next
follows a long passage that has nothing to do with the story,
which then continues as if from another version in which
Liban’s visit had not occurred. Cuchulainn was still ill and
sent Loeg to tell Emer, his wife, how women of the side had
destroyed his strength; but when she reproached him for his
weakness, he arose and went to the enclosure (the pillar-stone
of the first part). There Liban appeared, singing of Labraid’s
prowess and of his need for Cuchulainn, and striving to lead
the hero to the dwelling of the side or to Labraid’s home on a
lake where troops of women came and went. Cuchulainn re-
fused to go at a woman’s call, whereupon Liban proposed that
Loeg should bring tidings of Labraid’s land. The two visits of
Loeg are thus the same, but differently described-. In the first
Liban took Loeg by the shoulder, for he could not go in safety,
unless under the protection of a woman. In a bronze boat they
reached an island in a lake, and in a palace Loeg saw thrice
fifty women who welcomed him. While he spoke with Fand,
Labraid arrived, gloomy because of the approaching contest,
but Liban cheered him by announcing that Loeg was there,
and that Cuchulainn would come. Now Loeg returned to tell
of all he had seen.

The other version describes how Loeg passed with Liban to
the plain of Fidga, where dwelt Aed Abrat and his daughters.
There Fand bade him at once bring Cuchulainn, for on that
day the strife would begin; and Loeg returned, urging Cuchu-
lainn to go and recounting what he had beheld. In one house
were thrice fifty men; at the eastern gate were three purple
trees with birds singing; in the forecourt was a silver tree
with musical branches; from sixty other trees dropped food to
nourish three hundred; and there was, too, a vat of unfailing
ale. He described Fand’s marvellous beauty and still urged
Cuchulainn with accounts of the attractiveness of the land,
without any lie or injustice, and of the glory of its warriors and

its women. Cuchulainn at last went there and by his might
m— 7


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CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


quelled the enemies of the god. Fand and Liban now sang in
praise of him, and he remained for a month with Fand, after
which he bade her farewell. She appointed a tryst with him in
Erin, but Emer heard of it and with fifty women came to at-
tack Fand. Cuchulainn, however, bade Fand have no fear, and
addressing Emer he told her how the goddess was more worthy
of his love. Emer reproached him, and when she added, “If
only I could find favour in thy sight,” Cuchulainn’s love for
her returned: “Thou shalt find favour so long as I am in life.”
Then began a noble contest between Fand and Emer as to
which of them should sacrifice herself for the other, and Fand
sang a beautiful lament. At this moment Manannan became
aware of Fand’s predicament and arrived to rescue her, unseen
by all save her and Loeg. Fand again sang, describing the
coming of “the horseman of the crested sea-waves,” and told
of her former love for the god and the splendour of their es-
pousals. Now, deserted by Cuchulainn, she would return to
Manannan; but still her heart yearned for the hero, as she
told Manannan when he asked her whether she would depart
with him or no. Yet one thing weighed with her: Manannan
had no consort worthy of him, while Cuchulainn already had
Emer. So she departed; and when the hero knew it, he bounded
thrice in air and gave three leaps southward, and abode for a
long time fasting in the mountains. Emer went to Conchobar,
who sent his Druids to bind Cuchulainn; and when the hero
would have slain them, they chanted spells and fettered him,
giving him a draught of oblivion so that he remembered Fand
no more. Emer also shared in this potion and forgot her
jealousy; “and Manannan shook his mantle between Cuchu-
lainn and Fand, so that they should never meet again.” 15 In
this story Emer addresses Loeg as one who often searches the
sid, while he speaks of the divine land as well-known to him
and seems to see Manannan when he is invisible to the others,
Manannan himself was an ardent lover, and what St. Pat-
rick called “a complicated bit of romance,” was told to him


THE LOVES OF THE GODS


89


by Caoilte. Aillen, of the Tuatha De Danann, became en-
amoured of Manannan’s wife, while his sister Aine, daughter of
Eogabal, loved Manannan and was dearer to him than all
mankind. Aine asked the cause of her brother’s sadness, and
he told her that he loved the goddess Uchtdelbh (“Shapely
Bosom”). Aine accordingly bade him come with her where
the divine pair were, and taking her seat by Manannan, she
gave him passionate kisses. Meanwhile Uchtdelbh, seeing
Aillen, loved him; and Manannan gave her to him, himself
taking Aine . 16 On another occasion Manannan desired Tuag,
a maiden guarded by hosts of the King of Erin’s daughters;
and since no man might see her, Manannan sent a divine
Druid, Fer Fidail, son of Eogabal, in the form of a woman to
gain access to Tuag. He remained with her three nights and
then, singing a sleep-strain over her, he carried her to the
shore and left her slumbering while he looked for a boat wherein
to carry her asleep to the Land of Ever-Living Women, or, in
another version, to go to take counsel of Manannan. But a
wave came and drowned her, the wave in one version being
Manannan the sea-god himself — a primitive piece of person-
alization of nature. For his misdeed Fer Fidail was slain by
Manannan, and probably the cause of offence was that he had
loved Tuag , 17 this explaining why she was drowned by the
disappointed god.

A parallel myth, connected with other personages, tells how
Clidna the Shapely went from the Hill of the Two Wheels, in
the Pleasant Plain of the Land of Promise, with Iuchna Curly-
Locks to go to Oengus Mac Ind Oc. But Iuchna practised
guile upon her so that she slept in the boat of bronze through
his music; and then he turned the boat’s head, altering its
course till it reached the place called Clidna. At that time
occurred one of the three great seabursts which spread through
all the world. It caught up the boat, and Clidna was drowned;
whence this seaburst was called Clidna’s Wave . 18 The
others were Tuag’s and Rudraige’s, or Ladru’s and Baile’s.


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CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


The story of Crimthann Nia Nair shows that one who so-
journs in the divine land or tastes its food may not be able to
return to earth with impunity, for he has become a member of
the other-world state and is no longer fit for earth. This is
found in other Irish tales and in stories of fairyland or the world
of the dead elsewhere . 19 Crimthann was son of Lugaid Red
Stripes, of whom one of those occasional stories of incest, not
uncommon in primitive society, is told, proving that it had
at one time been common in Celtic custom, perhaps in the
royal house. Lugaid’s mother was Clothru, a sister of Medb
and Ethne. Clothru and Ethne are both said to have been
wives of Conchobar after Medb left him for Ailiil; and their
brothers, Bres, Nar, and Lothar, were called the Three Finns,
or White Ones, of Emuin. Once Clothru bewailed her childless
condition to them, and as a result of her entreaties she had a
son Lugaid by all three . 20 Clothru again bore a child to Lugaid,
Crimthann Nia Nair, or “Nar’s Man,” the hero of this story
and afterward supreme king, who fared on what is called “a
splendid adventure” with a goddess or witch called Nar. He
went to a land overseas, where he remained with her for a
month and a half; and at his departure he obtained many
love-tokens — a chariot and a golden draught-board, a sword
richly ornamented, a spear whose wounds were always mortal,
a sling which never missed its aim, two dogs worth a hundred
female slaves, and a beautiful mantle. Soon after his return,
however, he fell from his horse and died 21 — an incident per-
haps to be explained in terms of the myths of Loegaire Liban
and Oisin, who, in order to return to the divine land, were
warned not to dismount from their horses . 22 On the other
hand, Cuchulainn was able to return to Ireland from Elysium
without hurt, and so also was Aedh, son of the King of Lein-
ster, who was enticed into the sid by Bodb Dearg’s daughters.
For three years the folk of the sid cared for him while his
father mourned, not knowing whither the divine people had
taken him — into the sky or down under the earth. He and


THE LOVES OF THE GODS


9i


fifty other youths escaped, however, and Aedh met St. Pat-
rick, who restored him to his father and said that he would
eventually die as God willed, i. e. the Tuatha De Danann
would have no further power over him . 23

Sometimes mortals, or gods later envisaged as mortals,
abducted daughters of gods. Garman took Bodb’s daughter
Mesca from the sid; but she died of shame, and the plain
where her grave was dug was named after her, Mag Mesca . 24
Men of the sid, divine or semi-divine beings, but regarded as
attendants on men, also had love-affairs with goddesses.
Cliach, from sid Baine, was harper to the King of the three
Rosses and made music at the sid of Femen to attract Con-
chenn, Bodb’s daughter. For a year Bodb’s magic prevented
the lover from approaching nearer, so that he “ could do noth-
ing to the girls” in the sid; but he harped until earth opened,
and a dragon issued forth, when he died in terror. This dragon
will arise at the end of the world and afflict Ireland in ven-
geance for St. John Baptist — perhaps an altered fragment of
an old cosmogonic myth . 25 Another story has some resem-
blance to this. Liath, a young Prince of the side, loved Midir’s
daughter Bri, who went with her attendants to meet him as
he approached. But the slingers on Midir’s sid kept him back,
and their sling-stones were like “a swarm of bees on a day of
beauty.” Liath’s servant was slain, and because Liath could
not reach her, Bri turned back to the sid and died of a broken
heart . 26

Besides these, a large number of Irish and Welsh tales illus-
trate the amours of the gods, as may be seen elsewhere in this
volume.


CHAPTER VIII

THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS

T HE surviving myths of the British Celts (Brythons), as
distinguished from the Irish Celts (Goidels), exist in the
form of romantic tales in the Mabinogion and similar Welsh
stories and in the Arthurian and Taliesin literature, or are re-
ferred to in the Triads and Welsh poems. Have the divinities
who there figure as kings and queens, heroes and heroines,
magicians and fairies, retained any of their original traits and
functions? The question is less easily answered than in the
case of Irish divinities subjected to the same romantic and
euhemerizing processes. With religious and social changes it
was forgotten that the gods were gods, and they became more
or less human, for the mediaeval story-teller was “pillaging
an antiquity of which he does not fully possess the secret.”
The composition of the stories of the Mabinogion, like those of
the great Irish manuscripts, dates from the tenth and eleventh
centuries, yet in both cases materials and personages are
of far older date, the supernatural element is strong, and there
is a mythical substratum surviving all changes. Further, the
Welsh tales belong to a systematized method of treating an-
cient traditions, and were the literary stock-in-trade of the
Mabinog, or aspirant to the position of a qualified bard. This
process was still further carried out in Ireland, where myths
were recast into a chronological as well as a romantic mould,
the file, or man of letters, being estimated according to the
number of his stories and his power of harmonizing and syn-
chronizing them. In Welsh literature the euhemerizing,
historical process is seen at work less in the legends than in


THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS 93


the historians Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth, with
whom some gods became kings having a definite date, as in
the Irish annals.

Certain personages and incidents of Welsh story resemble
those of Irish tradition. Was there, then, once a common
mythology among the ancestors of Goidel and Brython, to
which new local myths later accrued? Or did Irish and Welsh
myths mingle because Goidels existed either as a primitive
population in Wales, conquered by Brythons, or as a later
Irish immigration? Probably we are right in assuming that
the Mabinogion literature contains the debris of Brythonic
myths, influenced more or less from Goidelic sources, as the
occasional presence of Irish names and episodes suggests. The
Arthurian and Taliesin cycles are purely Brythonic. What is
certain is that the dim divinities of the Mabinogion are local
in character and belong to specific districts in Wales, gods of
tribes settled there. Celtic divinities were apt to be local,
though some had a wider repute. Few of the many British
divinities mentioned in inscriptions are known to Welsh story.
Nodons is Nudd or Lludd; Maponos is Mabon; the Belenos
and Taranos of Continental inscriptions may be respectively
Beli or Belinus and Taran of Welsh story, while the latter sug-
gests the British idol called Heithiurun in the Dindsenchas . 1

The Mabinogi of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, 2 begins by tell-
ing why he was called Pen Annwfn , or “Head of Annwfn”
(Elysium). One day he observed a strange pack following a
deer, but when he drove them off and urged on his own hounds,
a horesman appeared, rebuking him for interfering with his
sport. Pwyll apologized, and presently he and the stranger,
Arawn, King of Annwfn, agreed to exchange their forms and
kingdoms for a year: Pwyll would have Arawn’s beautiful
wife and would fight Arawn’s rival, Havgan, giving him but
one blow, which would slay him, for a second would resusci-
tate him. All this happened satisfactorily; never had Pwyll’s
kingdom been so well ruled, and complete friendship was


94


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


effected between the monarchs. As in Irish myth, this is the
theme of a mortal helping a deity in the Other-World. Yet
Pwyll was once himself a god, as his title Pen Annzvfn denotes,
and was later euhemerized into a king, or confused with an
actual monarch called Pwyll, while Annwfn here becomes a
mere kingdom on earth.

