celticmythandleg00squiuoft

CELTICMYTH AND LEGEND
POETRY AND ROMANCE

CLASSIC MYTH AND LEGEND
By A. R. Hope Moncrieff
CELTIC MYTH AND LEGEND
POETRY AND ROMANCE
By Charles Squire
TEUTONIC MYTH AND LEGEND

By Donald A. Mackenzie
ROMANCE AND LEGEND
OF CHIVALRY
By A. R. Hope Moncrleff
EGYPTIAN MYTH AND LEGEND
INDIAN MYTH AND LEGEND
MYTHS OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
MYTHS OF CRETE
AND PRE-HELLENIC EUROPE
THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.

LUGH S ENCLOSURE"
CELTIC fflTTH lfiGeiTD
POCTRT &. ROfflAnCG
CHARLES SQUIRI
JI
THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED

66 CHANDOS STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON
PREFACE
This book is what its author believes to be the only

attempt yet made to put the English reader into posses
sion, in clear, compact, and what it is hoped may prove

agreeable, form, of the mythical, legendary, and poetic
traditions of the earliest inhabitants of our islands who
have left us written records the Gaelic and the British
Celts. It is and para
true that admirable translations
phrases of much
of Gaelic mythical saga have been recently
published, and that Lady Charlotte Guest s translation of
the Mabinogion has been placed within the reach of the
least wealthy reader. But these books not merely each
cover a portion only of the whole ground, but, in addition,
contain little elucidatory matter. Their characters stand
isolated and unexplained; and the details that would ex
plain them must be sought for with considerable trouble
in the lectures and essays of scholars to learned societies.
The reader to whom this literature is entirely new is
introduced, as numerous people of whose ante

it were, to
cedents he knows nothing; and the effect is often dis
concerting enough to make him lay down the volume in
despair.
But here he will at last make the formal acquaintance
of the chief characters of Celtic myth: of the Gaelic
all
gods and the giants against whom they struggled; of the

Champions of the Red Branch" of Ulster, heroes of a
"
martial epopee almost worthy to be placed beside "the
tale of Troy divine"; and of Finn and his Fenians. He

will meet also with the divine and heroic personages of
vi Preface
the ancient Britons: with their earliest gods, kin to the
members of the Gaelic Pantheon; as well as with Arthur
and Knights, whom he will recognize as no mortal
his
champions, but belonging to the same mythic company.

Of these mighty figures the histories will be briefly
all
recorded, from the time of their unquestioned godhood,

through their various transformations, to the last doubtful,
dying recognition of them in the present day, as fairies

"
".
Thus the volume will form a kind of handbook to a subject

of growing importance the so-called "Celtic Renaissance",
which is, after all, no more and, indeed, no less than
an endeavour to refresh the vitality of English poetry at
its most ancient native fount.
The book does not, of course, profess to be for Celtic

scholars, to whom, indeed, its author himself owes all that
is within it. It aims only at interesting the reader familiar
with the mythologies of Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia

in another, and a nearer, source of poetry. Its author s
wish is to offer those who have fallen, or will fall, under
the attraction of Celtic legend and romance, just such a
volume as he himself would once have welcomed, and for
which he sought in vain. It is his hope that, in choosing
from the considerable, though scattered, translations and
commentaries of students of Old Gaelic and Old Welsh,
he has chosen wisely, and that his readers will be able,
should they wish, to use his book as a stepping-stone to
the authorities themselves. To that end it is wholly
directed; and its marginal notes and short bibliographical
appendix follow the same plan. They do not aspire to
anything like completeness, but only to point out the chief
sources from which he himself has drawn.
To acknowledge, as far as possible, such debts is now
the author s
pleasing duty. and foremost, he has
First
reliedupon the volumes of M. H. d Arbois de Jubainville s
Cours de Littfrature celtique, and the Hibbert Lectures
for 1886 of John Rhys, Professor of Celtic in the Univer-
Preface vii
sity ofOxford, with their sequel entitled Studies in the

Arthurian Legend. From the writings of Mr. Alfred Nutt
he has also obtained much help. With regard to direct
translations, it seems almost superfluous to refer to Lady
Charlotte Guest s Mabinogion and Mr. W. F. Skene s Four
Ancient Books of Wales, or to the work of such well-known
Gaelic scholars as Mr.
Eugene O
Curry, Dr. Kuno Meyer,
Dr. Whitley Stokes, Dr. Ernest Windisch, Mr. Standish
Hayes O Grady (to mention no others), as contained in

such publications as the Revue Celtique, the Atlantis and
,
the Transactions of the Ossianic Society, in Mr. O Grady s

Silva Gadelica, Mr. Nutt s Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal,
and Miss Hull s Cuchullin Saga. But space is lacking to
do justice to all. The reader is referred to the marginal
notes and the Appendix for the works of these and other
authors, who will no doubt pardon the use made of their
researches to one whose sole object has been to gain a
larger audience for the studies they have most at heart.
Finally, perhaps, a word should be said upon that vexed
question, the transliteration of Gaelic. As yet there is
no universal or consistent method of spelling. The author
has therefore chosen the forms which seemed most familiar
to himself, hoping in that way to best serve the uses of
others.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. THE INTEREST
MYTHOLOGY .......
AND IMPORTANCE
THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE CELTIC

OF CELTIC
i
II.
MYTHOLOGY . 8
III. WHO WERE THE "ANCIENT BRITONS"? . . l8
IV. THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS AND

DRUIDISM 31
THE GAELIC GODS AND THEIR STORIES

V. THE GODS OF THE GAELS 47
VI. THE GODS ARRIVE 65

VII. THE RISE OF THE SUN-GOD 78
VIII. THE GAELIC ARGONAUTS 89
IX. THE WAR WITH THE GIANTS 107
X. THE CONQUEST OF THE GODS BY MORTALS .

.119
XI. THE GODS IN EXILE 132
XII. THE IRISH ILIAD 153

XIII. SOME GAELIC LOVE-STORIES 184
XIV. FINN AND THE FENIANS 201
XV. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GODS . .

227
THE BRITISH GODS AND THEIR STORIES

XVI. THE GODS OF THE BRITONS 251
XVII. THE ADVENTURES OF THE GODS OF HADES . .
278
XVIII. THE WOOING OF BRANWEN AND THE BEHEADING
OF BRAN 289
JX
x Contents
CHAP.
Pag6
XIXo THE WAR OF ENCHANTMENTS . . .
.298
XX. THE VICTORIES OF LIGHT OVER DARKNESS . .
305
XXI. THE MYTHOLOGICAL "COMING OF ARTHUR *
.
312
XXII. THE TREASURES OF BRITAIN \
336
XXIII. THE GODS AS KING ARTHUR S KNIGHTS . .
354
XXIV. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GODS . .371
SURVIVALS OF THE CELTIC PAGANISM

XXV. SURVIVALS OF THE CELTIC PAGANISM
MODERN TIMES ..... INTO
399
APPENDIX.
........
. . . , t j t e 4I g
INDEX
425
TABLE OF PRONUNCIATION FOR THE MORE DIFFICULT
WoRDS -
-..-..., .
447
PLATES IN COLOUR
Page
LUGH S ENCLOSURE -
Frontispiece
From a painting by E. ffallcousins
THE DREAM-MAIDEN VISITS ANGUS -

facing 140
From a painting by E. ffallcousins
CUCHULAINN CARRIES FERDIAD ACROSS THE RIVER 173

From a painting by E. Wallcousins
BLODEUWEDD S INVITATION TO GRONW PEBYR - z66

From a painting by E. Pfallcousins
PLATES IN MONOCHROME
Page
CELTIC WORSHIP V -
facing 32
From the draiving by E. WallcQusim
PORTION OF THE CIRCLES, STONEHENGE - -

,,42
LUGH S MAGIC SPEAR 62
From a drawing by H. R. Millar
BRIAN SEIZES THE PIG-SKIN ..... 100
From the painting by J, H. F. Bacon, A.R.A.
"THE KISSING STONE", CARROWMORE, SLIGO -

,. 114
ENTRANCE TO THE GREAT CAIRN OF NEW

GRANGE, ON THE BOYNE, NEAR DROGHEDA 136
LER AND THE SWANS 144

From the painting by J. H. F. Bacon, A.R.A.
QUEEN MEDB S CAIRN, KNOCKNAREA, SLIGO -

,,164
CUCHULAINN REBUKED BY EMER - 186
DEIRDRE S LAMENT ")*
From the painting by J. H. F. Bacon, A.R.A.
OSSIAN S CAVE, GLENCOE ... -

,,208
FINN FINDS THE SALMON OF KNOWLEDGE - 210

xiii
xiv Plates in Monochrome
CIAN FINDS BALOR S DAUGHTER

From a drawing
....
H. R. Millar
facing ^
by
GWYDION CONQUERS PRYDERI

From a drawing
....
by E. Wallcousim
3IO
KING ARTHUR S CASTLE, TINTAGEL .... 32O
THE TREASURES OF BRITAIN -

35 Z
From a drawing by E. Walkousins
THE BEGUILING OF MERLIN ..... ,,360

THE CAULDRON OF INSPIRATION -
366
From a drawing by E. Wallcousim
SIR GALAHAD
,,368
From the picture by G. F. Watts, R.A*
LEAR AND CORDELIA

From
- . . ... $ 3g2
by Ford Madox Brown

the
picture
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE
BRITISH ISLANDS
CHAPTER I
THE INTEREST AND IMPORTANCE OF CELTIC

MYTHOLOGY
It should hardly be necessary to remind the

reader of what profound interest and value to every
nation are its legendary and poetical records.
earliest
The beautiful myths of Greece form a sufficing ex
ample. In threefold manner, they have influenced
the destiny of the people that created them, and of
the country of which they were the imagined theatre.
First, in the ages in which they were still fresh,
belief and pride in them were powerful enough to
bring scattered tribes into confederation. Secondly,

they gave the inspiration to sculptor and poet of an
art and literature unsurpassed, if not unequalled, by
any other age or race. Lastly, when the glory "
had faded, and her people had, by