One day Pwyll sat on a mound which had the property of
causing him who was seated on it to receive a blow or see a
prodigy. A beautiful woman rode toward him and his men,
who pursued, but could not take her. This happened again on
the morrow, but on the third day, when Pwyll himself pursued,
she stood still at his bidding. She was Rhiannon, daughter
of Heveidd Hen, and wished to marry him instead of Gwawl,
whom she detested; and in a year he must come to her father’s
court for her. When Pwyll arrived, a stranger, who in reality
was Gwawl, appeared demanding a boon of him, and on his
promising it, asked for Rhiannon. She solved the difficulty
by agreeing to be Gwawl’s wife in a year, but bade Pwyll ap-
pear then as a beggar, carrying a certain magic bag, which, in
the sequel, could not be filled with food. Gwawl was enraged,
but was told by the beggar that unless a man of lands and
riches stamped down the contents, it never could be filled.
Gwawl did so and was immediately imprisoned in the bag,
which was kicked about the hall by Pwyll’s followers until, to
escape death, he renounced his claim to Rhiannon.

The magic mound is here the equivalent of the sid, and such
hills are favourite places for the appearance of immortals or
fairies in Celtic story. Rhiannon, who suddenly appeared on
the hill, was a goddess, like Fand or Connla’s lover, and the
theme is that of the Fairy Bride.

The story now tells how Rhiannon, whose child disappeared
at birth, was accused of slaying it and was forced to sit at the
horse-block of the palace, to tell her story to each new comer,
and to offer to carry him inside. Meanwhile Teyrnon, Lord of
Gwent-is-coed, had a mare whose foals disappeared on May-



PLATE X

Incised Stones from Scotland

1. Incised stone, locally known as “the Picardy
Stone,” with double disc and Z-rod symbol, serpent
and Z-symbol, and mirror with double-disc handle.
From Insch, Aberdeenshire.

2. Incised stone with double disc and serpent
and Z-rod symbols. From Newton, Aberdeenshire.
Cf. Plate XVII.






THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS 95


Eve, and this May-Eve he saw a huge claw clutching the new-
born colt. He severed it with his sword, and the intruder
vanished; but at the door-way was a new-born infant, which
Teyrnon nurtured. Like Cuchulainn and other heroes, it had
a rapid growth and was called Gwri Golden-Hair. Noticing
Gwri’s likeness to Pwyll, Teyrnon carried the boy to him,
and Rhiannon was reinstated, exclaiming that her anguish
( pryderi ) was past; whence Gwri was called Pryderi and
succeeded Pwyll as King.

Folk-tale formulae abound in this section — that of the
Abandoned Wife, found also in the Mabinogi of Branwen; and
that of an animal born the same night as the hero; while the
claw incident occurs in tales of Fionn. The importance of the
story is in Pryderi’s birth. The fact that Teyrnon’s foal dis-
appeared on the same night as Pryderi, who was found at
Teymon’s door, and the meanings of the names Teyrnon =
Tigernonos (“Great King”) or Tigernos (“Chief”), and
Rhiannon = Rigantona (“Great Queen”), may point to a
myth in which they were Pryderi’s parents. 3 Manawyddan,
who becomes Rhiannon’s husband and rescues both her and
Pryderi from the vengeance of Gwawl, may have been his
father in another myth, for a poem associates him with Pry-
deri in Caer Sidi, a part of Annwfn. In the story, however,
Pwyll, an original lord of Elysium, is Pryderi’s parent. Does
this point to a number of goddesses, bearing the name Rigan-
tona, consorts of different gods, and later fused into one as
Rhiannon? In another Mabinogi, Pryderi is despoiled of
swine sent him by Arawn, or of which, according to a Triad,
he was swineherd, Pwyll having brought them from Annwfn
and given them to Pryderi’s foster-father. Pwyll and Pryderi
are thus associated with Elysium and with animals brought
thence. A Taliesin poem tells of the magic cauldron of Pen
Annwfn, viz. Pwyll. Round it was a ridge of pearls; it would
not boil a coward’s food; voices issued from it; it was warmed
by the breath of nine maidens; and it formed part of the

[Prometheus]

CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


96

“Spoils of Annwfn” which Arthur and others made a long
journey overseas to obtain. Gweir was imprisoned in Caer
Sidi through the spite (or messenger?) of Pwyll and Pryderi,
associated as lords and defenders of Annwfn . 4 Arawn, Lord
of Annwfn, was defeated by Amsethon, son of Don, at the
mythic battle of Cath Godeu . 5

The Mabinogi of Math, son of Mathonwy , 6 tells of Gil-
vsethwy’s love for Goewin, Math’s “foot-holder.” To help
him his brother Gwydion resolved to cause war and told Math
that swine, unknown before, had been sent to Pryderi in Dyfed
by Arawn. He and Gilvsethwy, disguised as bards, set off to the
court of Pryderi, who praised Gwydion for his songs, where-
upon the latter asked for the swine, but was told that they
must breed double their number ere they left the country.
Gwydion now obtained them in exchange for twelve stallions
and twelve greyhounds magically formed by him from fungus;
but these soon turned again to their original shape, and Pryd-
eri invaded Math’s territory, only to be defeated and slain
in single combat by Gwydion’s enchantments. Gilvsethwy
outraged Goewin during the battle, and when Math discovered
this, he transformed the brothers first into a couple of deer,
then into swine, and finally into wolves. In these forms they
had animal progeny, afterward changed to human shape by
Math. Math now found a new “foot-holder” in Arianrhod,
Gwydion’s sister, but she proved no virgin, and when Math
caused her to pass under his magic rod, she bore twins, one of
whom was taken by Math and called Dylan. When Gwydion
brought the other, who had grown rapidly, to Arianrhod’s
castle, she refused to give him a name. Disguised as a shoe-
maker, Gwydion then arrived with the boy and made shoes
for Arianrhod which did not fit. She went on board Gwyd-
ion’s ship, produced by magic, and saw the boy shoot a bird.
Not recognizing him, she cried, “With a sure hand ( llaw
gyffes) lieu shoots the bird,” whereupon Gwydion revealed
himself and said that she had named the boy, Lieu Llaw


THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS 97


Gyffes. Now she refused to arm him, but once more disguised,
Gwydion with Lieu caused an enchanted fleet to appear; and
she armed both, only to be taunted with the stratagem. Again
she said that Lieu would never have a wife of the people of this
earth, but Math and Gwydion made him a bride out of flowers
and called her Blodeuwedd. She was unfaithful to Lieu, how-
ever, and advised by her lover, Gronw Pebyr, she discovered
that a javelin wrought for a year during Mass on Sundays
would kill him when standing with one foot on a buck and the
other on a bath curiously prepared by the bank of a river.
Gronw made the javelin, and when Lieu, prevailed on by
Blodeuwedd, showed her the fatal position, he was struck by
Gronw and flew off as an eagle. Soon after, Gwydion found a
pig eating worms which fell from a wasted eagle on a tree;
and as he sang three verses, at each the eagle came nearer.
When he struck it with a magic rod, it became Lieu, who now
turned Blodeuwedd into an owl; while Gronw had to submit
to a blow from a javelin which penetrated the flat stone placed
by him against his body and killed him. Lieu now recovered
his lands and ruled them happily.

These personages are associated with a dim figure called
Don, who is probably not male, but female, and is mother of
Gwydion, Gilvsethwy, Govannon, Amaethon, and Arianrhod,
who was herself mother of Dylan and Lieu. Math is Don’s
brother. Superficially this group is equivalent to the Tuatha
De Danann, and Don is parallel to Danu, while Govannon
(go/, “smith”) is the equivalent of Goibniu, the Irish smith-
god. Lieu, the reading of whose name as Llew (“Lion”) may
be abandoned, has been equated with Lug, and both names
are said to mean “light.” “Light,” however, has no sense in
the name-giving incident, and possibly, as Loth suggests, 7
there is a connexion with Irish lu, “little.” The other names
of the group have no parallels among the Tuatha De Danann.
Mythological traits are the magic powers of Math and Gwyd-
ion, their shape-shifting, and the introduction of the swine.


98


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


Math Hen, or “the Ancient,” is an old Welsh “high god,”
remembered for magic, which he taught to Gwydion; for the
fact that the winds brought to him the least whisper of a con-
versation, wherever it might be held; and for his pre-eminent
goodness to the suffering and his justice without vengeance
upon the wrongdoer. The last trait shows a high ideal of
divinity, and the second a conception of omniscience.

As a magician Gwydion is also prominent, and by magic
he governed Gwynedd. He was the cleverest of men and
possessed terrible strength, while his prophetic powers are
emphasized in a Triad , and he had supreme gifts as story-teller
and bard. His successful raid on Pryderi’s pigs which came
from Annwfn suggests that, like Cuchulainn, he is the culture
hero bringing domestic animals from the god’s land to earth,
and perhaps for this reason a Triad calls him one of the three
cowherds of Britain, guarding thousands of kine. Irish myth
also frequently speaks of cattle brought from the sid. Gwyd-
ion’s name reflects his character as an inspired bard, if it is
from a root vet , giving words meaning “saying” or “poetry,”
cognate terms being Irish faith, “prophet” or “poet,” and
Latin vates . 8 Gwydion would thus be equivalent to Ogma
and Ogmios, gods of eloquence and letters, and a late manu-
script says he first taught reading and knowledge of books to
the Gaels of Anglesey and Ireland. He is not straightforward,
however, when he pretends that his sister Arianrhod is a virgin,
for she is his mistress and mother of his sons, an incest incident
with parallels in Irish story.

Arianrhod consented to the fraud and as a further pretence
to chastity disowned Lieu; yet a Triad calls her one of the
three blessed or white ladies of Britain. Was she worshipped
as a virgin goddess, while myth gave her a different character?
Celtic goddesses, like the Matres, were connected with fertility,
and goddesses of fertility or earth are apt to possess a double
character, like the great Phrygian Mother, who was also re-
garded as a virgin . 9 Arianrhod, like Aphrodite, was lovely;


THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS 99


“beauty-famed beyond summer’s dawn,” sang a poet. 10 Her
name means “silver wheel.”

Much that is said of Lieu is insignificant for mythology,
though Rhys has built a large structure of sun, dawn, and
darkness upon it. The greater part of it is a well-known folk-
tale formula attached to his name — that of the Unfaithful
Wife. It is doubtful whether Lieu really equals Lug merely
because their uncles are respectively Govannon and Gavida
(Goibniu), both meaning “smith”; for while Gavida nurtured
Lug, and Lug slew Balor, Lieu was not brought up by Govan-
non, and the latter incident has no equivalent in his story.
Moreover, Lug is prominent in connexion with the great
Celtic festival, Lugnasad (celebrated on the first of August),
but Lieu is not. Thus his mythological significance is lost
to us.

Math caused Dylan to be baptized, and then this precocious
baby made for the sea, where he swam like a fish; no billow
broke under him, and he was called “son of the wave.” The
blow which caused his death came from Govannon — one of
the three nefarious blows of Britain — but is otherwise un-
explained. The waves lamented his death, and ever, as they
press toward the land, they seek to avenge it. 11 Perhaps Dylan
was once a sea-god, regarded as identical with the waves, like
Manannan. Tradition speaks of the noise of the waters pour-
ing into the Conway as his dying groans, and, again like
Manannan, son of Ler (the sea), he is called Dylan Eil Ton
or Mor (“Son of the Wave” or “Sea”). 12 “As soon as he
entered the sea, he took its nature.”

Govannon’s functions as a smith-god are illustrated from a
reference in Kulhwch and Olzven , where his help must be gained
by Kulhwch to attend at the end of the furrows to cleanse the
iron, 13 though the meaning of this is obscure. In a Taliesin
poem he and Math are associated as artificers. 14 Amsethon’s
name suggests that his functions were connected with agricul-
ture ( amaeth , “ploughman” or “labourer”), and this is illus-


IOO


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


trated by the fact that no husbandmen can till or dress a
certain field for Kulhwch, “so wild is it, save Amaethon, son of
Don; he will not follow thee of his own free will, and thou canst
not force him .” 15 He also brought animals from the gods’
land — a roebuck, whelp, and lapwing belonging to Arawn —
and this led to the battle of Godeu, in which, aided by Gwyd-
ion, he fought Arawn. Gwydion changed trees and sedges
into combatants, as he had transformed fungus into hounds
and horses. On either side fought personages who could not
be vanquished until their names were discovered, but Gwyd-
ion affected the course of the battle by finding the name of
Arawn’s mysterious helper, Bran — a mythic instance of the
power of the hidden name, once it becomes known to another . 16

Whether as a survival from myth or from later folk-belief,
the stars are associated with some of these divinities. The
constellation of Cassiopeia is called “Don’s Court”; Arianrhod
is connected with the constellation Corona Borealis; and the
Milky Way is termed “Gwydion’s Castle,” because he fol-
lowed it in chasing Blodeuwedd across the sky — an obviously
primitive myth . 17

The Mabinogion of Branwen and of Manawyddan are con-
nected and concern the families of Pwyll and Llyr . 18 The
Llyr group consists of his sons, Bran and Manawyddan; their
sister, Branwen; and their half-brother, Nissyen and Evnissyen.
As Bran sat on a rock at Harlech, vessels arrived bearing
Matholwych, King of Ireland, as a suitor for Branwen. He
was accepted, and a feast was made for him in tents, for no
house could hold Bran. But Evnissyen the mischief-maker
mutilated Matholwych’s steeds, and the king indignantly
left, returning only when Bran gave him gifts, including a
cauldron which restored life to the dead, though they re-
mained dumb. This cauldron was obtained from two mys-
terious beings who came out of a lake in Ireland, the man
bearing the cauldron, and the woman about to give birth to
an armed warrior; but they and their descendants were so


THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS ioi


troublesome that they were imprisoned in a white-hot iron
house, whence the pair escaped to Britain with their cauldron
— an incident probably borrowed from the Ulster tale of the
Mesca Ulad. Matholwych returned to Ireland with Branwen,
and there, after two years, in retaliation for Evnissyen’s con-
duct, she was placed in the kitchen, where the butcher struck
her every morning. She accordingly sent a starling to Bran
with a message, whereupon he waded over to Ireland, his
men following in ships and crossing the Shannon on his body.
The Irish came to terms and built Bran a vast house, in which
they concealed warriors in sacks; but Evnissyen discovered
this and crushed them one by one. Peace was now concluded,
but Evnissyen again caused trouble by throwing Branwen’s
child into the fire. In the fight which followed the Irish were
winning because they restored their dead in the cauldron;
but Evnissyen smashed it, though he died in the effort. Bran
was slain, and seven only of his people escaped, including
Pryderi, Manawyddan, and Taliesin. Bran bade them cut
off his head and bury it at London, looking toward France;
and they reached Anglesey with Branwen, who died there of a
broken heart. Meanwhile Caswallawn, son of Beli, had usurped
the kingdom, Bran’s son also dying of sorrow. As Bran
had advised, his head-bearers remained at Harlech for seven
years, feasting and listening to the birds of Rhiannon singing
far overhead; and at Gwales for eighty years, the head enter-
taining them in a house with a forbidden door. The years
passed as a day, until one of the men opened the door, when
their evils were remembered, and they went to London to
bury the head.

Manawyddan having lamented that he was landless, Pryd-
eri gave him land in Dyfed and his mother Rhiannon as
wife. All three, with Kicva, Pryderi’s wife, were seated on a
knoll when a thunder-clap was heard; and as the cloud which
accompanied it cleared away, they found the country desolate,
without creature or habitation. Lack of food impelled them


102


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


to seek a living as saddlers, shield-makers, and shoe-makers
successively, but they were always expelled by the regular
craftsmen. One day they pursued a boar to a strange castle,
and Pryderi entered, but trying to lift a golden cup, his hands
stuck fast to it, nor could he move his feet. Manawyddan
told Rhiannon of Pryderi’s disappearance, and when she
sought him, she met the same fate, until at another clap of
thunder the castle disappeared. Manawyddan and Kicva, as
shoe-makers, were again foiled by envious cobblers, and he
now sowed three fields, but an army of mice ate the grain.
One of these he caught and was about to hang, in spite of the
entreaties of Kicva, of a clerk, and of a priest, when a bishop
appeared, and Manawyddan bargained to give up the mouse
if the bishop released Pryderi and Rhiannon, removed the
enchantment from Dyved, and told him who and what the
mouse was. The bishop was Llwyd, a friend of Gwawl, whom
Pryderi’s father, Pwyll, had insulted. All had happened in
revenge for that: the mouse was Llwyd’s wife, the other mice
the ladies of the court. Everything was now restored; Pryderi
and Rhiannon reappeared; and Llwyd agreed to seek no fur-
ther revenge.

While the framework of Branwen is connected with Scandi-
navian and German sagas, whether borrowed by Welshmen
from their Norse allies in the ninth and tenth centuries,
as Nutt supposed , 19 or by Norsemen from Wales, its person-
ages are Celtic, and it contains many native elements. Llyr
Half-Speech and Manawyddan are the equivalents of the
Irish sea-gods Ler and Manannan, the latter of whom is also
associated with Elysium. It is uncertain whether these two
were common to Goidels and Brythons, or were borrowed by
the latter; but at all events they have a definite position in
Welsh tradition, which knows of two other Llyrs — Llyr
Marini and Llyr, father of Cordelia in Geoffrey’s History —
Shakespeare’s Lear . 20 These are probably varying present-
ments of a sea-god. Llyr is sometimes confused with Lludd


THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS 103


Llaw Ereint, or “Silver-Hand.” A Triad represents Gweir,
Mabon, and Llyr as three notable prisoners of Britain; but in
Kulhwch these are Greit, Mabon, and Lludd, father of Cor-
delia. 21 Are Llyr and Lludd identical, and is an Irish Alloit,
sometimes called father of Manannan, the equivalent of
Lludd? All this is uncertain. Rhys and Loth are tempted to
correct Lludd into Nudd, an earlier Nodens Lamargentios
(“Nudd Silver-Hand”) having been changed to Lodens (Lludd)
Lamargentios by alliteration, and to equate him with the
Irish Nuada Argetlam (“Silver-Hand”); but the possibility
of such an alliterative change has been denied. Nuada is
identified with the British god Nodons; but though Llyr was
a sea-god, there is no proof that Nuada or Nodons was such,
though some symbols in the remains of the temple of Nodons
on the Severn have been thought to suggest this. 22 These,
however, are not decisive, and it is equally possible
that the god was equated with Mars rather than with
Neptune.

Manawyddan, whose name is derived from Welsh Manaiv ,
the Isle of Man, is much more humanized in Welsh story than
the divine Manannan of the Voyage of Bran; yet he has magic
powers and great superiority as a craftsman. He is associated
with Arthur in a poem and is praised for his wise counsels,
while Pryderi was instructed by him in various crafts and
aided by him, just as the Irish Diarmaid was nurtured and
taught by Manannan. Rhiannon may have been introduced
accidentally into the story — “a mere invention of the nar-
rator in order to give sequence to the narrative”; 23 but possi-
bly she is Manawyddan’s real consort, not one given him by her
son. If so, Pryderi would be Manawyddan’s son, not Pwyll’s,
and his deliverance of Rhiannon and Pryderi from his magi-
cian foe would be significant. 24 Rhiannon appears magically,
like Irish goddesses of Elysium, and she may thus have been
associated with Manawyddan in Elysium, who with Pryderi is
Lord of Annwfn in a Taliesin poem —


104


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


“ Complete is my chair in Caer Sidi;

Plague and age hurt not him who is in it,

They know Manawyddan and Pryderi;

Three organs round a fire sing before it,

And about its points are ocean’s streams.

And the abundant well above it —

Sweeter than white wine the drink of it.” 25

Rhiannon’s magic birds, whose song brought joy and oblivion
for seven years, like that of Ler’s bird-children , 26 and awoke the
dead and made the living sleep , 27 have an Elysian note and
confirm the supposition that she is an Elysian goddess. Be-
yond that we need not go, and there is nothing to connect
her with the dawn or the moon.

Branwen or Bronwen (“White Bosom”) has no definite
traits. Her marriage to Matholwych and her subsequent
sufferings recall the stories of Gudrun, Kriemhild, and Signy;
but whether she ever was connected as a goddess of fertility
with her brother’s cauldron of regeneration must remain an
ingenious conjecture, not supported by the Mabinogi. As a
sea-god’s daughter, she may be “the Venus of the northern
sea,” as Elton supposed , 28 while the Black Book of Caermar-
then calls the sea “the fountain of Venus,” 29 though this is,
perhaps, nothing more than a Classical recollection. Later
romance knew her as Brangwaine, the confidante of Tristram
and Yseult, giving the knight the love-potion which bound
him in illicit amour with Yseult.

Bran is a more obviously mythological figure, and his
gigantic size is an earlier or later method of indicating his
divinity. His buried head protected the land from invasion
— a mythical expression of actual custom — for bodies and
heads of warriors had apotropaic virtues and were sometimes
exhibited or buried in the direction whence danger was ex-
pected . 30 Hence the image of a divine head might have greater
powers, and this may explain the existence of Celtic images
of a god’s head, often in triple form. These figures, found in
Gaul, were believed by Rhys to be images of Cernunnos, a

[Prometheus]

THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS 105


god of the Celtic underworld, which he regarded as a dark
region^ contrary to all that we can gather of it, while Bran
was the Brythonic equivalent of Cernunnos and was slain by a
sun-hero, his wading to Ireland representing his crossing the
waters to Hades, like Yama, there to reign as lord of the dead. 31
The heads, however, can be explained only conjecturally as
heads of Cernunnos. The exigencies of the story demanded
that Ireland should be brought in, and as Bran had to reach it
somehow, it was easiest to make the gigantic god wade there;
if the parallel with Yama were true, Bran should have died
before crossing the water of death. Yama’s realm was not
“dark,” but a heavenly region of light, like the Celtic other-
world, even if the latter, unlike the former, was subterranean.
Far from being “dark,” Bran is bright and cheerful and has
Elysian traits. Eighty years are as a day, and men think only
of feasting and happiness in the presence of his head, which is as
agreeable to them as he himself was in life; it produces an Elys-
ium on earth, which is lost through opening a door, exactly as
others lose it and become decrepit through contact with earth.
Thus if Bran, sitting on the rock at Harlech or existing as a
talking head afterward solemnly buried, like Orpheus’s singing
head interred in a sacred place, is the equivalent of the squat-
ting Gaulish god Cernunnos, perhaps also represented as a single
or triple head, this can only be because both were lords of a
bright other-world, whether the region of the dead or a divine
land. Bran is certainly not a dark god of blight, but rather
the reverse, since his cauldron resuscitates the dead. In cross-
ing to Ireland he carried his musicians on his back, and this
may point to his being a divinity of musicians and bards. If
so, he, as the Urdawl Ben (“Noble Head”), may be compared
to the Uthr Ben (“Wonderful Head”) of a Taliesin poem,
which boasted of being a bard, harper, and piper, and equal to
seven score professionals. 32 Arthur disinterred Bran’s head,
not wishing to owe the defence of Britain to it.

Bran was euhemerized into a British king who was confused


io6


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


with Brennus, leader of the Gauls in the sack of Rome, 390
b. c., and was transformed into a conqueror of Gaul and
Rome. 33 He also figures as a saint, Bran the Blessed, if that
was not already a pagan epithet; and remaining at Rome
seven years as hostage with his son Caradawc, he brought
Christianity thence to the Cymry. Caradawc is here the his-
toric Caratacus, who was carried prisoner to Rome, but there
is confusion with a Caradawc (“Great Arms,” or “Prince of
Combat”), son of Llyr Marini, about whom a saga may have
existed. In any case Bran was regarded as head of one of the
three saintly families of Britain. 34

In the Mabinogi of Branwen, Caswallawn, clothed in a
mantle of invisibility, destroyed the heroes of Britain and
usurped the kingdom, leaving Manawyddan landless; and
though his sister was married to Llyr, he was hostile to Llyr’s
descendants. Caswallawn, Lludd, Llevelys, and Nynnyaw
were sons of Beli, although Geoffrey makes his Lear long pre-
cede Beli or Heli as king, while he also introduces a Belinus
and confuses Caswallawn with Cassivellaunus, Caesar’s foe. 35
Beli and Belinus may represent the god Belenos, who was
equated with Apollo; and Beli is victorious champion of the
land and the preserver of its qualities in a Taliesin poem, in
which the singer implores him 36 — perhaps a reminiscence of
earlier divine traits. A Triad calls Beli father of Arianrhod,
and Rhys, assuming that this is Arianrhod, the daughter of
Don, makes Don consort of Beli, equates Don with Danu, and,
without the slightest evidence, assigns to Danu as consort the
shadowy figure Bile, father of Mile, invented by Irish annal-
ists. Beli and Bile are then equated with the Celtic Dispater,
the divine ancestor of the Celtic race, whom he assumes to
have been a “dark” god, ruling a “dark” underworld. 37 All
this is modern mythologizing.

Caswallawn is confused in the Triads with Cassivellaunus, a
warrior who may have been named after him; and he is called
“war-king,” an epithet which may recall his divine functions,



? <aO


i



PLATE XI

Gauls and Romans in Combat

Bas-relief from a sarcophagus found near Rome.





THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS 107


those of a god invisibly leading armies to battle and embodied
in chiefs who bore his name. Yet the epithet might be that of
actual warriors, just as the German Emperor calls himself the
“war-lord.”