"
that was Greece

dint of successive invasions, perhaps even ceased
to have any right to call themselves Hellenes, they
have passed over into the literatures of fhe modern
(B219) 1 A
2 Mythology of the British Islands
world, and so given to Greece herself a poetic
interest that still makes a petty kingdom of greater
account in the eyes of its compeers than many
others far superior to it in extent and resources.
This permeating influence of the Greek poetical
mythology, apparent in all civilized countries, has
acted especially upon our own. From almost the
very dawn of English literature, the Greek stories of
gods and heroes have formed a large part of the

stock-in-trade of English poets. The inhabitants of
Olympus occupy, under their better-known Latin
names, almost as great a space in English poetry as
they did in that of the countries to which they were
native. From Chaucer downwards, they have capti
vated the imagination alike of the poets and their
hearers. The magic cauldron of classic myth fed,
like the Celtic
"
Grail ",
all who came to it foi
sustenance.
At last, however, its potency became somewhat
exhausted. Alien and exotic to English soil, it
degenerated slowly into a convention. In the
shallow hands of the poetasters of the eighteenth
century, its
figures became mere puppets. With
every wood a and every rustic maid a
"grove",
"
nymph one could only expect to find Venus

",
armed with patch and powder-puff, Mars shouldering

a musket, and Apollo inspiring the versifier s own
trivial strains. The affectation killed and fortu
nately killed a mode of expression which had be
come obsolete. Smothered by just ridicule, and
abandoned to the commonplace vocabulary of the
inferior hack-writer, classic
myth became a subject
Importance of Celtic Mythology 3
which only the greatest poets could afford to

handle.
But mythology is of such vital need to literature
that, deprived of the store of legend native to
southern Europe, imaginative writers looked for a
fresh impulse. They turned their eyes to the North,
Inspirationwas sought, not from Olympus, but from

Asgard. Moreover, it was believed that the fount
of primeval poetry issuing from Scandinavian and
Teutonic myth was truly our own, and that we were
rightful heirs of it
by reason of the Anglo-Saxon in
our blood. And so, indeed, we
are; but it is not
our sole heritage. There must also run much Celtic
that is, truly British blood in our veins. 1 And
Matthew Arnold was probably right in asserting
that, while we owe to the Anglo-Saxon the more
practical qualities that have built up the British

Empire, we have inherited from the Celtic side that
poetic vision which has made English literature the

most brilliant since the Greek. 2
We have the right, therefore, to enter upon a new
spiritual possession. a splendid one it is! The And
Celtic mythology has little of the heavy crudeness
that repels one in Teutonic and Scandinavian story.
1
"There is good ground to believe", writes Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson, M.A., the
librarian of the Bodleian Library, in the preface to his recently-published Keltic
Researches,
"
that Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire,

Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Cambridgeshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, and
part of Sussex, are as Keltic as Perthshire and North Munster ; that Cheshire,
Shropshire, Monmouthshire, Gloucestershire, Devon, Dorset,
Herefordshire,
Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, and Bedfordshire are more so and equal
to North Wales and Leinster; while Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire exceed
even this degree and are on a level with South Wales and Ulster. Cornwall, of
course, is more Keltic than any other English county, and as much so as Argyll.
8
Inverness-shire, or Connaught. Tke Study of Celtic Literature.
It is as beautiful and graceful as the Greek; and,
unlike the Greek, which is the reflection of a clime

and soil which few of us will ever see, it is our own.
Divinities should, surely, seem the inevitable out
growth of the land they move in! How strange

Apollo would appear, naked among icebergs, or fur-
clad Thor striding under groves of palms! But the
Celtic gods and heroes are the natural inhabitants of
a British landscape, not seeming foreign and out-of-
place in a scene where there is no vine or olive, but
"
shading in with
"
our homely oak and bracken,

gorse and heath.
Thus we gain an altogether fresh interest in the
beautiful spots of our own islands, especially those
of the wilder and more mountainous where the west,
older inhabitants of the land lingered longest. Saxon
conquest obliterated much in Eastern Britain, and

changed more; but in the West of England, in
Wales, in Scotland, and especially in legend-haunted
Ireland, the hills and dales still keep memories of
the ancient gods of the ancient race. Here and
there in South Wales and the West of England are
regions once mysterious and still romantic which

the British Celts held to be the homes of gods or
outposts of the Other World. In Ireland, not only

isthere scarcely a place that is not connected in some
way with the traditionary exploits of the Red "
Branch Champions", or of Finn and his mighty men,

but the old deities are still remembered, dwarfed
into fairies, but keeping the same attributes and the
same names as of yore. Wordsworth s complaint 1
1
In a sonnet written in 1801.
that, while Pelion and Ossa, Olympus and Parnassus

are in immortal books enrolled
"
not one Eng ",
though round our sea-girt shore

"
lishmountain,
they rise in crowds had been by the Celestial
",
"
Muses glorified"
doubtless seemed true to his own
generation. Thanks to the scholars who have un
veiled the ancient Gaelic and British mythologies,
it need not be so for ours. On Ludgate Hill, as
well as on many less famous eminences, once stood
the temple of the British Zeus. A mountain not
far from Bettws-y-Coed was the British Olympus,
the court and palace of our ancient gods.
It may well be doubted, however, whether Words
worth s contemporaries would have welcomed the

mythology which was their own by right of birth
as a substitute for that of Greeceand Rome. The
which Wordsworth was
inspiration of classic culture,
one of the first to break with, was still powerful.
How some of its professors would have held their
sides and roared at the very notion of a British
mythology! Yet, all the time, it had long been

secretly leavening English ideas and ideals, none
the less potently because disguised under forms
which could be readily appreciated. Popular fancy
had rehabilitated the old gods, long banned by the
priests bell, book, and candle, under various dis
guises. They still lived on in legend as kings of
ancient Britain reigning in a fabulous past anterior
to Julius Caesar such were King Lud, founder of
London; King Lear, whose legend was immortalized
by Shakespeare; King Brennius, who conquered
Rome; as well as many others who will be found
fillingparts in old drama. They still lived on as

long-dead saints of the early churches of Ireland
and Britain, whose wonderful attributes and adven
tures are, in many cases, only those of their original
namesakes, the old gods, told afresh. And they still
livedon in another, and a yet more potent, way.
Myths of Arthur and his cycle of gods passed into
the hands of the Norman story-tellers, to reappear
as romances of King Arthur and his Knights of the
Table Round. Thus spread over civilized Europe,
their influence was immense. Their primal poetic
is still resonant in our literature; we need
impulse
only instance Tennyson and Swinburne as minds
that have come under its sway.
This diverse influence of Celtic mythology upon
English poetry and romance has been eloquently set
forth by Mr. Elton in his Origins of English History.
The religion of the British tribes he writes, has
"
",
"
exercised an important influence upon literature.

The mediaeval romances and the legends which
stood for history are full of the fair humanities
and figures of its bright mythology. The elemental
powers of earth and fire, and the spirits which
haunted the waves and streams appear again as
kings in the Irish Annals, or as saints and hermits
in Wales. The Knights of the Round Table, Sir
Kay and Tristrem and the bold Sir Bedivere, betray
their mighty origin by the attributes they retained
as heroes of romance. It was a goddess, Dea
quaedam phantastica, who bore the wounded Arthur
to the peaceful valley. There was little sunlight
on its woods and streams, and the nights were dark
and gloomy want of the moon and stars.

for This
is the
country of Oberon and of Sir Huon of Bor
deaux. It is the dreamy forest of Arden. In an
older mythology, it was the realm of a King of
Shadows, the country of Gwyn ap Nudd, who rode
as Sir Guyon in the Fairie Queene
And knighthood took of good Sir Huon s hand,
When with King Oberon he came to Fairyland ."
1
To trace Welsh and Irish kings and saints and

hermits back to the elemental powers of earth
"
and fire, and the spirits that haunted the woods

and streams of Celtic imagination, and to disclose
"
primitive pagan deities under the mediaeval and

Christian trappings of "King Arthur s Knights" will
necessarily fall within the scope of this volume.
But meanwhile the reader will probably be asking
what evidence there is that apocryphal British kings
like Lear and Lud, and questionable Irish saints
like Bridget are really disguised Celtic divinities, or
that the Morte D Arthur, with its love of Launcelot
and the queen, and its quest of the Holy Grail, was
ever anything more than an invention of the Norman
romance- writers. He will demand to know what
facts we really possess about this supposed Celtic
mythology alleged to have furnished their prototypes,
and of what real antiquity and value are our authori
ties upon it.
The answer to his question will be found in the

next chapter.
1
Elton: Origins of English History, chap. X.
CHAPTER II
THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE

CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
We maybegin by asserting with confidence that

Mr. Elton has touched upon a part only of the
material on which we may draw, to reconstruct
the ancient British mythology. Luckily, we are
not wholly dependent upon the difficult tasks of
resolving the fabled deeds of apocryphal Irish and

British kings who reigned earlier than St. Patrick
or before Julius Caesar into their original form of
Celtic myths, of sifting the attributes and miracles
of doubtfully historical saints, or of separating the
primitive pagan elements in the legends of Arthur

and his Knights from the embellishments added by
the romance-writers. We have, in addition to these
which we may for the present put upon one side as
secondary sources, a mass of genuine early writings
which, though post-Christian in the form in which
they now exist, none the less descend from the pre
ceding pagan age. These are contained in vellum
and parchment manuscripts long preserved from
destruction in mansions and monasteries in Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales, and only during the last cen
tury brought to light, copied, and translated by the
patient labours of scholars who have grappled with
Sources of our Knowledge 9
the long-obsolete dialects in which they were trans-

scribed.
Many of these volumes are curious miscellanies.
Usually the one book of a great house or monastic

community, everything was copied into it that the
scholar of the family or brotherhood thought to be
best worth preserving. Hence they contain matter
of the most diverse kind. There are translations of
portions of the Bible and of the classics, and of such
then popular books as Geoffrey of Monmouth s and
Nennius Histories of Britain; lives of famous saints,
together with works attributed to them; poems and
romances of which, under a thin disguise, the old
Gaelic and British gods are the heroes; together
with treatises on all the subjects then studied
grammar, prosody, law, history, geography, chron

ology, and the genealogies of important chiefs.
The majority of these documents were put together
during a period which, roughly speaking, lasted from
the beginning of the twelfth century to the end of
the sixteenth. In Ireland, in Wales, and, appa
rently, also in Scotland, it was a time of literary
revival after the turmoils of the previous epoch. In
Ireland, the Norsemen, after long ravaging, had
settled peacefullydown, while in Wales, the Nor
man Conquest had rendered the country for the first
time comparatively quiet. The scattered remains of
history, lay and ecclesiastical, of science, and of
legend were gathered together.
Of the Irish manuscripts, the earliest, and, for our
purposes, the most important, on account of the

great store of ancient Gaelic mythology which, in
ro Mythology of the British Islands
spite of its
dilapidated condition, it still contains, is
in the possession of the Royal Irish Academy. Un

luckily, itreduced to a fragment of one hundred
is
and thirty-eight pages, but this remnant preserves a

large number of romances relating to the old gods
and heroes of Among other things, it con
Ireland.
tains a complete account of the epical saga called
the Tdin B6 Chuailgnl, the Raiding of the Cattle
"
of Cooley which the hero, Cuchulainn, performed