Lludd,as King, rebuilt London orCaer Ludd, and was buried
at Ludgate Hill, which thus preserves his name and points to
an earlier cult of Lludd at this place. 38 He is also said to have
been enclosed in a narrow prison — an unexplained reference
to some tale now lost. In the story of Lludd and Llevelys 39 his
country of Britain was subjected to three plagues — the Cora-
nians who heard every whisper, like Math Hen; a shriek on
May-Eve caused by a foreign dragon attacking the dragon of
the land and producing wide-spread desolation; and the mys-
terious disappearance of a year’s supply of food. Llevelys bade
Lludd bruise certain insects in water and throw the mixture
over his assembled people and the Coranians; the latter alone
would be poisoned by it. The dragons were to be made drunk
with mead and then buried. The third plague was caused by a
magician who lulled every one to sleep and then carried off the
provisions; but Lludd was to keep awake by plunging into
cold water and then to capture the giant, who would become
his vassal. This last plague recalls “the hand of glory,” the
hand of a new-born infant or a criminal, which, anointed with
grease and ignited, rendered a robber invisible and caused
every one to sleep in whatever house the thief entered. Treasure
was also discovered by its means, and as Dousterswivel in
Scott’s Antiquary said, “he who seeksh for treasuresh shall
never find none at all,” to which the Antiquary replied, “I
dare take my corporal oath of that conclusion.” Whether this
episode of the story is based on such a folk-belief is not clear.
As a whole nation suffers from the plagues, and as two of them
affect fertility and plenty, the origin of the tale may be found
in the mythical contest of divine powers with hostile potencies
of blight, as at Mag-Tured. 40 In a Triad the plague of the
Coranians is called that of March Malaen from beyond the


io8


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


sea; 41 and March suggests the Fomorian More, who taxed
the Nemedians in two-thirds of their children, corn, and milk
on November-Eve. 42 The Welsh plagues, however, occur at Bel-
tane, i. e. at the beginning of summer, rather than winter, as
might be expected. Lludd is praised for generosity in giving
meat and drink — the attribute of a kindly god. The Cora-
nians are connected with Welsh cor (“dwarf”) and are still
known as mischievous fairies.

In connexion with such dwarfs it is interesting to note that a
dwarf fairy-folk is described by Giraldus Cambrensis (1147-
1223). Two of them took the priest Elidurus, when a boy,
through subterranean passages to a delightful region, whose
people lived on milk and saffron, swore no oaths, and contemned
human ambition and inconstancy. Elidurus frequently visited
them, but being persuaded by his mother to steal their gold, he
was pursued and the gold was taken from him, after which he
never again found the way to fairy-land. 43 Save for their size,
these fairies recall the Tuatha De Danann, dwelling in the sid.

Gwyn, son of Nudd, is connected both with Annwfn and also
in later belief with fairy-land. 44 He was a great magician and a
mighty warrior — “the hope of armies” — while his horse was
also “the torment of battle”; 45 without him and a certain
steed named Du, the monster boar, the Twrch Trwyth, could
not be caught by Kulhwch. Gwyn abducted Creidylad (Cor-
delia), daughter of Lludd, who was affianced to Gwythur; but
in the fight which followed Gwyn was victor and forced one of
his foes to eat his dead father’s heart so that he became mad.
Arthur interfered, however, and ordered that Creidylad should
remain with her father, while Gwyn and Gwythur must fight
for her every day until doom, when she would be given to the
victor. 46 This story is illustrated by folk-survivals. On May-
day in the Isle of Man a girl representing the May Queen was
attended by a captain and several others; and there was also a
Queen of Winter with her company. The two bands met in
mock battle, and if the May Queen was captured, her men had


THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS 109


to ransom her. 47 Ritual combats between representatives of
summer and winter occur among the folk everywhere and in
origin symbolized the defeat of winter, as well as actually
aided the gods of light and growth. The story of Creidylad is
perhaps the debris of an old myth explaining the reason of such
a contest when its real purpose was forgotten.

Another group of divine personages is found in the Hanes
Taliesin , which was written in the sixteenth or seventeenth
century, although references to incidents in it occur in far ear-
lier poems in the Book of Taliesin and presuppose its existence
in some form when they were composed. It contains mythical
elements which introduce old divinities, a culture hero or god,
Taliesin, and the conceptions of inspiration, rebirth, and shape-
shifting, the last being expressed in the folk-tale formula of the
Transformation Combat, as it already is in one of the poems. 48
Taliesin is unknown to the Mabinogion , save as a bearer of
Bran’s head, and this suggests his local character, while the
saga was probably developed in a district to the south of the
estuary of the Dyfi. 49 Before story or poem was written, three
facts concerning his mythic history must have been remem-
bered — his inspiration, his shape-shifting powers, and his
being the rebirth of Gwion. Whether or not there was an
actual poet called Taliesin living in the sixth or, as his latest
translator and commentator, Mr. J. G. Evans, thinks, in the
thirteenth century, it is certain that his poems contain many
mythical references which must once have been told of a myth-
ical being doubtless bearing the same name as himself.

Tegid the Bald lived in Lake Tegid (Bala) with his wife
Cerridwen, their beautiful daughter Creirwy, and their sons
Morvran and Avagddu, the latter the most ill-favoured of
men, although Morvran (“Sea-Crow”) is elsewhere said to
have been also of repellent aspect. Cerridwen wished to com-
pensate Avagddu by giving him knowledge, so that he might
have entry among men of standing; and with the aid of the
books of Ffergll (Vergil) she prepared a cauldron of inspiration


no


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


and science to boil for a year. While she went to gather herbs
of virtue, she set the blind Mordu to kindle the fire and Gwion
to stir the pot; but three drops from it fell on his finger, which
he put in his mouth, and he found himself master of knowledge,
which taught him to flee from Cerridwen’s rage. Here follows
the incident of the Transformation Combat, with the goddess
as a hen finally swallowing Gwion as a grain . 50 She later gave
birth to him, and wrapping him up in a hide, placed him in the
sea. At Gwydno’s weir the value of a hundred pounds was
found every first of May, and Elphin was to obtain whatever was
discovered on the next occasion, which proved to be the child.
When the package was opened, Gwydno exclaimed, “Here is
a fine or radiant brow” or “fine profit” ( tal iessin), whence
Elphin named the child Taliesin, and the infant sang and
showed how deep was his knowledge. He was nurtured by
Elphin and became one of the greatest of bards. Now Elphin
had boasted at court that he had a more virtuous wife and a
better bard than any there, whence he was imprisoned until
his claim was verified. Rhun was sent to seduce his wife, but
Taliesin put a servant in her place, and she fell victim to Rhun,
who cut off her finger with her mistress’s ring. When Elphin
was confronted with it, he showed an ingenuity equal to that
of Sherlock Holmes in proving that the finger was not his
wife’s — the ring was too tight, the finger-nail was uncut, and on
her finger some flour had remained from her baking. Now his wife
never baked; she cut her finger-nails weekly; and the ring was
loose even on her thumb. Taliesin next came forward and by
his spells made the other bards utter nonsense. He sang of his
origin — “the region of the summer stars” — his existence in
long past ages, from that of Lucifer’s fall to the days of the
Patriarchs, and his life at the Nativity and Crucifixion of
Christ, and referred to his birth from Cerridwen. Then the
castle shook; Elphin was summoned; and as Taliesin sang his
chains fell from him . 51

The latter part of tne story is purely romantic, but in poems


THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS hi


ascribed to Taliesin and in a Triad his greatness as the “chief
of bards” appears —

“With me is the splendid chair,

The inspiration of fluent and urgent song.”

He has been with the gods and ranks himself as one of them,
telling how he was created and enchanted by them before he
became immortal ; 52 he has a chair not only on earth but in
the gods’ land . 53 Taliesin was the ideal bard, a god of inspira-
tion like Ogma, and, besides his reincarnation, his birth from
Cerridwen shows his divine nature. Yet, like other semi-
divine personages connected with inspiration or culture, he
obtains his powers by accident or by force. One myth, that
of the cauldron, shows the former and is parallel to the story
of Fionn and the salmon ; 54 but in another, darkly referred to
in a poem, he with Arthur and many companions goes overseas
to Caer Sidi for the spoils of Annwfn, including the cauldron
of Pen Annwfn . 55 Here, whether successfully or not, the gifts
of culture and inspiration are sought by force or craft. Are
two separate myths combined in the Hanes Taliesin , one making
Taliesin son of a goddess with an abode in the divine land; the
other viewing him as a culture hero, stealing the gifts of the
gods’ land, and therefore obnoxious to Cerridwen? And if so,
do these myths “reflect the encroachment of the cult of a god
on that of a goddess, his worshippers regarding him as her son,
her worshippers reflecting their hostility to the new god in a
myth of her enmity to him ”? 56

Taliesin was supreme in shape-shifting and rebirth. Of no
other Brythonic god or hero is the latter asserted, and several
poems obscurely enumerate various forms which he assumed
and recount his adventures in them. When, however, the poet,
speaking in his name, asserts that he has been a sword, tear,
word, book, coracle, etc., it is obvious that this is mere bardic
nonsense and not pantheism, as some have suggested. The
claims of Taliesin and of the Irish Amairgen resemble those of
the Eskimo angakok, who has the entree of the other-world and


1 12 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY

can transform himself at will ; 57 and the gift of transformation
and rebirth is then associated with inspiration in the Hanes
Taliesin. Here the equation with Fionn and Oisin, already
noted by J. G. Campbell and accepted by Rhys, is worth ob-
serving. Fionn and Gwion obtain inspiration accidentally.
Fionn is reborn, not as Oisin, but as Mongan, and Gwion as
Taliesin. Oisin and Taliesin are both bards, and Oisin’s name
is perhaps equivalent to -essin or -eisin in Taliesin. Taliesin’s
shape-shifting has no parallel with Fionn or Oisin, but Oisin’s
mother and, in one tradition, Fionn’s also became a fawn.
Thus inspiration, rebirth, and shape-shifting are attached to
different personages in different ways, showing that mythical
elements common to the Celtic race have been employed.

Tegid is a god of the world under waters, but is not other-
wise known to existing myth; though he and Cerridwen, pos-
sessor of a cauldron, are perhaps parallel to the giant pair out
of a lake with their cauldron in Bramven, Cerridwen being a
local goddess of inspiration, as her cauldron of knowledge shows.
The Celtic mythical cauldron, bestowing knowledge, plenty
(like Dagda’s), and life (like Bran’s ), 58 is recognizable as a
property of the gods’ land; but it was dangerous, and a bard
sings of his chair being defended from Cerridwen’s cauldron . 59
Cerridwen was regarded as a daughter of Ogyrven, from whose
cauldron came three muses, and who was perhaps an epony-
mous deity of the elements of language, poetry, and the letters
of the alphabet, called ogyrvens , as well as a god of bards.
Cerridwen is styled “the ogyrven of various seeds, those of
poetic harmony, the exalted spirit of the minstrel”; but
ogyrven also means “a spiritual form,” “a personified idea,”
and may here be equivalent to “goddess.” 60 Thus Cerridwen
was a deity of inspiration, like Brigit, though, like other Celtic
goddesses, her primary function may have been with fertility,
of which the cauldron, supplying plenty and giving life, is a
symbol. She is also called a “goddess of grain.” 61

Tegid’s water-world is the land under waves of Irish myth —



PLATE XII

Three-Headed God

The statue, adorned with torques, was once
horned. For another representation of this divinity,
perhaps a deity of the underworld, see Plate VII.
Found at Condat, France.






THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS 113

one aspect of Elysium, examples of which have already been
considered. Another instance occurs in the Voyage of Maelduin,
where the voyagers reach a sea, beneath which is descried a
country with castles, men, and cattle; but in a tree is a great
beast eating an ox, and the sight so terrifies them that they
sail quickly away. In another story Murough is invited to
come below the waters. He dives down and reaches the land
of King Under-Waves, whom he sees sitting on a golden throne;
a year spent there feasting seems but a few days. Welsh tradi-
tion has also many stories of water-worlds, as well as of fairy
brides, daughters of the lord of the lake, and cattle which came
thence. 62 In a Christianized Irish version of the conception a
bishop from time to time visited a monastery beneath the
waters of a lake, finally disappearing from his own monastery,
none knew whither. 63

[Prometheus]

CHAPTER IX


THE DIVINE LAND

E LYSIUM, called by many beautiful Celtic names, is the
gods’ land and is never associated with the dead. The
living were occasionally invited there, however, and either
remained perpetually or returned to earth, where sometimes
they found themselves decrepit and aged; time had lapsed
like a dream, because they were in the immortal land and had
tasted its immortal food. Many tales already cited have
shown different conceptions of its situation — in the sid, on
a mysterious island, or beneath the waters; or the gods create
it on earth or produce it by glamour to mortal eyes. Occa-
sionally such conceptions are mingled. These legends have
illustrated its marvellous beauty, its supernatural fruit trees
and music, its unfailing and satisfying food and drink, and
the deathless glory and youth of its people.

The tales now to be summarized will throw further light
upon its nature. The first of these, The Voyage of Bran , is an
old pagan myth retold in prose and verse in the seventh or
eighth century by a Christian editor, interested in the past.
Bran, son of Febal, one day heard music behind him produced
by a woman from unknown lands, i. e. from Elysium. Lulled
by its sweetness, he slept, and on awaking found by his side
a musical branch of silver with white blossoms. Taking it
into his royal house, he there saw the woman, who sang of
the wondrous isle whence she had brought the branch. Four
feet of white bronze upheld it, and on its plains were glisten-
ing, coloured splendours. Music swelled there; wailing,
treachery, harshness, grief, sorrow, sickness, age, and death


THE DIVINE LAND


115

were unknown. An exquisite haze hung over it, and its people
listened to the sweet music, drinking wine the while; laughter
pealed there and everlasting joy. Thrice fifty islands lay to
the west of it, each double or triple the size of Erin. The
woman then prophesied of Christ’s birth, and after she had
urged Bran to sail till he reached Tu na m-Ban (“the Land
of Women”), she disappeared, the branch leaping from Bran’s
hand into hers.

Next day Bran sailed with twenty-seven men, and on the
voyage they saw Manannan driving his chariot over the
waves. The god sang to the voyagers and told how he was
passing over a flowery plain, for what Bran saw as the sea was
to Manannan a plain. The speckled salmon in the sea were
calves and lambs, and steeds invisible to Bran were there also.
People were sitting playing and drinking wine, and making love
without crime. Bran’s coracle was not on the waves, but on
an immortal wood, yielding fruit and perfume; the folk of
that land were immortal and sinless, unlike Adam’s descend-
ants, and in it rivers poured forth honey. Finally Manannan
bade Bran row to Tir na m-Ban , which he would reach by
sunset.

Bran first came to an isle of laughter; and when one of his
men was sent ashore, he refused to leave the laughing folk of
this Isle of Joy. At the Land of Women their Queen wel-
comed Bran, throwing a ball of thread which cleaved to his
hand, and by which the boat was drawn ashore. All now went
into a house where were twenty-seven beds, one for each;
the food never grew less and for each man it had the taste
which he desired. They stayed for a year, though it was in
truth many years; but home-sickness at last seized one of
them, Nechtan, so that he and the others begged Bran to re-
turn. The Queen said they would rue this, yet as they were
bent on going, she bade them not set foot on Erin and to take
with them their comrade from the Isle of Joy. When Erin
was reached, Bran told his name to the men gathered on the


ii 6


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


shore; but they said, “We do not know him, though the voyage
of Bran is in our ancient stories.” Nechtan now leaped ashore,
but when his foot touched land, he became a heap of ashes.
Bran then told his wanderings and bade farewell to the crowd,
returning presumably to the divine land. “From that hour
his wanderings are not known.” 1

Manannan’s land overseas is the subject of a convention-
alized tale in the Colloquy of the Ancients ( Acallamh na Seno-
rach ), which contains primitive material. One of Fionn’s
men, Ciabhan, embarked with two youths, Lodan and Eolus,
sons of the Kings of India and of Greece; and during a storm
Manannan appeared riding over the waves. “For the space of
nine waves he would be submerged in the sea, but would rise
on the crest of the tenth, and that without his breast or chest
wetted.” He rescued them on condition of fealty to himself,
and drawing them on his horse, brought them to the Land of
Promise. Having passed the loch of dwarfs, they came to
Manannan’s stone fort, where food, wine, and music delighted
them; and where they saw Manannan’s folk perform many
tricks, which they themselves were able to imitate. In the
Land of Promise were three beautiful sisters, Clidna, Aeife,
and Edaein, who eloped with the visitors in two boats, Clidna
going along with Ciabhan. When he reached Erin, he went
ashore to hunt, and now a great wave, known ever after as
Clidna’s wave, rolled in and drowned her, overwhelming at
the same time Manannan’s men, Ildathach and his sons, both
in love with Clidna and following in pursuit of her. A different
account of Clidna has already been cited . 2

In the story of Bran, the queen-goddess fell in love with
him and visited him (as in the legend of Connla) to induce
him to come to her. While there are hints of other inhabitants,
women or goddesses alone exist on this island — an additional
parallel to the story of Connla, though there the island has
a king; to the incident in Maelduin; and to the name “Land
of Ever-Living Women” in the Dindsenchas of Tuag Inbir.



PLATE XIII

SUCELLOS

This divinity, characterized by a hammer (cf. p.
9), was a ruler of the underworld (cf. the represen-
tation of Dispater with a hammer, Plate XIV). A
benevolent god, his hammer is a symbol of creative
force. The artistic type (for another instance of
which see Plate XXVI) was influenced by that of
the Alexandrian Serapis and the Classical Hades-
Pluto. Cf. also Plate IX, B. The figure was found
at Premeaux, France.




THE DIVINE LAND


ii 7

Another instance occurs in a Fionn story. Fionn and his men
were hunting when there met them a huge and beautiful
woman, whose finger-rings were as thick as three ox-goads.
She was Bebhionn from Maidens’ Land in the west, where
all the inhabitants were women save their father (its king)
and his three sons; and for the third time she had escaped
from her husband, son of the King of the adjacent Isle of Men,
and had come to seek Fionn’s protection. As she sat by him
and Goll, however, her huge husband came, and slaying her,
eluded the heroes’ pursuit, vanishing overseas in a boat with
two rowers. 3

The tradition of the Isle of Women still exists in Celtic folk-
lore. Such an island was on£y a part of the divine land and
may have originated in myth from actual custom — women
living upon or going at certain periods to small islands to per-
form rites generally tabu to men, a custom to which reference
is made by Strabo and Pomponius Mela. 4

That the gods could create an Elysium on earth has been
found in the story of Lug and Dechtire, and another instance
occurs in the tale of Cormac mac Art, King of Ireland in the
third century, of whom an annalist records that he disappeared
for seven months in 248 a. d., a reference to the events of this
story. To Cormac appeared a young man with a branch from
which hung nine apples of gold; and when this was shaken,
it produced strange music, hearing which every one forgot his
troubles and fell asleep. He came from a land where there
was nought save truth, and where was no age, nor decay, nor
gloom, nor sadness, nor envy, nor jealousy, nor weeping; and
Cormac said that to possess the branch he would give what-
ever was asked, whereupon the stranger answered, “give me
then thy wife, thy son and daughter.” Cormac agreed and
now told his bargain to his wife, who, like her children, was
sorrowful that he should have preferred the branch to them.
The stranger carried off successively, daughter, son, and wife,
and all Ireland grieved, for they were much loved; but Cormac


1 1 8


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


shook the branch, and the mourning ceased. In a year desire
to see his wife and children came to the King. He set off, and
as he went, a magic mist surrounded him, and he saw a house
in the midst of a wonderful plain. After witnessing many
marvels, he reached another house where a huge and beauti-
ful man and woman offered him hospitality. Cormac bathed,
the hot stones going into the bath-water of themselves, and
the man brought in a boar, while Cormac prepared the fire
and set on a quarter of the beast. His host proposed that he
should tell a tale, at the end of which, if it were true, the meat
would be cooked, but Cormac asked him to begin first. “Well,
then,” said the host, “the pig is one of seven, and with them
I could feed the whole world. When one is eaten, I place its
bones in the sty, and next day it is alive again.” This tale
proved true, because the meat was already cooked. When a
second quarter was placed on the fire, the host told of his
corn which grew and gathered itself, and never grew less; and
thus a second quarter was cooked. A third quarter was set
on, and now the woman described the milk of her seven cows
which filled seven tubs and would satisfy the whole world.
Her tale also proved true, and now Cormac realized that he
was in presence of Manannan and his wife, because none
possessed such pigs as he, and he had brought his wife and her
cows from the Land of Promise. Cormac then told how he
had lost his wife and children — a true story, for the fourth
quarter was found cooked. Manannan bade him eat, but
when he refused, for he would never dine with two persons
only, the god opened a door and brought in his wife and chil-
dren, and great was their mutual joy. Manannan now as-
sumed his divine form and related how he had brought the
branch because he desired Cormac to come hither, and he
also explained the mystery of the wonders seen by him. When
they sat down to eat, Manannan produced a table-cloth on
which appeared whatever food was demanded, and a cup. If
one told a lie, it would break, but if truth was then spoken,


THE DIVINE LAND


119

it would be restored; and to prove this, he informed Cormac
that his lost wife had had a new husband, whereupon the cup
broke. “My husband has lied,” cried the goddess, and at her
words the cup was repaired. Manannan then said that table-
cloth, cup, and branch would be Cormac’s and that he had
wrought magic upon him in order that he might be with him
that night in friendship. In the morning, after a night’s sleep,
Cormac and his family found themselves no longer in the
divine land, but in their own palace of Tara, and beside him
were the cup, branch, and table-cloth which had covered the
board of the god . 5 Cormac’s recognition of the god through
his swine shows knowledge of the myth of the gods’ food —
the Mucca Mhanannain , “to be killed and yet to be alive for
evermore.” 6

A story told of Mongan has some resemblance to that of
Cormac. He commiserated a poor bardic scholar, bidding
him go to the sid of Lethet Oidni and bring thence a precious
stone of his, as well as a pound of silver for himself and a
pound of gold from the stream beside the sid. At two sid on
his way a noble-looking couple welcomed him as Mongan’s
messenger, and a similar pair received him at the sid of Lethet
Oidni, where was a marvellous chamber. Asking for its key,
he took thence the stone and silver, and from the river he
took the gold, returning to Mongan, who bestowed the silver
upon him . 7 Another story of Mongan relates how he, his wife,
and some others, entering a mysterious house during a storm,
found in it seven “conspicuous men,” many marvellous
quilts, wonderful jewels, and seven vats of wine. Welcome
was given to them, and Mongan became intoxicated and told
his wife his adventures, or “frenzy,” from the telling of which
he had formerly asked a respite of seven years. When they
woke next morning, they found that they had been in the
house a full year, though it seemed but a night . 8 In this in-
stance, however, the house had not disappeared. Examples

of beautiful places vanishing at daybreak are found in Fionn
hi — 9


120


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


tales and also in the Grail romances. The seeker of the Grail
finds himself no longer in the Grail castle in the morning, and
the castle itself has become invisible. Such creations of glamour
were probably suggested by dreams, whose beauty and terror
alike vanish “when one awaketh.”

Fruit-bearing, musical trees, in whose branches birds are
constantly singing, grow in the gods’ land. In the sid of
Oengus were three trees always in fruit; and there were also
two pigs, one always living, and the other always cooked and
ready for eating — the equivalent of the Mucca Mhanannain,
or “Pigs of Manannan” — and a jar of excellent beer, Goib-
niu’s ale. None ever died there . 9 The Elysian ale is doubtless
a superlative form of the Irish cuirm or braccat , made from
malt, of which the Gauls had a divinity, Braciaca ; 10 and it is
analogous to the Vedic soma and the wine of Dionysos . 11
Within the sid, or the gods’ land, were other domestic animals,
especially cows, which were sometimes brought thence by
those who left it or were stolen by heroes or by dwellers in
one sid from those of another. Where mortals steal them,
there is a reminiscence of the mythical idea that the elements
of civilization were wrested from the gods by man. Cauldrons
were used by the Celts for domestic and sacrificial as well as
other ritual purposes, and these also gave rise to myths of
wonderful divine cauldrons like Dagda’s, from which “no
company ever went unthankful.” Their contents restored the
dead or produced inspiration, and they were stolen from the
gods’ land, e. g. by Cuchulainn and by Arthur . 12 The caul-
dron rimmed with pearls which Arthur and his men sought
resembles the basin with rows of carbuncles on its edge in
which, according to another story, a fairy woman washed . 13

The inspiration of wisdom was obtained in the gods’ land,
either by drinking from a well or by eating the salmon in it;
but this knowledge was tabu even to some members of the
divine land. Such a well, called Connla’s Well, was in the
Land under Waves, and thither Sinend, grand-daughter of



PLATE XIV

Dispater and Aeracura (?)

Dispater was the great Celtic god of the under-
world (see p. 9) and is here represented holding a
hammer and a cup (for the hammer cf. the deity
Sucellos, Plates XIII, XXVI, and see Plate IX, B;
the cup suggests the magic cauldron of the Celtic
Elysium; cf. pp. 41, 95-96, 100, 109-12, 120, 1 5 1 ,
192, 203-04 and see Plates IX, B, XXV). If the
goddess beside him holding a cornucopia (cf. Plate
IX, A) is really Aeracura, she probably represents
an old earth goddess, later displaced by Dispater.
From an altar found at Oberseebach, Switzerland.