",
in
his greatest feats. This manuscript is called the Book
of the Dun Cow, from the tradition that it was copied
from an earlier book written upon the skin of a
favourite animal belonging to Saint Ciaran, who
lived in the seventh century. An entry upon one
of its pages reveals the name of its scribe, one Mael-
muiri, whom we know have been killed by robbers

to
in the church of Clonmacnois in the year 1106.
Far more voluminous, and but little less ancient,
is the Book of Leinster, said to have been
compiled
in the early part of the twelfth century by Finn mac
Gorman, Bishop of Kildare. This also contains an

account of Cuchulainn s mighty deeds which supple
ments the older version in the Book of the Dun Cow.
Of somewhat less importance from the point of view
of the student of Gaelic mythology come the Book
of Ballymote and the Yellow Book of Lecan, belong
ing to the end of the fourteenth century, and the

Books of Lecan, and of Lismore, both attributed to
the fifteenth. Besides these six great collections,
there survive many other manuscripts which also
contain ancient In one of these,
mythical lore.
dating from the fifteenth century, is to be found the

Sources of our Knowledge 1 1
story of the Battle of Moytura, fought between the

gods of Ireland and their enemies, the Fomors, or
demons of the deep sea.
The Scottish manuscripts, preserved in the Advo
cates Library at Edinburgh, date back in some cases
as far as the fourteenth century, though the majority
of them belong to the fifteenth and sixteenth, They
corroborate the Irish documents, add to the Cuchu-
lainn saga, and make a more special subject of the
other heroic cycle, that which relates the not less
wonderful deeds of Finn, Ossian, and the Fenians.
They also contain stories of other characters, who,
more ancient than either Finn or Cuchulainn, are
the Tuatha De Danann, the god-tribe of the ancient
Gaels.
The Welsh documents cover about the same
period as the Irish and the Scottish. Four of these
stand out from the rest, as most important. The
oldest is Black Book of Caermarthen, which
the
dates from the third quarter of the twelfth cen
tury; the Book of Aneurin, which was written late

in the thirteenth; the Book of Taliesin, assigned
to the fourteenth; and the Red Book of Hergest,
compiled by various persons during that century and
the one following it. The first three of these Four"
Ancient Books of Wales" are small in size, and con

tain poems attributed to the great traditional bards
of the sixth century, Myrddin, Taliesin, and Aneurin.
The last the Red Book of Hergest is far larger.
In it are to be found Welsh translations of the British
Chronicles; the oft-mentioned Triads, verses cele
brating famous traditionary persons or things;

ancient poems attributed to Llywarch Hen;
and,
of priceless value to any study of our subject, the
so-called Mabinogion, stories in which large portions
of the old British mythology are worked up into
romantic form.
The whole bulk, therefore, of the native literature
bearing upon the mythology of the British Islands

may be attributed to a period which lasted from the
beginning of the twelfth century to the end of the
sixteenth. But even the commencement of this era
will no doubt seem far too late a day to allow
authenticity to matter which ought to have vastly

preceded it. The date, however, merely marks the
final redaction of the contents of the manuscripts
into the form in which they now exist, without
bearing at upon the time of their authorship.

all
Avowedly copies of ancient poems and tales from

much older manuscripts, the present books no more
fix the period of the original composition of their
contents than the presence of a portion of the Canter
bury Tales in a modern anthology of English poetry

would assign Chaucer to the present year of grace.
This may be proved both directly and inferentially. 1
In some instances as in that of an elegy upon Saint
Columba in the Book of the Dun Cow the dates of
authorship are actually given. In others, we may
depend upon evidence which, if not quite so absolute,

is nearly as convincing. Even where the writer
does not state that he is
copying from older manu-
Satisfactory summaries of the evidence for the dates of both the Gaelic and
1
Welsh legendary material will be found in pamphlets No. 8 and n of Mr. Mutt s
Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance, and Folklore.
scripts, it is obvious that this must have been the

case, from the glosses in his version. The scribes
of the earlier Gaelic manuscripts very often found, in
the documents from which they themselves were
copying, words so archaic as to be unintelligible to

the readers of their own period. To render them
comprehensible, they were obliged to insert marginal
notes which explained these obsolete words by
reference other manuscripts more ancient still.
to
Often the mediaeval copyists have ignorantly moved
these notes from the margin into the text, where they
remain, like philological fossils, to give evidence of
previous forms of life. The documents from which
they were taken have perished, leaving the mediaeval
copies as their sole record. In the Welsh Mabin-
ogion the same process is apparent. Peculiarities

in the existing manuscripts show plainly enough
that they must have been copied from some more
archaic text. Besides
they are, as they at
this,
present stand, obviously made up of earlier tales

pieced together. Almost as clearly as the Gaelic
manuscripts, the Welsh point us back to older and
more primitive forms.
The
ancient legends of the Gael and the Briton
are thus shown to have been no mere inventions of
scholarly monks in the Middle Ages. We

have now
to trace, if possible, the date, not necessarily of their
first appearance on men s lips, but of their first redac
tion into writing in approximately the form in which
we have them now.
Circumstantial evidence can be adduced to prove
that the most important portions both of Gaelic
and British early literature can be safely relegated
to a period of several centuries prior to their now-
existing record. Our earliest version of the episode

of the Tdin B6 Chuailgnt, which is the nucleus and
centre of the ancient Gaelic heroic cycle of which
Cuchulainn, fortissimus heros Scotorum, is the prin
cipal figure, is found in the twelfth-century Book of
the Dun Cow. But legend tells us that at the be
ginning of the seventh century the Saga had not
only been composed, but had actually become so
obsolete as to have been forgotten by the bards.
Their leader, one Senchan Torpeist, a historical
character, and chief bard of Ireland at that time,
obtained permission from the Saints to call Fergus,
Cuchulainn s contemporary, and a chief actor in the
"
from the dead, and received from the resur

Raid",
rected hero a true and full version. This tradition,

dealing with a real personage, surely shows that the
story of the Tdin was known before the time of

Senchan, and probably preserves the fact, either
that his version of Cuchulainn s famous deeds
became the accepted one, or that he was the first
to reduce it to writing. An equally suggestive con
sideration approximately fixes for us the earliest
redaction of the Welsh mythological prose tales
called the Mabinogion or, more correctly speak
"
",
1
ing, the
"
Four Branches of the Mabinogi.".

In
none of these there slightest mention, or
is the
apparently the least knowledge, of Arthur, around

whom and whose supposed contemporaries centres
the mass of British legend as it was transmitted by
1
Rhys: Studies in the Arthurian Legend, chap. L
the Welsh Normans.

to the These mysterious
mythological records must in all probability, there
fore, antedate the Arthurian cycle of myth, which
was already being put into form in the sixth cen
tury. On the other hand, the characters of the

"Four Branches" are mentioned without comment
as though they were personages with whom no
one could fail to be familiar in the supposed sixth-
century poems contained in those Four Ancient "
Books of Wales" in which are found the first

meagre references to the British hero.
Such considerations as these throw back, with
reasonable certainty, the existence of the Irish and
Welsh poems and prose tales, in something like
their present shape, to a period antedating the
seventh century.
But this, again, means only that the myths, tradi
tions, and legends were current at that to us early,

but to them, in their actual substance, late date, in
literary form. A
mythology must always be far
older than the oldest verses and stories that cele
brate Elaborate poems and sagas are not made
it.
in a day, or in a year. The legends of the Gaelic

and British gods and heroes could not have sprung,
like Athena from the head of Zeus, full-born out of
some poet s brain. The bard who first put them
into artistic shape was setting down the primitive
traditions of his race. We may therefore venture
to describe them as not of the twelfth century or
of the seventh, but as of a prehistoric and imme
morial antiquity.
Internal evidence bears this out. An examination
1 6 Mythology of the British Islands
of both the Gaelic and British legendary romances
shows, under embellishing details added by later
hands, an inner core of primeval thought which
brings them into line with the similar ideas of other
races in the earliest stage of culture. Their local "
may be that of their last but their

"
colour" editor",
"
plots are pre-mediseval, pre-Christian, pre-historic.

"
The characters of early Gaelic legend belong to the

same stamp of imagination that created Olympian
and Titan, Êsir and Jotun. We must go far to
the back of civilized thought to find parallels to such
a story as that in which the British sun-god, struck
by a with a poisoned spear, is turned
rival in love
into an eagle, from whose wound great pieces of

carrion are continually falling. 1
This aspect of the Celtic literary records was
clearly seen, and eloquently expressed, by Matthew
Arnold in his Study of Celtic Literature? He was
referring to the Welsh side, but his image holds
good equally for the first thing that Gaelic.
"
The
strikes one he says, the "
reading
",
Mabinogion is in
how evidently the mediaeval story-teller is pillaging
an antiquity of which he does not fully possess the
secret:he is like a peasant building his hut on the
siteof Halicarnassus or Ephesus; he builds, but
what he builds is full of materials of which he knows
not the history, or knows by a glimmering tradition
merely stones not of this building but of an older
:
,
architecture, greater, cunninger, more majestical."
His heroes "are no mediaeval personages: they be

long to an older, pagan, mythological world So, ".
*
See chap, xvi of this book "
The Gods of the Britons ". Lecture II.

too, with the figures, however euhemerized, of the

three great Gaelic cycles: that of the Tuatha De"
Danann, of the Heroes of Ulster, of Finn and the

Fenians. Their divinity outshines their humanity;
through their masks may be seen the faces of gods.
Yet, gods as they are, they had taken on the
semblance of mortality by the time their histories
were fixed in the form in which we have them now.
Their earliest records, if those could be restored to
us, would doubtless show them eternal and undying,
changing their shapes at will, but not passing away.
But the post-Christian copyists, whether Irish or
Welsh, would not countenance this. Hence we
have the singular paradox of the deaths of Im
mortals. There is hardly one of the figures oi
either the Gaelic or the British Pantheon whose
demise is not somewhere recorded. Usually they
fell in the between the
unceasing battles divinities
of darkness and of light. Their deaths in earlier
cycles of myth, however, do not preclude their ap

pearance in later ones. Only, indeed, with the
closing of the lips of the last mortal who preserved

his tradition can the life of a god be truly said to
end.
CHAPTER III
WHO WERE THE "ANCIENT BRITONS*?
But, before proceeding to recount the myths of

the "Ancient Britons", it will be well to decide
what people, exactly, we mean by that loose but

convenient phrase. We
have, all of us, vague ideas
of Ancient Britons, recollected, doubtless, from our
school - books. There we saw their pictures as,
painted with woad, they paddled coracles, or drove
scythed chariots through legions of astonished
Romans. Their Druids, white-bearded and wear
ing long, white robes, cut the mistletoe with a golden
sickle at the time of the full moon, or, less innocently
employed, made bonfires of human beings shut up

in gigantic figures of wicker-work.
Such picturesque details were little short of the
sum-total, not only of our own knowledge of the
subject, but also of that of our teachers. Practically
all their information concerning the ancient inhabit
ants of Britain was taken from the Commentaries of
Julius Caesar. So far as it went, it was no doubt
correct; but it did not go far. Caesar s interest in
our British ancestors was that of a general who was
his own war-correspondent rather than that of an
exhaustive and painstaking scientist. It has been
reserved for modern archaeologists, philologists, and

18
Who were the "Ancient Britons"? 19
ethnologists to give us a fuller account of the

Ancient Britons.
The inhabitants of our islands previous to the
Roman invasion are generally described as Celts
"
".
But they must have been largely a mixed race; and

the people with whom they mingled must have modi
fied to some and perhaps to a large extent their
physique, their customs, and their language.
Speculation has run somewhat wild over the
question of the composition of the Early Britons.

But out of the clash of rival theories there emerges
one and one only which may be considered as
scientifically established. We have certain proof of
two distinct human stocks in the British Islands at
the time of the Roman Conquest; and so great an
authority as Professor Huxley has given his opinion
that there is no evidence of any others. 1
The earliest of these two races would seem to
have inhabited our islands from the most ancient
times, and may, for our purpose, be described as
aboriginal. It was the people that built the
"long
and which is variously called by ethnolo

"
barrows ;
gists the Iberian, Mediterranean, Berber, Basque,

Silurian, or Euskarian race. In physique it was
short, swarthy, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and long-
skulled; its
language belonged to the class called
"
Hamitic ",
the surviving types of which are found
among the Gallas, Abyssinians, Berbers, and other

North African to have come
tribes; and it seems
originally from some part either of Eastern, North
ern, or Central Africa. Spreading thence, it was
1
Huxley : On Some Fixed Points in British Ethnology. 1871.
2O Mythology of the British Islands
probably the first people to inhabit the Valley of

the Nile, and it sent offshoots into Syria and Asia
Minor. The earliest Hellenes found it in Greece
under the name of "Pelasgoi"; the earliest Latins
in Italy, as the "Etruscans"; and the Hebrews in
Palestine, as the spread northward

"
Hittites ". It
through Europe and westward,

as far as the Baltic,
along the Atlas chain, to Spain, France, and our

own islands. 1 In many countries it reached a com
paratively high level of civilization, but in Britain
its
development must have been early checked. We
can discern it as an agricultural rather than a
pastoral people, still in the Stone Age, dwelling
in totemistic tribes on hills whose summits it forti
fied elaborately, and whose slopes

cultivated on it
what is called the

system", and"
terrace
having a
primitive culture which ethnologists think to have
much resembled that of the present hill tribes
-
2
of Southern India. It held our islands till the
coming of the Celts, who fought with the aborigines,
dispossessed them of the more fertile parts, subju
gated them, even amalgamated with them, but
certainly never extirpated them. In the time of the
Romans they were still practically independent in
South Wales. In Ireland they were long uncon-
quered, and are found as allies rather than serfs of
the Gaels, ruling their own provinces, and preserving
their own customs and religion. Nor, in spite of all
the successive invasions of Great Britain and Ireland,
1
Sergi : The Mediterranean Race.
a
Gomme: The Village Community. Chap, iv "The non- Aryan Elements in
the English Village Community".
are they yet extinct, or so have lost merged as to

their type, which is still the predominant one in
many parts of the west both of Britain and Ireland,

and is believed by some ethnologists to be generally
upon the increase all over England.
The second of the two races was the exact oppo
site to the first. It was the tall, fair, light-haired,
blue- or gray -eyed, broad -headed people called,
popularly, the Celts

"
who belonged in speech

",
to the "Aryan" family, their language finding its

affinities in Latin, Greek, Teutonic, Slavic, the
Zend of Ancient Persia, and the Sanscrit of Ancient
India. Its original home was probably somewhere
in Central Europe, along the course of the upper
Danube, or in the region of the Alps. The round
"
"
barrows in which buried

dead, or deposited
it its
their burnt ashes, differ in shape from the

"
long
barrows" of the earlier race. It was in a higher
stage of culture than the

"
Iberians ",
and intro
duced into Britain bronze and silver, and, perhaps,
some of the more lately domesticated animals.
Both Iberians and Celts were divided into numer
ous tribes, but there is nothing to show that there
was any great diversity among the former. It is
otherwise with the Celts, who were separated into

two main branches which came over at different
times. The earliest were the Goidels, or Gaels; the
second, the Brythons, or Britons. Between these
two branches there was not only a dialectical, but
probably, also, a considerable physical difference.
Some anthropologists postulate even
different a
shape of skull. Without necessarily admitting this,
there reason to suppose a difference of build and
is
of colour of hair. With regard to this, we have the

evidence of Latin writers of Tacitus, 1 who tells us
"
that the Caledonians of the North differed from

"
the Southern Britons in being larger-limbed and

redder-haired, and of Strabo, who described the
2
tribes in the interior of Britain as taller than the

Gaulish colonists on the coast, with hair less yellow
and limbs more loosely knit. Equally do the classic
"
authorities agree in recognizing the Silures

"
of
South Wales as an entirely different race from any
other in Britain. The dark complexions and curly
hair of these Iberians seemed to Tacitus to prove
8
them immigrants from Spain.
Professor Rhys also puts forward evidence to
show that the Goidels and the Brythons had already
4
separated before they first left Gaul for our islands.
He finds them as two distinct peoples there. We
do not expect so much nowadays from the merest "
school-boy as we did in Macaulay s time, but even

"
the modern descendant of that paragon could pro
bably tell us that all Gaul was divided into three

parts,one of which was inhabited by the Belgae,
another by the Aquitani, and the third by those
who called themselves Celtae, but were termed
Galli by the Romans; and that they all differed
from one another in language, customs, and laws. 6
Of these, Professor Rhys identifies the Belgae with
the Brythons, and the Celtae with the Goidels, the
1
Tacitus Agricola, chap. XI.
: Strabo :
Geographica, Book IV, chap. v.
3
Tacitus, op. dt.
4
Rhys : The Early Ethnology of the British Islands. Scottish Review. April,
1890.
6
Caesar : De Bello Gallico, Book I, chap. i.
third people, the Aquitani, being non-Celtic and

non- Aryan, part of the great Hamitic speaking
-
Iberian stock.
1
The Celtae, with their Goidelic
dialect of Celtic,which survives to-day in the Gaelic
languages of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man,
were the first to come over to Britain, pushed for
ward, probably, by the Belgae, who, Caesar tells us,
were the bravest of the Gauls. 2 Here they con
quered the native Iberians, driving them out of the
fertile parts into the rugged districts of the north
and west. Later came the Belgae themselves,
compelled by press of population; and they, bring
ing better weapons and a higher civilization, treated
the Goidels as those had treated the Iberians.
Thus harried, the Goidels probably combined with
the Iberians against what was now the common foe,
and became to a large degree amalgamated with
them. The was that during the Roman
result
domination the British Islands were roughly divided
with regard to race as follows: The Brythons, or
second Celtic race, held all Britain south of the
Tweed, with the exception of the extreme west,
while the first Celtic race, the Goidelic, had most
of Ireland, as well as the Isle of Man, Cumberland,
the West Highlands, Cornwall, Devon, and North
Wales. North of the Grampians lived the Picts,
who were probably more or less Goidelicized Ibe
rians, the aboriginal race also holding out, unmixed,
in South Wales and parts of Ireland.
It is now time to decide what, for the purposes
of this book, it will be best to call the two different
1 2
Rhys: Scottish Review. April, 1890. Op. Caesar, op. cit.
branches of the Celts, and their languages. With
"
such familiar terms as Gael and Briton

" "
",
and
"
Gaelic our hands,

" "
British ",
ready to it
seems pedantic upon the more technical

to insist
"Goidel" and and
"
Goidelic
" " "
Brython Bry- ",
thonic". The difficulty is that the words "Gael"
and "Gaelic" have been so long popularly used to

designate only the modern
"
Goidels of Scotland
"
and their language, that they may create confusion

when also applied to the people and languages of
Ireland and the Isle of Man. Similarly, the words
have come to mean, at the
"
Briton and
"
" "
British
present day, the people of the whole of the British

Islands, though they at first only signified the in
habitants of England, Central Wales, the Lowlands
of Scotland, and the Brythonic colony in Brittany.
However, the words and
"
"
Goidel "
Brython ",
with their derivatives, are so clumsy that it will

probably prove best to use the neater terms. In
this volume, therefore, the "Goidels" of Ireland,
Scotland, and the Isle of Man are our "Gaels" and
the "Brythons"
of England and Wales are our
"Britons".
We
get the earliest accounts of the life of the
inhabitants of the British Islands from two sources.
The first is a foreign one, that of the Latin writers.
But the Romans only really knew the Southern
Britons, whom they describe as similar in physique
and customs to the Continental Gauls, with whom,
1
indeed, they considered them to be identical. At
the time they wrote, colonies of Belgae were still
1
Tacitui: Agricola, chap. XI.
1
settlingupon the coasts of Britain opposite to Gaul.
Roman information grew scantier as it approached
the Wall, and of the Northern tribes they seem to
have had only such knowledge as they gathered
through occasional warfare with them. They describe
them as barbarous, naked and tattooed,
entirely
living by the chase alone, without towns, houses,
or fields, without government or family life, and re
garding iron as an ornament of value, as other, more

civilized peoples regarded gold.
2
As for Ireland,
it never came under their direct observation, and we
are entirely dependent upon its native writers for
information as to the manners and customs of the
Gaels. considered convincing proof of
It may be
the authenticity of the descriptions of life contained
in the ancient Gaelic manuscripts that they corrobo
rate so completely the observations of the Latin
writers upon the Britons and Gauls. Reading the
two side by side, we may largely reconstruct the
common civilization of the Celts.
Roughly speaking, one may compare it with the

civilization of theGreeks, as described by Homer.*
Both peoples were in the tribal and pastoral stage
of culture, in which the chiefs are the great cattle-
owners round whom their less wealthy fellows gather.
Both wear much the same attire, use the same kind
of weapons, and fight in the same manner from
the war-chariot, a vehicle already obsolete even in
Ireland by the first century of the Christian era.
Caesar De Bellico Gallico, Book V, chap. xii.
1
:
2
Elton Origins of English History, chap. vil.
:
8
See La Civilisation des Celtes et celle de rpop/fe Homtrique", by M. d Arbois
"
de Jubainville, Court de Literature Celtique, Vol. VI.