THE DIVINE LAND


1 2 1


Ler, went from the Land of Promise to behold it. Above it
grew hazels of wisdom, bearing leaves, blossoms, and nuts
together; and these fell into the water, where they were eaten
by salmon — the salmon of knowledge of other tales. From
the well sprang seven streams of wisdom, and Sinend, seek-
ing understanding, followed one of these, only to be pursued
and overwhelmed by the fount itself. Sometimes these hazels
were thought to grow at the heads of the chief rivers of Erin . 14
Such a fountain with five streams, their waters more melo-
dious than mortal music, was seen by Cormac beside Manan-
nan’s house; above it were hazels, and in it five salmon. Nuts
also formed part of the food of the gods in the story of Diar-
maid and Grainne , and in a tale from the Dindsenchas they
are said to be eaten by the “bright folk and fairy hosts of
Erin.” 15 Another secret well stood in the green of Sid Nech-
tain, and none could approach it without his eyes bursting
save Nechtan and his cup-bearers. Boann, his wife, resolved
to test its power or, in another version, to prove her chastity
after adultery with Dagda, and walked round it thrice wither-
shins; but three waves from it mutilated her, she fled, and
was drowned in the pursuing waters . 16

Goddesses sometimes took the form of birds, like the swan-
maidens of universal myth and folk- tale; and they sang
exquisite, sleep-compelling melodies. Sweet, unending bird-
music, however, was a constant note of Elysium, just as the
song of Rhiannon’s birds caused oblivion and loss of all
sense of time for eighty years. In the late story of Teigue’s
voyage to Elysium the birds which feasted on the delicious
berries of its trees are said to warble “music and minstrelsy
melodious and superlative,” causing healthful slumber; 17
while in another story the minstrel goddess of the sxd of Doon
Buidhe visited other side with the birds of the Land of Promise
which sang unequalled music . 18

The lords of the sxd Elysium were many, but the chief were
Dagda, Oengus, and Midir, as Arawn in Brythonic story was


122


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


king of Annwfn. In general, however, every sid had its own
ruler, and if this is an early tradition, it suggests a cult of a
local god on a hill within which his abode was supposed to be.
Manannan is chief, par excellence , of the island Elysium, and
it was appropriate that a marine deity should rule a divine
region including “thrice fifty isliands.” In that land he had a
stone fort with a banqueting-hall. Lug, who may be a sun-
god, was sometimes associated with the divine land, as the
solar divinity was in Greek myth, and also with Manannan;
and he with his foster-brothers, Manannan’s sons, came to
assist the Tuatha De Danann, riding Manannan’s steed before
“the fairy cavalcade from the Land of Promise.” 19 He a>lso
appeared as owner of an Elysium created by glamour on
earth’s surface, where Conn the Hundred-Fighter heard a
prophecy of his future career , 20 this prophetic, didactic tale
doubtless having an earlier mythic prototype.

The Brythonic Elysium differed little from the Irish. One
of its names, Annwfn, or “the not-world,” which was is elfydd
(“beneath the world”), was later equated with Hades or Hell,
as already in the story of Gwyn. In the Mabinogi of Pwvll it
is a region of this world, though with greater glories, and has
districts whose people fight, as in Irish tales. In other Mabino-
gion, however, as in the Taliesin poems and later folk-belief,
there is an over-sea Elysium called Annwfn or Caer Sidi —
“its points are ocean’s streams” — and a world beneath the
water — “a caer [castle] of defence under ocean’s waves.” 21
Its people are skilled in magic and shape-shifting; mortals
desire its “spoils” — domestic animals and a marvellous
cauldron; it is a deathless land, without sickness; its waters
are like wine; and with it are associated the gods. The Isle
of Avalon in Arthurian tradition shows an even closer like-
ness to the Irish Elysium . 22

[Prometheus]

Thus the Irish and Welsh placed Elysium in various regions
— local other-worlds — in hills, on earth’s surface, under or
oversea; and this doubtless reflects the different environments


THE DIVINE LAND


123


of the Celtic folk. With neither is it a region of the dead, nor
in any sense associated with torment or penance. This is true
also of later folk-stories of the Green Isle, now seen beneath,
now above, the waters. Its people are deathless, skilled in
magic; its waters restore life and health to mortals; there
magic apples grow; and thither mortals are lured or wander
by chance. 23 The same conception is still found in a late story
told of Dunlang O’Hartigan, who fought at Clontarf in 1014.
A fairy woman offered him two hundred years of life and
joy — “life without death, without cold, without thirst, with-
out hunger, without decay” — if he would put off combat for
a day; but he preferred death in battle to dishonour, and
“foremost fighting, fell.” 24

The parallel between Celtic and early Greek conceptions of
Elysium 25 is wonderfully close. Both are open to favoured
human beings, who are thus made immortal without death;
both are exquisitely beautiful, but sensuous and unmoral.
In both are found islands ruled by goddesses who sometimes
love mortals; both are oversea, while a parallel to the sid
Elysium underground may be found in the later Greek tradi-
tion of Elysium as a region of Hades, which may have had
roots in an earlier period. 26 The main difference is the occa-
sional Celtic view of Elysium as a place where gods are at
war. This may be due to warrior aspects of Celtic life, while
the more peaceful conception reflects settled, agricultural life;
although Norse influences have sometimes been suggested as
originating the former. 27


CHAPTER X

MYTHICAL ANIMALS AND OTHER BEINGS

T HE Celts worshipped animals or their anthropomorphic
representations — the horse, swine, stag, bull, serpent,
bear, and various birds. There was a horse-goddess Epona, a
horse-god Rudiobus, a mule-god Mullo, a swine-god Moccus,
and bear-goddesses called Artio and Andarta, dedications to or
images of these occurring in France and Britain . 1 Personal
names meaning “son of the bear” or “of the dog,” etc., sug-
gest myths of animal descent lost to us, though they find a
partial illustration in stories like that of Oisin, son of a woman
transformed to a fawn. We have seen that gods and magi-
cians assume animal forms or force these upon others; and
other stories point to the belief that domesticated animals came
from the gods’ land.

From these we turn to tales in which certain animals have a
mythic aspect, perhaps connected with a cult of them. A
divine bull or swine might readily be regarded as enormously
large or strong, or possessed of magic power, or otherwise dis-
tinguished; and these are the aspects under which such animals
appear in the stories now to be considered.

In the Irish tale of Mac Datho’s Boar ( Seel Mucci Mate
Datho ) Mac Datho, King of Leinster, had a dog famed through'
out the land. It could run round Leinster in a day and was
coveted both by Ailill and Medb of Connaught and by
Conchobar of Ulster; but Mac Datho promised it to both and
invited the monarchs and their retinues to a feast, hoping that
he would escape in the quarrel which would certainly arise
between them. The chief dish was a boar reared by Mac





PLATE XV
Epona


1. The horse-goddess Epona may have been
originally a deity of a spring or river, conceived as a
spirited steed. She is here represented as feeding
horses (for the horse see Plates II, 1-3, III, 2, 4).
From a bas-relief found at Bregenz, Tyrol.

2. The goddess is shown seated between two
foals, and the cornucopia which she holds would
characterize her as a divinity of plenty (cf. Plates
IX, A, XIV, and p. 9). From a bronze statuette
found in Wiltshire.




2



MYTHICAL ANIMALS AND OTHER BEINGS 125


Datho’s grandson, Lena, who, though buried in a trench which
the boar rooted up over him, succeeded in killing the animal
with his sword. For seven years the boar had been nurtured
on the flesh of fifty cows; sixty oxen were required to drag its
carcass; and its tail was a load for sixty men; yet Conall
Cernach sucked it entire into his mouth! 2 The story tells
nothing more of this remarkable animal, but it may commem-
orate an old ritual feast upon an animal regarded as divine and
endowed with mythic qualities.

The Mirabilia added to Nennius’s History speak of the
Porcus Troit or Twrch Trzvyth , hunted by Arthur, an episode
related in the tale of Kulhwch and Olwen. This creature, which
was a transformed knight, slaughtered many of the hunters
before it was overcome and three desirable possessions taken
from between its ears. 3 The Porcus Troit resembles the Wild
Boar of Gulban, a transformed child, hunted by Diarmaid
when the Feinn had fled before it; and tradition tells of its
great size — sixteen feet long. 4 Fionn himself chased a huge
boar which terrified every one until it was slain by his grand-
son, Oscar. It was blue-black, with rough bristles, and no
ears or tail; its teeth protruded horribly; and each flake of
foam from its mouth resembled the foam of a mighty water-
fall. 5 A closer analogy to Arthur’s hunt occurs in a story of the
Dindsenchas concerning a pig which wasted the land. Manan-
nan and Mod’s hounds pursued it, when it sprang into a lake
where it maimed or drowned the following hounds; and then
it crossed to Muic-Inis, or Pig Island, where it slew Mod with
its tusk. 6 Another hunting of magic swine concerns animals
from the cave of Cruachan, which is elsewhere associated with
divinities. Nothing grew where they went, and they destroyed
corn and milk; no one could count them accurately, and when
shot at they disappeared. Medb and Ailill hunted them, and
when one of them leaped into Medb’s chariot, she seized its
leg, but the skin broke, and the pig left it in her hand.
After that no one knew whither they went, although a variant


126


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


version says that now they were counted. From this cave
came other destructive creatures — a great three-headed bird
which wasted Erin till Amairgen killed it, and red birds which
withered everything with their breath until the Ulstermen slew
them . 7 It is strange why such animals should be associated
with this divine cave, but probably the tradition dates from
the time when it was regarded as “Ireland’s gate of hell,” so
that any evil spirit might inhabit it.

In these stories of divinities or heroes hunting fabulous swine
it is possible that the animals represent some hurtful power,
dangerous to vegetation; for the swine is apt to be regarded
in a sinister light and might well be the embodiment of
demoniac beings. On the other hand, the animal sacrificed
to a god, or of which the god is an anthropomorphic aspect,
is sometimes regarded as his enemy, slain by him. Whether
this conception lurks behind these tales is uncertain, as also
is the question whether the magic immortal swine — the food
of the gods — were originally animals sacrificed to them.
Divine swine appear in a Fionn tale. The Feinn were at a
banquet given by Oengus, when the deity said that the best
of Fionn’s hounds could not kill one of his pigs, but rather
his great pig would kill them. Fionn, on the contrary, main-
tained that his hounds, Bran and Sgeolan, could do so. A year
after, a hundred and one pigs appeared, one of them coal-
black, and each tall as a deer; but the Feinn and their dogs
killed them all, Bran slaying the black one, whereupon Oengus
complained that they had caused the death of his sons and
many of the Tuatha De Danann, for they were in the form of
the swine. A quarrel ensued, and Fionn prepared to attack
Oengus’s brug, when the god made peace . 8 In another instance
a fairy as a wild boar eluded the Feinn, but Fionn offered the
choice of the women to its slayer, and by the help of a “familiar
spirit” in love with him Caoilte “got the diabolical beast
killed.” Fionn covered the women’s heads lest Caoilte should
take his wife, but his ruse was unsuccessful . 9


MYTHICAL ANIMALS AND OTHER BEINGS 127


In still another instance Derbrenn, Oengus’s first love, had
six foster-children; but their mother changed them into swine,
and Oengus gave charge of them to Buichet, whose wife de-
sired the flesh of one of them. A hundred heroes and as many
hounds prepared to hunt them, when they fled to Oengus for
help, only to find that he could not give it until they shook
the tree of Tarbga and ate the salmon of Inver Umaill. Not
for a year were they able to do this, but now Medb hunted
them, and all were slain save one. Other huntings of these
swine, less fortunate for the hunters, are also mentioned, and
in one passage Derbrenn’s swine are said to have been fash-
ioned by magic. 10 Both in Irish and in Welsh story pigs are
associated with the gods’ land and are brought thence by
heroes or by the gods. The Tuatha De Danann are said to
have first introduced swine into Ireland or Munster. 11

The mythic bulls of the Tain Bo Cualgne were reincarna-
tions of divinities, whence enormous strength was theirs, and
the Brown Bull was of vast size. He carried a hundred and
fifty children, until one day he threw them off and killed all
but fifty; a hundred warriors were protected by his shadow
from the heat, or by his shelter from the cold. His melodious
evening lowing was such as any one would desire to hear, and
no eldritch thing dared approach him; he covered fifty heifers
daily, and each next morning had a calf. 12 Two gifts given to
Conn by a princess who was with the god Lug were a boar’s
rib and that of an ox, twenty-four feet long, forming an arch
eight feet high; but nothing further is told of the animals which
owned these huge bones. 13

Cattle were a valued possession of the gods’ land and, like
swine, were brought thence by heroes. Man easily concluded
that animals useful to him were also useful to the gods, but
he regarded these as magical. The divine mother of Fraoch
gave him cows from the sid. Flidais, “one of the tribe of the
god folk,” was wife of Ailill the Fair and had a cow which
supplied milk to three hundred men at one night’s milking;