Battles are fought single-handed between chiefs, the
ill-armed common people contributing little to their
result, and les-s to their history. Such chiefs are
said to be divinely descended sons, even, of the
immortal gods. Their tremendous feats are sung
by the bards, who, like the Homeric poets, were
privileged persons, inferior only to the war - lord.
Ancient Greek and Ancient Celt had very much the
same conceptions of life, both as regards this world
and the next.
We may gather much detailed information of the
early inhabitants of the British Islands from our

various authorities. 1 Their clothes, which consisted,
according to the Latin writers, of a blouse with

sleeves,trousers fitting closely round the ankles,
and a shawl or cloak, fastened at the shoulder with
a brooch, were made either of thick felt or of
woven dyed with various brilliant colours.
cloth
The writer Diodorus tells us that they were crossed
with little squares and lines, though they had "as
been sprinkled with flowers They were, in fact, ".
like
"
tartans and we may believe Varro, who

",
tells us that they

"
made a gaudy show The ".
men alone seem to have worn hats, which were

of soft felt, the women s hair being uncovered,
and tied in a knot behind. In time of battle,
the men also dispensed with any head-covering,
brushing their abundant hair forward into a thick
mass, and dyeing it red with a soap made of
goat s fatand beech ashes, until they looked (says
Cicero s tutor Posidonius, who visited Britain about
1
See Elton :
Origins of English History, chap. VH.
no B.C.) less
like beings than wild men of
human
the woods. Both sexes were fond of ornaments,
which took the form of gold bracelets, rings, pins,
and brooches, and of beads of amber, glass, and jet.
Their knives, daggers, spear-heads, axes, and swords
were made of bronze or iron their shields were the ;
same round target used by the Highlanders at the

battle of Culloden and they seem also to have had
;
a kind of lasso to which a hammer-shaped ball was

attached, and which they used as the Gauchos of
South America use their bola. Their war-chariots
were made of wicker, the wooden wheels being
armed with sickles of bronze. These were drawn
either by two or four horses, and were large enough
to hold several persons in each. Standing in these,
they rushed along the enemy s lines, hurling darts,

and driving the scythes against all who came within
reach. The Romans were much impressed by the
the drivers, who could check their horses
"
skill of
speed on a steep incline, and turn them in

at full an
instant, and could run along the pole, and stand on
the yoke, and then get back into their chariots
1
again without a moment s delay".
With these accounts of the Roman writers we
may compare the picture of the Gaelic hero, Cuchu-
lainn, as the ancient Irish writers describe him
dressed and armed for battle. Glorified by the
bard, he yet wears essentially the same costume
and equipment which the classic historians and
geographers described more soberly. His gor "
"
geous raiment that he wore in great conventions

1
Caesar: De Bello Gallico, Book IV, chap, xxxni.
consisted of "a fair crimson tunic of five plies and
fringed, with a long pin of white silver, gold-enchased
and patterned, shining as if it had been a luminous
torch which for its blazing property and brilliance
men might not endure to see. Next his skin, a
body-vest of silk, bordered and fringed all round
with gold, with silver, and with white bronze, which
vest came as far as the upper edge of his russet-
coloured kilt. . . . About his neck were a hundred
linklets of red
gold that flashed again, with pendants
hanging from them. His head-gear was adorned
with a hundred mixed carbuncle jewels, strung."
He carried "a
trusty special shield, in hue dark
crimson, and in its circumference armed with a pure
white silver rim. At his left side a long and golclen-
hilted sword. Beside him, in the chariot, a lengthy
spear ; together with a keen, aggression - boding
javelin, fitted with hurling thong, with rivets of
1
white Another passage of Gaelic saga
bronze."
describes his chariot. It was made of fine wood,
with wicker-work, moving on wheels of white bronze.

It had a
high rounded frame of creaking copper,
a strong curved yoke of gold, and a pole of white
silver, with mountings of white bronze. The yellow
reins were plaited, and the shafts were as hard and
2
straight as sword-blades.
In likemanner the ancient Irish writers have
made glorious the halls and fortresses of their
mythical kings. Like the palaces of Priam, of

Menelaus, and of Odysseus, they gleam with gold
1
From the Tdin BJ Chuailgnt. The translator is Mr. Standish Hayes O Grady.
* Tockmarc Emire the Wooing of Enur an old Irish romance.
1
and gems. Conchobar, the legendary King of
Ulster in golden age, had three such
its houses"
at Emain Macha. Of the one called the Red "
Branch we are told that it contained nine com

",
partments of red yew, partitioned by walls of bronze,

all
grouped around the king s private chamber,
which had a ceiling of silver, and bronze pillars
adorned with gold and carbuncles. 2 But the far
accounts of the Latin writers have,

less magnificent
no doubt, more truth in them than such lavish
pictures. They described the Britons they knew
as living in villages of bee-hive huts, roofed with
fern or thatch, from which, at the approach of an
enemy, they retired to the local dtin. This, so far

from being elaborate, merely consisted of a round
or oval space fenced in with palisades and earth
works, and situated either upon the top of a hill or
in the midst of a not easily traversable morass.
3
We
may see the remains of such strongholds in many "
parts of England notable ones are the of

"
castles
Amesbury, Avebury, and Old Sarum in Wiltshire,

Saint Catherine s Hill, near Winchester, and Saint
George s Hill, in Surrey and it is
probable that, in
spite of the Celtic praisers of past days, the

"
palaces"
of Emain Macha and of Tara were very like them.

The Celtic customs were, like the Homeric, those
of the primitive world. All land (though it
may
have theoretically belonged to the chief) was culti
vated in common. This community of possessions
1
Sometimes spelt "Conachar", and pronounced Conhower or Connor.
2
The Wooing of Emer.
3 Caesar: De Bello Gallito, Book V, chap. XX 1, and various passages in
Book VII.
1
is stated to have extended to their wives;
by Caesar
but the imputation cannot be said to have been
proved. On the contrary, in the stories of both
branches of the Celtic race, women seem to have
taken a higher place in men s estimation, and to
have enjoyed far more personal liberty, than among
the Homeric Greeks. The idea may have arisen
from a misunderstanding of some of the curious
Celtic customs. Descent seems to have been traced
through the maternal rather than through the pa
ternal line, a very un-Aryan procedure which some
believe to have been borrowed from another race.
The parental relation was still further lessened by
the custom of sending children to be brought up
outside the family in which they were born, so that
they had foster-parents to whom they were as much,

or even more, attached than to their natural ones.
Their political state, mirroring their family life,
was not less primitive. There was no central

tribunal. Disputes were settled within the families
in which they occurred, while, in the case of graver
injuries, the injured party or his nearest relation
could kill the culprit or exact a fine from him. As
families in number, they became petty
increased
tribes, often atwar with one another. A defeated
tribe had to recognize the sovereignty of the head
man of the conquering tribe, and a succession of
such victories exalted him into the position of a
chief of his district. But even then, though his
decision was the whole of the law, he was little
more than the mouthpiece of public opinion.
1
Ibid., chap. XIV.
CHAPTER IV
THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS AND

DRUIDISM
The ancient inhabitants of Britain the Gaelic

and British Celts have been already described as
forming a branch of what are roughly called the
"
Aryans This name has, however, little reference

".
to race, and really signifies the speakers of a group

of languages which can be all shown to be con
nected, and to descend remotely from a single source
a hypothetical mother-tongue spoken by a hypo
thetical people which we term Aryan", or, more
"
correctly,
"
Indo-European This primeval speech,

".
evolved, probably, upon some part of the great

plain which stretches from the mountains of Central
Europe to the mountains of Central Asia, has spread,
superseding, or amalgamating with the tongues of
other races, until branches of it are spoken over
almost the whole of Europe and a great portion
of Asia. All the various Latin, Greek, Slavic,
Teutonic, and Celtic languages are
"
Aryan ",
as well as Persian and other Asiatic dialects

derived from the ancient
"
Zend ",
and the numer
ous Indian languages which trace their origin to
Sanscrit.
Not very long ago, it was supposed that this
common descent of language involved a commor
descent of blood. A
real brotherhood was enthusi
astically claimed forall the principal Europear

nations, who were
also invited to recognize Hindu;
and Persians as their long-lost cousins. Since then
it has been conceded that, while the Aryan speed
survived, though greatly modified, the Aryan blooc
might well have disappeared, diluted beyond recog
nition by crossing with the other races whom th<
Aryans conquered, or among whom they more or les;
peacefully settled. As a matter of fact, there are nc
European nations perhaps no people at all excep

a few remote savage tribes which are not made uj:
of the most diverse elements. Aryan and non-Aryar
long ago blended inextricably, to form by their fusior

new peoples.
But, just as the Aryan speech influenced the nev
languages, arid the Aryan customs the new civiliza
tions, so we can still discern in the religions of the
Aryan-speaking nations similar ideas and expression:

pointing to an original source of mythological con
ceptions. Hence, whether we investigate the myth
ology of the Hindus, the Greeks, the Teutons, 01
the Celts, we find the same mythological ground

work. In each, we see the powers of nature per
sonified, and endowed with human form and attri
butes, though bearing, with few exceptions, differem

names. Like the Vedic brahmans, the Greek anc
Latin poets, and the Norse scalds, the Celtic bards
whether Gaels or Britons imagined the sky, the
sun, the moon, the earth, the sea, and the dark
underwo/ld, as well as the mountains, tne streams
CELTIC WORSHIP
From the Drawing by E. Wallcousim
Religion of the Ancient Britons 33
and the woods, to be ruled by beings like their own
chiefs, but infinitely more powerful; every passion,

as War and Love, and every art, as Poetry and
Smithcraft, had its divine founder, teacher, and
exponent ;
and of all these deities and their imagined
children, they wove the poetical and allegorical
romances which form the subject of the present
volume.
Like other nations, too, whether Aryan or non-
Aryan, the Celts had, besides their mythology, a
religion. It is not enough to tell tales of shadowy
gods; they must be

by sculpture, made visible
housed in groves or temples, served with ritual,
and -propitiated with sacrifices, if one is to hope
for their favours. Every cult must have its priests
living by the altar.
The priests of the Celts are well-known to us by

name as the "
Druids" a word derived from a root

DR which signifies a tree, and especially the oak, in
1
several Aryan languages. This is generally though
not by all taken as proving that they paid
scholars
an especial veneration to the king of trees. It is
true that the mistletoe that strange parasite upon

the oak was prominent among their herbs of "
2
power and played a part in their ritual; but this is
",
equally true of other Aryan nations. By the Norse

it was held sacred to the god Balder, while the
Romans believed it to be the "
golden bough"
that
3
gave access to Hades.
1
See Schrader: Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, pp. 138, 272.
8 A description of the Druidical cult of the mistletoe is given by Pliny Natural :
3 See Frazer: The Golden

History, XVI, chap. XCV. Bou^h, chap. IV.
( B 219 )
The accounts both of the Latin and Gaelic writers
give us a fairly complete idea of the nature of the
Druids, and especially of the high estimation in
which they were held. They were at once the
priests, the physicians, the wizards, the diviners, the
theologians, the scientists, and the historians of their
tribes. All spiritual power and all human know
ledge were vested in them, and they ranked second

only to the kings and chiefs. They were freed from
all contribution to the State, whether by tribute or
service in war, so that they might the better apply

themselves to their divine offices. Their decisions
were absolutely final, and those who disobeyed them
were laid under a terrible excommunication or
"boycott".
1
Classic writershow they lorded
tell us
it in Gaul, where, no doubt, they borrowed splendour
by imitating their more civilized neighbours. Men
of the highest rank were proud to cast aside the
insignia of mere mortal honour to join the company
of those who claimed to be the direct mediators with
the sky -god and the thunder-god, and who must
have resembled the ecclesiastics of mediaeval Europe
in the days of their greatest power, combining, like
them, spiritual and temporal

dignities, and possessing
the highest culture of their age. Yet it was not
among these Druids of Gaul, with their splendid
temples and vestments and their elaborate rituals,

that the metropolis of Druidism was to be sought.
We learn from Caesar that the Gallic Druids be-
i
Caesar: De Bello Gallico, Book VI, chaps, xm, xiv. But for a full exposition
of what is known of the Druids the reader is referred to M. d Arbois de Jubainville s
Introduction d Vttnde de la Litttrature Celtique, Vol. I of his Cours de Litttratun

Ciltique.
lieved their religion to have come to them, originally,

from Britain, and that it was their practice to send
across the Channel to
"
theological students
"
their
learn doctrines at their purest source.
its
1
To trace
a cult backwards is often to take a retrograde course
in culture, and it was no doubt in Britain which
Pliny the Elder tells us might have taught magic
"
sufficiently primitive and

2
to Persia" that the
savage rites of the Druids of Gaul were preserved

in their still more savage and primitive forms. It is
curious corroboration of this alleged British origin of
Druidism that the ancient Irish also believed their
Druidism to have come from the sister island. Their
heroes and seers are described as only gaining the
highest knowledge by travelling to Alba.
3
However
this may be, we may take it as certain that this Druid
ism was the accepted religion of the Celtic race.
Certain scholars look deeper for its origin, hold
ing its dark superstitions and savage rites to bear
the stamp of lower minds than those of the poetic
and manly Celts. Professor Rhys inclines to see
three forms of religion in the British Islands at the
time of the Roman invasion: the "Druidism" of
the Iberian aborigines; the pure polytheism of the
Brythons, who, having come later into the country,
had mixed but little with the natives; and the
mingled Aryan and non-Aryan cults of the Goidels,
who were already largely amalgamated with them. 4
i Caesar: De Bella Gallico, Book VI, chap. XIII.
"Pliny:Natural History, XXX.

3
See chap. XH, The Irish Iliad.
*
Rhys : Celtic Britain, chap. II. See also Gomme :
Ethnology in Folk-lore,
pp. 58-62 ; Village Community, p. 104.
But many authorities dissent from and, this view,
indeed, we
are not obliged to postulate borrowing
from tribes in a lower state of culture, to explain
primitive and savage features underlying a higher
religion. The "
Aryan
"
nations must have passed,
equally with all others, through a state of pure

savagery; and we know that the religion of the
Greeks, in many respects so lofty, sheltered features
and legends as barbarous as any that can be attri
buted to the Celts. 1
Ofthe famous teaching of the Druids we know
little, owing to their habit of never allowing their
doctrines to be put into writing. Caesar, however,

roughly records its scope.
"
As one of their leading

dogmas", he says, "they
inculcate this: that souls
are not annihilated, but pass after death from one
body to another, and they hold that by this teaching

men are much encouraged to valour, through dis
regarding the fear of death. They also discuss and
impart to the young many things concerning the
heavenly bodies and their movements, the size of
the world and of our earth, natural science, and of
the influence and power of the immortal gods." 2
The Romans seem to have held their wisdom in
some awe, though it is not unlikely that the Druids
themselves borrowed whatever knowledge they may
have had of science and philosophy from the clas
sicalculture. That their creed of transmigration
was not, however, merely taken over from the
Greeks seems certain from its appearance in the
Abundant evidence of this is contained in Pausanias Description of Greece*

2Caesar De Bello Gallico, Book VI, chap. xiv.
:
ancient Gaelic myths. Not only the shape-shift "
ing common
"
to the magic stories of all nations, but

actual reincarnation was in the power of privileged
beings. The
hero Cuchulainn was urged by the
men of Ulster to marry, because they knew that "
1
his rebirth would be of himself", and they did not
wish so great a warrior to be lost to their tribe.
Another legend tells how the famous Finn mac Coul
was reborn, after two hundred years, as an Ulster
2
king called Mongan.
Such ideas, however, belonged to the metaphysical
side of Druidism. Far more important to the prac
tical primitiveritual and sacrifice, by the
mind are
due performance of which the gods are persuaded
or compelled to grant earth s increase and length of
days to men. Among the Druids, this humouring of
the divinities took the shape of human sacrifice, and

that upon a scale which would seem to have been
unsurpassed in by the most savage

horror even
tribes of West Africa or Polynesia. The whole "
Gaulish nation to a great degree

"
",
says Caesar, is
devoted to superstitious rites; and on this account

those who are afflicted with severe diseases, or who
are engaged in battles and dangers, either sacrifice
human beings for victims, or vow that they will
immolate themselves, and these employ the Druids
as ministers for such sacrifices, because they think
that, unless the life of man be repaid for the life
of man, the will of the immortal gods cannot be
i The Wooing of Enter.

3 It is contained in the Book of the Dun Cow, and has been translated or com
mented upon by Eugene O Curry
(Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish.},
De Jubainville (Cycle Mythologique Irlandais\ and Nutt ( Voyage of Bran}.
appeased. They also ordain national offerings of the

same Others make wicker-work images of
kind.
vast size, the limbs of which they fill with living men
1
and set on fire."
We find evidence of similarly awful customs in

pagan Ireland. Among the oldest Gaelic records
are tracts called Dinnsenchus, in which famous places
are enumerated, together with the legends relating
to them. Such topographies are found in several of
the great Irish mediaeval manuscripts, and therefore,
of course, received their final transcription at the
hands of Christian monks. But these ecclesiastics
rarely tampered with compositions in elaborate
verse. Nor can it be
imagined that any monastic
scribe could have invented such a legend as this one
which describes the practice of human sacrifice among
the ancient Irish. (which is found in the The poem
Books of Leinster, of Ballymote, of Lecan, and in a
document called the Rennes MS.) 2 records the reason
why a spot near the present village of Ballymagauran,
in County Cavan, received the name of Mag Slecht,
the "
Plain of Adoration ".
"
Here used to be
A high idol with many fights,
Which was named the Cromm Cruaich;
It made every tribe to be without peace.
"
Twas a sad evil!

Brave Gaels used to worship it
Caesar : De Bello Gallico, Book VI, chap. xvi.