128


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


while during the Tain another account speaks of Flidais
having several cows which fed Ailill’s army every seventh day.
Flidais loved Fergus and urged him to carry her off with her
cow 14 — a proof of its value, which is seen also in tales of the
capture of cows along with some desirable woman, divine or
human. In many Welsh instances cattle are a possession of the
fairy-folk dwelling under a lake and often come to land
to feed . 15 The cow of Flidais resembles the seven kine of
Manannan’s wife; their milk suffices the people of the entire
Land of Promise or the men of the whole world, while from the
wool of her seven sheep came all their clothing . 16

Though the waves were “the Son of Ler’s horses in a sea-
storm,” Manannan rode them on his steed Enbarr, which he
gave to Lug; and this horse was “fleet as the naked cold wind
of spring,” while its rider was never killed off its back . 17
In Elysium “a stud of steeds with grey-speckled manes and
another crimson-brown” were seen by Laeg, and similar horses
were given to carry mortals back to earth, whence, if they did
not dismount, they could return safely to Elysium. Such a
steed was brought by Gilla Decair to Fionn and his men, and
miserable-looking though it was, when placed among the
Feinn’s horses, it bit and tore them. Conan mounted it in
order to ride it to death, but it would not move; and when
thirteen others vaulted on it, the Gilla fled, followed swiftly by
the horse with its riders. Carrying them over land and sea,
with another hero holding its tail, it brought them to the Land
of Promise, whence Fionn ultimately rescued them. This forms
the first part of a late artificial tale, based upon a mythic
foundation . 18 Other mythical horses came from a water-world,
e. g. the steeds which [Cuchulainn captured, one of these being
the Grey of Macha, out of the Grey Lake. Cuchulainn slipped
behind it and wrestled with it all round Erin until it was
mastered; and when it was wounded at his death, it went into
the lake to be healed. The other was Dubsainglend of the
Marvellous Valley, which was captured in similar fashion . 19







I



PLATE XVI

Cernunnos


This horned deity with torques on his horns is
perhaps identical with the horned god shown in
Plate XXV. He was doubtless a divinity of the
underworld (see pp. 9, 104-05, 158, and for other
deities of Elysium cf. Smertullos, Plate V; the three-
headed god, Plates VII, XII, the squatting god,
Plates VIII-IX; Sucellos, Plates XIII, XXVI; and
Dispater, Plate XIV). From an altar found at
Notre Dame, Paris.





MYTHICAL ANIMALS AND OTHER BEINGS 129

Possibly the rushing stream was personified as a steed, and
the horse-goddess Epona is occasionally connected with streams,
while horses which emerge from lakes or rivers may be mythic
forms of water-divinities. In more recent folk-belief the mon-
strous water-horse of France and Scotland was capable of self-
transformation and waylaid travellers, or, assuming human
form, he made love to women, luring them to destruction.
Did such demoniac horses already exist in the pagan period,
or are they a legacy from Scandinavian belief, or are they
earlier equine water-divinities thus distorted in Christian
times? This must remain uncertain, but at all events they
were amenable to the power of Christian saints, since St.
Fechin of Fore, when one of his chariot-horses died on a
journey, compelled a water-horse to take its place, afterward
allowing it to return to the water. 20 Akin to these is the Welsh
afanc, one of which was drawn by the oxen of Hu Gadarn
from a pond, while another was slain by Peredur (Percival)
after he had obtained a jewel of invisibility which hid him
from the monster with its poisoned spear. 21

Mortals as well as side were transformed into deer, and
fairies possessed herds of those animals, while Caoilte slew
a wild three-antlered stag — “the grey one of three antlers”

— which had long eluded the hunters. 22 Three-horned animals

— bull or boar — are depicted on Gaulish monuments, and
the third horn symbolizes divinity or divine strength, the
word “horn” being often used as a synonym of might, es-
pecially divine power. On an altar discovered at Notre
Dame in Paris, the god Cernunnos (“the Horned,” from cernu-,
“horn”?) has stag’s horns; and other unnamed divinities
also show traces of antlers. Possibly these gods were anthro-
pomorphic forms of stag-divinities, like other Gaulish deities
with bull’s horns. 23

Serpents or dragons infesting lochs, sometimes generically
called peist or heist (Latin hestia, “beast”), occur in Celtic
and other mythologies and are reminiscent of earlier reptile


130


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


forms, dwelling in watery places and regarded as embodiments
of water-spirits or guardians of the waters. In later tradition
such monsters were said to have been imprisoned in lochs or
destroyed by Celtic saints. As has been seen, a dragon’s
shriek on May-Eve made the land barren till Lludd buried
it and its opponent alive after stupifying them with mead.
They were placed in a cistvaen at Dinas Emreis in Snowdon,
and long afterward Merlin got rid of them when they hin-
dered Vortigern’s building operations. Here the dragons are
embodiments of powers hostile to man and to fertility, but are
conquered by gods, Lludd and Merlin . 24

Another story of a peist occurs in the Tain Bo Fraich.
Fraoch was the most beautiful of Erin’s heroes, and his mother
was the divine Behind, her sister the goddess Boann. Finda-
bair, daughter of Ailill and Medb, loved him, but before going
to claim her he was advised to seek from Boann treasure of the
sid, which she gave him in abundance, while he was made wel-
come at Ailill’s dun. After staying there for some time, he
desired Findabair to elope with him, only to be refused, where-
upon he demanded her of Ailill, but would not give the bride-
price asked. Ailill and Medb therefore plotted his death,
fearing that if he took Findabair by force, the Kings who
sought her would attack them. While Fraoch was swimming
in the river, Ailill bade him bring a branch from a rowan-
tree growing on the bank, and swimming there, he returned
with it, Findabair meanwhile admiring the beauty of his
body. Ailill sent him for more, but the monster guardian
of the tree attacked him; and when he called for a sword,
Findabair leaped into the water with it, Ailill throwing a five-
pronged spear at her. Fraoch caught it and hurled it back;
and though the monster all the while was biting his side, with
the sword he cut off its head and brought it to land. A bath
of broth was made for him, and afterward he was laid on a bed.
Then was heard lamentation, and a hundred and fifty women of
the side, clad in crimson with green head-dresses, appeared,


MYTHICAL ANIMALS AND OTHER BEINGS 13 1


all of one age, shape, and loveliness, coming for Fraoch, the
darling of the side. They bore him off, bringing him back on
the morrow recovered of his wound, and Findabair was now
betrothed to Fraoch on his promising to assist in the raid of
Cualnge. Thus Fraoch, a demi-god, overcame the peist . 25
In the ballad version from the Dean of Lismore's Book , Medb
sent him for the berries because he scorned her love. The tree
grew on an island in a loch, with the peist coiled round its
roots. Every month it bore sweetest fruit, and one berry
satisfied hunger for a long time, while its juice prolonged life
for a year and healed sickness. Fraoch killed the peist, but
died of his wounds. 26 The tree was the tree of the gods and
resembles the quicken-tree of Dubhros, guarded by a one-eyed
giant whom Diarmaid slew. 27 These stories recall the Greek
myth of Herakles slaying the dragon guardian of the apples
of the Hesperides, 28 which has a certain parallel in Babylonia.
A marvellous tree with jewelled fruit was seen by Gilgamesh
in a region on this side of the Waters of Death; and in the Fields
of the Blessed beyond these waters he found a magic plant,
the twigs of which renewed man’s youth. He gathered it,
but a serpent seized it and carried it off. The stories of Fraoch
and Diarmaid point to myths showing that gods were jealous
of men sharing their divine food; and their tree of life was
guarded against mortals, though perhaps semi-divine heroes
might gain access to it and obtain its benefits for human beings.
The guardian peist recalls the dragons entwined round oaks
in the grove described by Lucan. 29

Such Celtic peists were slain by Fionn, and in one poem
Fionn or, in another, his son, Daire, was swallowed by the
monster, but hacked his way out, liberating others besides
himself. 30 They also defended duns in Celtic story, and in the
sequel to the tale of Fraoch he and Conall reached a dun
where his stolen cattle were. A serpent sprang into Conall’s
belt, but was later released by him, and “neither did harm to
the other.” In Cuchulainn’s account of his journey to Scath,


132

[Prometheus]

CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


the dun had seven walls, each with an iron palisade; and hav-
ing destroyed these, he reached a pit guarded by serpents
which he slew with his fists, as well as many toads, sharp and
beaked beasts, and ugly, dragon-like monsters. Then he took a
cauldron and cows from the dun , which must have been in the
gods’ land across the sea, as in other tales where such thefts
are related . 31

A curious story from the Dindsenchas tells how the son of
the Morrigan had three hearts with “shapes of serpents through
them,” or “with the shape of serpents’ heads.” He was slain
by MacCecht, and if death had not befallen him, these ser-
pents would have grown and destroyed all other animals.
The hearts were burned, and the ashes were cast into a stream,
whereupon its rapids stayed, and all creatures in it died . 32
In another story Cian was born with a caul which increased
with his growth, but Sgathan ripped it open, and a worm sprang
from it, which was thought to have the same span of life as
Cian. A wood was put round it, and the creature was fed, but
it grew to a vast size and swallowed men whole. Fire was set
to the wood, when it fled to a cave and made a wilderness all
around; but at last Oisin killed it with Diarmaid’s magic
spear . 33 Serpents with rams’ heads are a frequent motif on
Gaulish monuments, either separately or as the adjuncts of a
god; but their meaning is unknown, and no myth regarding
them has survived.

Other parts of nature besides animals were regarded myth-
ically. Mountains, the sea, rivers, wells, lakes, sun, moon, and
earth had a personality of their own, and this conception sur-
vived when other ideas had arisen. Appeal was made to them,
as the runes sung by Morrigan and Amairgen show, and they
were taken as sureties, or their power was invoked to do harm,
as when Aed Ruad’s champion took sureties of sea, wind, sun,
and firmament against him, so that the sun’s heat caused Aed
to bathe, and the rising sea and a great wind drowned him . 34
In another instance, a spell chanted over the sea by Dub,


MYTHICAL ANIMALS AND OTHER BEINGS 133


wife of Enna, of the side , caused the drowning of his other wife,
Aide, and her family. 35 The personality of the sea is seen also
in the story of Lindgadan and the echo heard at a cliff: en-
raged at some one speaking to him without being asked, he
turned to the cliff to be avenged upon the speaker, when the
crest of a wave dashed him against a rock. 36 So, too, the sea
was obedient to man, or perhaps to a god. Tuirbe Tragmar,
father of the Goban Saer, used to hurl his axe from the Hill
of the Axe in the full of the flood-tide, forbidding the sea to
come beyond the axe, 37 an action akin to the Celtic ritual of
“fighting the waves.” The voices of the waves had a warn-
ing, prophetic, or sympathetic sound to those who could hear
them aright, as many instances show.

As elsewhere, personalized parts of nature came to be re-
garded as animated by spirits, like man; and such spirits grad-
ually became more or less detached from these and might be
seen as divine beings appearing near them. Some of them
became the greater gods, while others assumed a darker char-
acter, perhaps because they were associated with sinister as-
pects of nature or with the dead. The Celts knew all these, and
some still linger on in folk-belief. Fairy-like or semi-divine
women seen by streams or fountains, or in forests, or living in
lakes or rivers, are survivals of spirits and goddesses of river,
lake, or earth; and they abound in Celtic folk-story as bonnes
dames, dames blanches, fees , or the Irish Be Find. Beings like
mermaids existed in early Irish belief. When Ruad’s ships were
stopped, he went over the side and saw “the loveliest of the
world’s women,” three of them detaining each boat. They
carried him off, and he slept with each in turn, one becoming
with child by him. They set out in a bronze boat to intercept
him on his return journey, but when they failed, the mother
killed his child and hurled the head after him, the others crying,
“It is an awful crime.” 38 In another tale Rath heard the mer-
maids’ song and saw them — “grown-up girls, the fairest of
shape and make, with yellow hair and white skins above the


134


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


waters. But huger than one of the hills was the hairy-clawed,
bestial lower part which they had beneath.” Their song lulled
him to sleep, when they flocked round him and tore him
limb from limb . 39 Other sea-dwellers are the luchorpain —
a kind of dwarf, three of whom were caught by Fergus and
forced to comply with his wish and to tell him how to pass
under lochs and seas. They put herbs in his ears, or one of them
gave him a cloak to cover his head, and thus he went with them
under the water . 40

A curious group of beings answered Cuchulainn’s cry, caus-
ing confusion to his enemies, or screamed around him when he
set out or was in the thick of the fight. While he fought with
Ferdia, “around him shrieked the Bocanachs and the Banan-
achs and the Geniti Glinne , and the demons of the air; for it
was the custom of the Tuatha De Danann to raise their cries
about him in every battle,” and thus increase men’s fear of
him. Or they screamed from the rims of shields and hilts of
swords and hafts of spears of the hero and of Ferdia . 41 Here
they are friendly to Cuchulainn, but in the Fled Bricrend, or
Feast of Bricriu , one of the tasks imposed on him, Conall, and
Loegaire was to fight the Geniti Glinne, Cuchulainn alone
succeeding and slaughtering many of them . 42 What kind of
beings they were is uncertain, but if Geniti Glinne means “Dam-
sels of the Glen,” perhaps they were a kind of nature-spirits,
this being also suggested by the “demons of the air” which were
expelled by St. Patrick . 43 As nature-spirits they might be
classed with the Tuatha De Danann, as indeed they seem to
be in the passage cited above . 44 In one sentence of the Tain
Bo Cualnge , they are associated with Nemain or Badb, who
brought confusion upon Medb’s host; yet on the other hand
they dared not appear in the same district as the bull of
Cualnge . 45





PLATE XVII

Incised Stones from Scotland

1. Incised stone with “elephant” symbol and
crescent symbol with V-rod symbol. From Crichie,
Aberdeenshire.

2. Incised stone with “elephant” and double
disc (or “spectacles”) with Z-rod symbol. See also
Plate X.




CHAPTER XI


MYTHS OF ORIGINS

S AVAGE and barbaric peoples possess many grotesque
myths of the origin of various parts of nature. In recently
existing Celtic folk-lore and in stories preserved mainly in the
Dindsenchas conceptions not unlike these are found and doubt-
less were handed down from the pre-Christian period, whether
Celtic or pre-Celtic, while in certain instances a saint takes
the place of an older pagan personage. In Brittany and else-
where in France natural features — rivers, lakes, hills, rocks —
are associated in their origin with giants, fairies, witches, or
the devil, just as in other Celtic regions and, indeed, in all
parts of the world. Many traditions, however, connect them
with the giant Gargantua, who was not a creation of Rabe-
lais’ brain, but was borrowed from popular belief. He may
have been an old Celtic god or hero, popular and, therefore,
easily surviving in folk-memory, and may also be the Gurgun-
tius, son of Belinus, King of Britain, mentioned by Giraldus
Cambrensis. Many hills or isolated rocks or erratic boulders
are described as his teeth, or as stones thrown, or vomited, or
ejected by him; and rivers or lakes were formed from his
blood or urine, numerous traditions regarding these being
collected by Sebillot in his book on Gargantua . 1

In Irish story similar traditions are found and are of a naive
character. Manannan shed “three drops of grief” for his dead
son, and these became three lochs, as in the Finnish Kalevala
a mother’s tears are changed into rivers. Again, a king’s
daughter died of shame when her lover saw her bathing, and
her foster-mother’s tears made Loch Gile. In other instances

III — 10


136


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


lochs are formed by water pouring forth at the digging of a
grave, e.g. that of Manannan, slain in battle, or that of Gar-
man, son of Glas. Or a well is the source of a loch, because
some one was drowned in it, or because its waters poured forth
over intruders, or because of the breaking of a tabu connected
with it, e.g. leaving its cover off. In two instances already
cited the urine of a horse belonging to a god produced a loch ; 2
and more curious still is the myth of the woman Odras whom
the Morrigan changed into a pool of water . 3

An interesting story tells of the magic creation of a wood.
Gaible, son of Nuada, stole a bundle of twigs which Ainge,
daughter of Dagda, had gathered to make a tub, for Dagda
had made one which dripped during flood-tide, and she wished
for a better one. Gaible threw away the bundle, and it be-
came a wood springing up in every direction . 4 This is of a
very primitive character and resembles the folk-tale incident
of the Transformation Flight, in which a twig, comb, or reed
thrown down by fugitives becomes a thick forest or bush im-
peding the pursuers . 5 Curious, too, is the story of Codal, who
on a hillock fed his fosterling Eriu, from whom is named
Eriu’s Island (Ireland). As she grew, the hillock increased
with her, and had she not complained to Codal of the sun’s
heat and the cold wind, it would have grown until Ireland was
filled with the mountain. Another story, recalling that of the
Australian Bunjel’s slicing earth with a knife into creeks and
valleys, tells how Fergus, with Cuchulainn’s sword, the calad-
bolg out of the sid , sheared the tops of three mountains, which
are now “Meath’s three bare ones,” while as a counter blow
Cuchulainn did the same to three hills in Athlone . 6 In an-
other tale Fergus, irritated against Conchobar, struck three
blows on the ground and thus caused three hills to arise which
will endure for ever . 7

The first occurrence of other things is often the subject of
a tradition. Many myths exist about the origin of fire, and in
Irish story the first camp-fire was made by Aidne for the Mile-


MYTHS OF ORIGINS


137


sians by wringing his hands together, when flashes as large as
apples came from his knuckles, this resembling the legends of
light or fire obtained from a saint’s hand. At Nemnach, near
the sid of Tara, rose a stream on which stood the first mill
built in Ireland, but no myth describes its origin. On the other
hand, the story of the first trap resembles that told of the
guillotine and its inventor. Coba was trapper to Erem, son
of Mile, and was the first to prepare a trap and pitfall in Erin,
but having put his leg into it to test it, his shin-bone and arms
were fractured, and he died. Brea, in the time of Partholan,
was the first man to build a house or make a cauldron — that
important vessel of Celtic myth and ritual; 8 while the first
smelting of gold was the work of Tigernmas, a mythic Irish
king . 9 The divine origin of ploughing with oxen has already
been mentioned — an interesting agricultural myth . 10 Brigit,
goddess of poetry, when her son Ruadan died at Mag-Tured,
bewailed him with the first “keening” heard in Ireland; and
she also invented a whistle for night signalling . 11 So also the
first satire, with dire effects, was spoken by Corpre, poet of
the gods . 12 Another instrument, the harp, was discovered ac-
cidentally. All was discord in the time of the Firbolgs. Canola
fled from her husband and by the shore heard a sweet murmur
as the wind played through the sinews still clinging to a whale’s
skeleton. Listening, she fell asleep; and when her husband,
finding her thus, learned that the sound had lulled her, he
made a framework of wood for the sinews. On this he played,
and the pair were reconciled . 13 But the Irish could also look
back to a golden age when, in the reign of Geide the Loud-
Voiced, each one deemed the other’s voice as sweet as strings of
lutes would be, because of the greatness of the peace and friend-
ship which every one had for the other; 14 and, with the addition
of plenty and prosperity, much the same is said of Conaire’s
reign, until Midir’s vengeance overtook him . 15 Prosperity
was supposed to characterize every good king’s reign in Ire-
land, perhaps pointing to earlier belief in his divinity and the


138


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


dependence of fertility on him; but the result is precisely that
which everywhere marked the golden age. As elsewhere, too,
gods instituted festivals, one myth telling how Lug first cele-
brated that of Lugnasad, not in his own honour, but to the
glory of his foster-mother . 16

The mythic trees of Elysium were not unknown on earth,
though there they were safely guarded; and another instance,
besides those already described , 17 is found in the oak of Mugna.
“Berries to berries the Strong Upholder [a god?] put upon
it. Three fruits upon it, viz. acorn, apple, and nut; and when
the first fruit fell, another used to grow.” Leaves were always
on this useful tree, which stood until Ninine the poet cast it
down . 18 What is perhaps a debased myth of a world-tree like
Yggdrasil is found in the story of the tree in Loch Guirr, seen
once every seven years as the loch dried when its enchant-
ment left it. A green cloth covered the tree, and a woman
sat knitting under it; but once a man stole the cloth, where-
upon the woman said: —

“Awake, thou silent tide;

From the Dead Woman’s Land a horseman rides,

From my head the green cloth snatching.”

At these words the waters pursued him and took half of his
horse and the cloth from him . 19

Few and fragmentary as these myths are, they, with the
classical myths already cited , 20 prove what a rich cosmogony
the ancient Celts must have had.


CHAPTER XII


THE HEROIC MYTHS

I. CUCHULAINN AND HIS CIRCLE

T HE Celts possessed many myths regarding ideal heroic
figures or actual heroes who tended to become mythical.
A kind of saga was formed about some of these, telling of
their birth, their deeds, their amours , their procuring for men
spoils from the gods’ land, and their death or departure to
Elysium; while round them were ranged other personages
whose deeds are also recounted, and who may have been the
subjects of separate sagas. Groups of tribes had each their
hero, who occasionally attained wider popularity and was
adopted by other tribes. To these heroes are ascribed magic
and supernatural deeds. Some of them are of divine origin —
sons of gods or reincarnations of gods — and they differ in
many respects from ordinary men — in size, or appearance,
or in power. In a sense they are divine and may have been at
one time subjects of a cult, but in the myths they are repre-
sented as living and moving on earth, and to some of them a
definite date is given. The three heroes best known, each the
centre of a group, are Cuchulainn, Fionn, and Arthur. The
stories concerning Cuchulainn, who is more prominent than
his King, Conchobar, were current among the tribes of Ulster;
those about Fionn were popular first in Leinster and Munster,
then over all Ireland and the West Highlands; those about
Arthur were found among the Brythons.

Cuchulainn is the chief figure about the court of Conchobar,
alleged to have been King of Ulster at the beginning of the
Christian era. The heroes were “champions of the Red


140


CELTIC MYTHOLOGY


Branch,” so called after a room in Conchobar’s palace of
Ernain Macha; and three are more prominent and on some
occasions rivals — Cuchulainn, Conall the Victorious, and
Loegaire the Triumphant. Others of the group are Dechtire,
Conchobar’s sister, their father Cathbad the Druid, Fergus
mac Roich, Ferdia, Curoi mac Daire, and Bricriu, while Ailill
and Medb of Connaught also enter into the saga. The stories
about these are over a hundred in number, but reference can
here be made only to those in which Cuchulainn figures
prominently.

Some of the group are descended from the Tuatha De
Danann, or their origin is supernatural. One story makes
Conchobar a natural son of Nessa by Cathbad. Later King
Fergus mac Roich wished to marry her, and she agreed, if he
would resign the throne for a year to Conchobar; but when
the year passed, Fergus was deposed, and the youth remained
King with many privileges. He had the jus primae noctis over
every girl in the province, and in whatever house he stayed
the wife was at his disposal; yet he was wisest of men, possessed
of many gifts, and a great hero . 1 In another story Nessa was
sent for water by Cathbad and brought it from the river
Conchobar, whereupon Cathbad forced her to drink it because
it contained two worms. She became pregnant after swallow-
ing these, and at birth her child held a worm in each hand and
was named after the river. Some, however regarded him as
son of Nessa’s lover, Fachtna Fathach, King of Ulster . 2 Thus
three origins are ascribed to Conchobar — son of Cathbad,
or of Fachtna, or of a river personalized or of a river-god who
took the form of the worms. A similar origin is ascribed to
Conall. His mother Findchoem, Cathbad’s daughter, being
bidden by a Druid to wash in and drink from a well over which
he sang spells, swallowed a worm and became enceinte, the
worm lying in the child’s hand in her womb . 3

Cuchulainn was son of the god Lug , 4 and though he was
also called son of Sualtam, Dechtire’s husband, yet even here










\



‘

. i'

.

.

-

. . : o -









PLATE XVIII

Menhir of Kernuz

The monument shows figures pf Mercury (cf.
pp. 9, 158) and a child, and of a god with a club
(cf. Plates IV-V). Mercury and the child have
been equated with Lug and his son, Cuchulainn
(see pp. 64-65, 82-84, 158-59; for Lug see also
pp. 25, 28-33, 40, 122, and for Cuchulainn pp. 36,
69-71, 86-88, 128, 134, 139-59, 209, 212). The
latter has also been identified with Esus, but with
scant plausibility (see Plates XX, A, XXI).






THE HEROIC MYTHS


141

his origin is semi-divine. Sualtam’s mother was of the sid-
folk; he was called Sualtam sidech (“of the fairy haunts”)
and possessed “the magic might of an elf.” 5 The super-
natural aspect of some of the personages is seen in Cuchulainn’s
feats or his “distortion”; or in Fergus, who had the strength
of seven hundred men, ate seven hogs and kine at a meal,
and wielded a sword as long as a rainbow, while a seventh
part of him surpassed the whole of any ordinary man . 6 In
one passage Conchobar is called dia talmaide (“a terrestrial
god”), while Dechtire is termed a goddess . 7 Yet Cuchulainn
was not necessarily a sun-god or sun-hero; for if he was, why
does the Tain , in which he plays so great a part, take place
in winter, while his greatest activity is from Samhain (Novem-
ber) until the beginning of spring . 8 Nor is every mistress of
his a dawn-goddess, nor every foe a power of darkness.