"The following translation was made by Dr. Kuno Meyer, and appears as
Appendix B to Nutt s Voyage of Bran. Three be found
verses, here omitted, will
later as a note to chap, xn "The Irish Iliad ",
From it they would not without tribute ask

To be satisfied as to their portion of the hard world.
"He was their god,

The withered Cromm with many mists,
The people whom he shook over every host,
The everlasting kingdom they shall not have.
"
To him without glory

They would kill their piteous, wretched offspring
With much wailing and peril,
To pour their blood around Cromm Cruaich.
*
Milk and corn
They would ask from him speedily
In return for one-third of their healthy issue:
Great was the horror and the scare of him.
"
To him
Noble Gaels would prostrate themselves,
From the worship of him, with many manslaughters,
The plain is called "Mag Slecht".
"They
did evil,
"Around
...
They beat their palms, they pounded their bodies,
Wailing to the demon who enslaved them,
They shed falling showers of tears.
Cromm Cruaich
There the hosts would prostrate themselves;
Though he put them under deadly disgrace,
Their name clings to the noble plain.
*
In their ranks (stood)
Four times three stone idols;
To bitterly beguile the hosts,
The figure of the Cromm was made of gold.
"
Since the rule

Of Herimon 1 ,
the noble man of grace,
There was worshipping of stones
Until the coming of good Patrick of Macha.
"A
sledge-hammer to the Cromm
He applied from crown to sole,
He destroyed without lack of valour
The feeble idol which was there."
we gather from a
Such, tradition which we may
deem authentic, was human sacrifice in early Ireland.
According the quoted verse, one third of the

to
healthy children were slaughtered, presumably every

year, to wrestfrom the powers of nature the grain
and grass upon which the tribes and their cattle sub
sisted. In a prose dinnsenchus preserved in the
Rennes 2
MS., there is a slight variant. is
"
T
there", (at Mag Slecht), it runs,
"
was the king idol

of Erin, namely the Crom Croich, and around him
were twelve idols made of stones, but he was of
gold. Until was the god of
Patrick s advent he
every folk that colonized Ireland. To him they
used to offer the firstlings of every issue and the
chief scions of every clan." The same authority
also tells us that these sacrifices were made at
Hallowe
"
which took the place, in the Chris

en",
tian calendar, of the heathen Samhain Summer s "
End" when the sun s power waned, and the

strength of the gods of darkness, winter, and the
underworld grew great.
1 The first King of the Milesians. The name is more usually spelt Eremon.
2
The Rennes Dinnsenchus has been translated by Dr. Whitley Stokes in Vol. XVI
of the Revue Celtique.
Religion of the A ncient Britons 4 1
Who, then, was this

bloodthirsty deity? His
name, Cromm Cruaich, means the Bowed One of
"
the Mound", and was evidently applied to him only

after his fall from godhead. It relates to the tra
dition that, at the approach of the all-conquering
Saint Patrick, the "demon" fled from his golden
image, which thereupon sank forward in the earth

in homage to the power that had come to supersede
it.
1
But from another source we glean that the
word cromm was a kind of pun upon and that cenn,
the real title of the "king
idol of was Cenn
Erin"
Cruaich, "Head" or "Lord" of the Mound. Pro

fessor Rhys, in his Celtic Heathendom? suggests that
he was probably the Gaelic heaven-god, worshipped,
like the Hellenic Zeus, upon "high places",
natural
or artificial. At any rate, we may see in him the
god most revered by the Gaels, surrounded by the
other twelve chief members of their Pantheon.
It would appear probable that the Celtic State
worship was what is called All its chief "solar".
festivals related to points in the sun s progress, the

equinoxes having been considered more important
than the solstices. It was at the spring equinox
8
the Celts in every nine
"
(called by Beltaine"
)
teenth year that, we learn from Diodorus the Sicilian,

a writer contemporary with Julius Caesar, Apollo
himself appeared to his worshippers, and was seen
harping and dancing in the sky until the rising of
the Pleiades. 4 The other corresponding festival was
1
Told in the Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick, a fifteenth-century combination of
three very ancient Gaelic MSS.
2
The Hibbert Lectures for 1886. Lecture II "The Zeus of the Insular Celts"
8 *
Pronounced Baltinna. Diodorus Siculus: Book II, chap, ill
"
autumn equinox.
Samhain"
1
As Beltaine
,
the
marked the beginning of summer, so Samhain re
corded its end. The summer solstice was also a
great Celtic feast. It was held at the
beginning of
August honour of the god called Lugus by the
in
Gauls, Lugh by the Gaels, and Lieu by the Britons

the pan- Celtic Apollo, and, probably, when the
cult of the war-god had fallen from its early pro
minence, the chief figure of the common Pantheon.

was doubtless at Stonehenge that the
It British
Apollo was thus seen harping and dancing. That

marvellous structure well corresponds to Diodorus s
description of a "magnificent temple of Apollo"
which he locates "in the centre of Britain".
"
It is
a circular enclosure," he says, "adorned with votive

offerings and tablets with Greek inscriptions sus
pended by travellers upon the walls. The rulers of
the temple and city are called Boreadae 2 and they
*
take up the government from each other according

to the order of their tribes. The citizens are given
up to music, harping and chanting in honour of the
8
sun."
Stonehenge, therefore, was a sacred religious
centre, equally revered by and equally belonging to
all the British tribes a Rome or Jerusalem of our
ancient paganism.
The same
great gods were, no doubt, adored by
allthe Celts, not only of Great Britain and Ireland,
but of Continental Gaul as well. Sometimes they
can be traced by name right across the ancient
1
Pronounced Sowin.
2
It has been suggested that this title is an attempt to reproduce the ancient
British word for

"
bards".
3 Diodorus Siculus: Book II, chap. ill.
(2) Frith.
PORTION OF THE CIRCLE, STONEHENGE

Celtic world. In other cases, what is obviously the
same personified power of nature is found in various
places with the same attributes, but with a different
title. Besides these, there must have been a mul
titude of lesser gods, worshipped by certain tribes
alone, to whom they stood as ancestors and guar

5
dians. swear by the gods of my people was

"
I ,
the ordinary oath of a hero in the ancient Gaelic
sagas. The aboriginal tribes must also have had

their gods, whether it be true or not that their re
ligion influenced the Celtic Druidism. Professor
Rhys inclines to see in the genii locorum, the almost

nameless spirits of well and river, mountain and
wood shadowy remnants of whose cults survive to
day, members of a swarming Pantheon of the older
Iberians. 1 These local beings would in no way con
flictwith the great Celtic nature-gods, and the two
worships could exist side by side, both even claiming
the same votary. It needs the stern faith of mono
theism to deny the existence of the gods of others.

Polytheistic nations have seldom or never risen to
such a height. In their dealings with a conquered
people, the conquerors naturally held their own gods
to be the stronger. Still, it could not be denied that
the gods of the conquered were upon their own

ground; they knew, so to speak, the country, and
might have unguessed powers of doing evil! What
if, to avenge their worshippersand themselves, they
were make
to the land barren and useless to the con
querors? So that conquering pagan nations have
usually been quite ready to stretch out the hand of

1
Hibbert Lectures, 1886. Lecture I "The Gaulish Pantheon"
welcome to the deities of their new subjects, to pro
pitiate them by sacrifice, and even to admit them
within the pale of their own Pantheon.
This raises the question of the exact nationality of
the gods whose stories we are about to tell. Were
they all Aryan, or did any of the greater aboriginal
deities climb up to take their place among the Gaelic
tribe of the goddess Danu, or the British children
of the goddess Don? Some of the Celtic gods have
seemed to scholars to bear signs of a non- Aryan
origin.
1
The point, however, is at present very
obscure. Neither does it much concern us. Just
as the diverse deities of the Greeks some Aryan
and Hellenic, some pre-Aryan and Pelasgian, some
imported and Semitic were all gathered into one
great divine family, so we may consider as members
of one national Olympus all these gods whose
legends make up The Mythology of the British
"
Islands".
1
See Rhys : Lectures on Welth. Philology, pp. 426, 553, 653.
THE GAELIC GODS AND THEIR
STORIES
CHAPTER V
THE GODS OF THE GAELS
Of the two Celtic races that settled in our islands,

it isthe earlier, the Gaels, that has best preserved
its old mythology. It is true that we have in few
cases such detailed account of the Gaelic gods as we
gain of the Hellenic deities from the Greek poets, of

the Indian Devas from the Rig Veda, or of the
Norse flLsir from the Eddas. Yet none the less
may we draw from the ancient Irish manuscripts
quite enough information to enable us to set forth

their figures with some clearness. We
find them, as
might have been anticipated, very much like the

divine hierarchies of otherAryan peoples.
We them separated into two opposing
also find
camps, a division common to all the Aryan religions.

Just as the Olympians struggled with the Giants,
the Êsir fought the Jotuns, and the Devas the
Asuras, so there is warfare in the Gaelic spiritual
world between two superhuman hosts. On one side
are ranged gods of day, light, life, fertility,
the
wisdom, and good; on the other, the demons of
night, darkness, death, barrenness, and evil. The
firstwere the great spirits symbolizing the beneficial
aspects of nature and the arts and intelligence of
man; the second were the hostile powers thought to
be behind such baneful manifestations as storm and
47
fog, drought and disease. The first are ranged as

a divine family round a goddess called Danu, from
whom they took their well-known name of Tuatha
Dt Danann? "
Tribe" or "
Folk of the Goddess

Danu". The second owned allegiance to a female
divinity called Domnu; their king, Indech, is de

scribed as her son, and they are all called
"
Domnu s
gods".
The word "
Domnu" appears to have sig

nified the abyss or the deep sea, 2 and the same
idea is also expressed in their better-known name of
"
Fomors", derived from two Gaelic words meaning

"under sea".
3
The waste of water seems to have
always impressed the Celts with the sense of prim
eval ancientness; it was connected in their minds
with vastness, darkness, and monstrous births the
very antithesis of all that was symbolized by the
earth, the sky, and the sun.
Therefore the Fomors were held to be more
ancient than the gods, before whom they were,
however, destined to fall in the end. Offspring of
and Old Night", they were, for the most
"Chaos
part, huge and deformed. Some had but one arm

and one leg apiece, while others had the heads of
goats, horses, or bulls.
4
The most famous, and
perhaps the most terrible of them all was Balor,
whose father is said to have been one Buarainech,
that is, the "cow- faced", 5 and who combined in him
self the two classical roles of the Cyclops and the
Medusa. Though he had two eyes, one was always
1
Pronounced Too&ha dae donnann.
8
Rhys: Hibbert Lectures, 1886. Lecture VI "Gods, Demons, and Heroes".
4 De
Hid. Jubainville Le Cycle Mythologique Jrlandais, chap, v,
"
De Jubainville Cycle Mythologique Irlandais, chap. IX.

:
The Gods of the Gaels 49
kept shut, for it was so venomous that it slew any

one on whom its look fell. This malignant quality
of Balor eye was not natural to him, but was the
s
result of an accident. Urged by curiosity, he once

looked in at the window of a house where his
father s sorcerers were preparing a magic potion,
and the poisonous smoke from the cauldron reached
his eye, infecting it with so much of its own deadly
nature as to make it disastrous to others. Neither
god nor giant seems to have been exempt from its
dangers; so that Balor was only allowed to live on

condition that he kept his terrible eye shut. On
days of battle he was placed opposite to the enemy,
the lid of the destroying eye was lifted up with a
hook, and its gaze withered all who stood before it.
The memory of Balor and his eye still

lingers in
Ireland: the "eye of Balor" is the name for what
the peasantry of other countries call the "evil eye";
stories are still told of Balar Beimann, or Balor of "
the Mighty Blows"; and Balor s Castle" is the name

"
of a curious cliff on Tory Island. This island, off

the coast of Donegal, was the Fomorian outpost
upon earth, their real abode being in the cold depths
of the sea.
This rule, however, as to the hideousness of the
Fomors had its
exceptions. Elathan, one of their
chiefs, is described in an old manuscript as of
magnificent presence a Miltonic prince of dark
ness. "A man of fairest form," it says, "with
golden hair down to his shoulders. He wore a
mantle of gold braid over a shirt interwoven with
threads of gold. Five golden necklaces were round
(B219) D
his neck,and a brooch of gold with a shining precious
stone thereon was on his breast. He carried two
silver spears with rivets of bronze, and his sword
was golden-hilted and golden-studded." 1 Nor was
his son less handsome. His name was Bress, which
means "beautiful", and we are told that every
beautiful thing in Ireland, whether plain, or fortress,
"
or ale, or torch, or woman, or man", was compared

with him, so that men said of them,
"
that is a
2
Bress".
and Elathan are the three Fomorian

Balor, Bress,
personages whose figures, seen through the mists of
antiquity, show clearest to us. But they are only a
few out of many, nor are they the oldest. We can
learn, however, nothing but a few names of any an
cestors of the Gaelic giants. This is equally true of
the Gaelic gods. Those we know are evidently not
without parentage, but the names of their fathers are
no more than shadows following into oblivion the
figures they designated. The most ancient divinity
of whom we have any knowledge is Danu herself,
the goddess from whom the whole hierarchy of gods
received its name of Tuatha Danann. She was De"
also called Anu or Ana, and her name still clings to

two well-known mountains near Killarney, which,
though now called simply "The Paps", were known
8
formerly as the Paps of Ana".
"
She was the
1
Fromthe fifteenth-century Harleian MS. in the British Museum, numbered
5280,and called the Second Battle of Moytura. 2
Harleian MS. 5280.
3 In Munster was worshipped the goddess of prosperity, whose name was Ana,
"
and from her are named the Two Paps of Ana over Luachair Degad." From Coir
Anmann, the Choice of Names, a sixteenth-century tract, published by Dr. Whitley
Stokes in Irische Texte.
universal mother; "well she used to cherish the
gods", says the commentator of a ninth-century Irish

glossary.
1
Her husband never mentioned by
is
name, but one may assume him, from British analo

gies, to have been Bile",
known to Gaelic tradition
as a god of Hades, a kind of Celtic Dis Pater from
whom sprang the first men. Danu herself probably
represented the earth and its fruitfulness, and one

might compare her with the Greek Demeter. All
the other gods are, at least by title, her children.
The greatest of these would seem to have been
Nuada, called Argetldm, or He of the Silver "
Hand". He was at once the Gaelic Zeus, or

Jupiter, and their war-god; for among primitive
nations, to whom success in war is
all-important, the
god of battles is the supreme god. 2 Among the
3
Gauls, Camulus, whose name meant "Heaven", was
identified by the Romans with Mars; and other such
instances come readily to the mind. He was pos
sessed of an invincible sword, one of the four chief
treasures of the Tuatha De* Danann, over whom he
was twice king and there is little doubt that he was
;
one of the most important gods of both the Gaels

and the Britons, for his name is spread over the
whole of the British Isles, which we may surmise
the Celts conquered under his auspices. may We
picture him as a more savage Mars, delighting in
battle and slaughter, and worshipped, like his
Gaulish affinities, Teutates and Hesus, of whom the
1
Attributed to Cormac, King-Bishop of Cashel.
a
Rhys Hibbert Lectures, 1886" The Zeus of the Insular Celts".
:
3
Rhys Hibbert Lectures, 1886
: The Gaulish Pantheon".
"
Latin poet Lucan tells us, with human sacrifices,
shared in by his female consorts, who, we may
imagine, were not more merciful than himself, or
than that Gaulish Taranis whose cult was no "
gentler than that of the Scythian Diana", and who

completes Lucan s triad as a fit
companion to the
1
"
pitiless Teutates" and the "
horrible Hesus". Of
these warlike goddesses there were five Fea, the
Nemon, the Badb, the
"
"Hateful", Venomous",
"
Fury", Macha, a personification of battle", and,

"
over all of them, the Morrfgu, or "Great Queen".
This supreme war-goddess of the Gaels, who re

sembles a fiercer Here, perhaps symbolized the
moon, deemed by early races to have preceded the
sun, and worshipped with magical and cruel rites.
She represented as going fully armed, and carry
is
ing two spears in her hand. As with Ares 2 and

8
Poseidon in the her battle-cry was as loud "Iliad",
as that of ten thousand men. Wherever there was

war, either among gods or men, she, the great queen,
was present, either in her own shape or in her
favourite disguise, that of a "hoodie" or carrion
crow. An old poem shows her inciting a warrior:
Over his head is shrieking
"
A lean hag, quickly hopping

Over the points of the weapons and shields ;
4
She is the gray-haired Morrigu ".
With her, Fea and Nemon, Badb and Macha also

l
Pharsalia, Book 1, 1. 444, &c.:
"
Et quibus immitis plaoatur sanguine diro

Teutates, horrensque feris altaribus Hesus ;
Et Taranis Scythicae non mitior ara Dianae ".
3 *
Iliad, Book V. Op, cit. ,
Book XIV. It commemorates the battle of Magh Rath.
hovered over the fighters, inspiring them with the
madness of battle. All of these were sometimes
called by the name of Badb"
1
An account of the"
Battle of Clontarf, fought by Brian Boru, in 1014,
against the Norsemen, gives a gruesome picture of

what the Gaels believed to happen in the spiritual
world when battle lowered and men s blood was
aflame.
"
There arose a wild, impetuous, pre

cipitate, mad, inexorable, furious, dark, lacerating,
merciless,combative, contentious badb, which was
shrieking and fluttering over their heads. And
there arose also the satyrs, and sprites, and the
maniacs of the valleys, and the witches and goblins
and owls, and destroying demons of the air and
firmament, and the demoniac phantom host; and
they were inciting and sustaining valour and battle
with them." When the fight was over, they revelled
among the bodies of the slain; the heads cut off as

barbaric trophies were called Macha s acorn crop". "
These grim creations of the savage mind had im

mense vitality. While Nuada, the supreme war-
god, vanished early out of the Pantheon killed by
the Fomors in the great battle fought between them
and the gods Badb and the Morrigii lived on as
late as any of the Gaelic Indeed, they may deities.
be said to survive in the superstitious dislike
still
and suspicion shown in all Celtic-speaking countries

2
for their avatar, the hoodie-crow.
After Nuada, the greatest of the gods was the
1
The word isapproximately pronounced Bive or Bibe.
8
For a full account of these beings see a paper by Mr. W. M. Hennessey in
Vol. 1 of the Reimt Cettique, entitled "The Ancient Irish Goddess of War".
Dagda, whose name seems have meant the "Good

to
God".
1
The "The Choice of
old Irish tract called
Names" tells us that he was a
god of the earth;
he had a cauldron called The Undry in which "
",
everyone found food in proportion to his merits, and

from which none went away unsatisfied. He also
had a living harp; as he played upon it, the seasons
came in their order spring following winter, and
summer succeeding spring, autumn coming after
summer, and, in its turn, giving place to winter. He

is
represented as of venerable aspect and of simple
mind and tastes, very fond of porridge, and a valiant
consumer of it. In an ancient tale we have a de
scription of his dress. He wore a brown, low-
necked tunic which only reached down to his hips,
and, over this, a hooded cape which barely covered
his shoulders. On his feet and legs were horse-hide
boots, the hairy side outwards. He carried, or,
rather, him on a wheel, an eight-pronged

drew after
war-club, so huge that eight men would have been

needed to carry it; and the wheel, as he towed the
whole weapon along, made a track like a territorial
2
boundary. Ancient and gray-headed as he was,
and sturdy porridge-eater, it will be seen from this
that he was a formidable fighter. He did great deeds
in the battle between the gods and the Fomors, and,
on one occasion, is even said to have captured single-
handed a hundred-legged and four-headed monster
called Mata, dragged him to the "Stone of Benn",
near the Boyne, and killed him there.

1
De Jubainville Le. Cycle Mythologique. Rhys: Hibbert
: Lectures, p. 154. The
Coir Anmann, however, translates it Fire of God".
"
The Second Battle o/ Maytura. Harleian MS. 5280.

The Dagda s wife was called Boann. She was

connected in legend with the River Boyne, to
which she gave its name, and, indeed, its very exist
2
ence. 1 Formerly there was only a well shaded by ,
nine magic hazel-trees. These trees bore crimson

nuts, and it was the property of the nuts that who
ever ate of them immediately became possessed of
the knowledge of everything that was in the world.
The story is, in fact, a Gaelic version of the Hebrew
myth of "theTree of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil". One class of creatures alone had this
privilege divine salmon who lived in the well, and

swallowed the nuts as they dropped from the trees
and thus knew all things, and appear
into the water,
in legend as the Salmons of Knowledge". All
"
others, even the highest gods, were forbidden to

approach the place. Only Boann, with the pro
verbial woman s disobey this
curiosity, dared to
fixed law. She came towards the sacred well, but,
as she did so, waters rose up at her, and drove
its
her away before them in a mighty, rushing flood.

She escaped; but the waters never returned. They
made the Boyne; and as for the all-knowing inhabi
tants of the well, they wandered disconsolately
through the depths of the river, looking in vain for

their lost nuts. One of these salmon was afterwards
eaten by the famous Finn mac Coul, upon whom all
3
its omniscience descended. This way of accounting
for the existence of a river is a favourite one in Irish
legend. It is told also of the Shannon, which burst.
1
The story is told in the Book of Leinster. "
Now called
"
Trinity Well".
8
See chap, xiv "
Finn and the Fenians".

like the Boyne, from an inviolable well, to pursue
another presumptuous nymph called Sinann, a grand
1
daughter of the sea-god Ler.
The Dagda had several children, the most im
portant of whom are Brigit, Angus, Mider, Ogma,

and Bodb the Brigit be
Red. Of these, will
already familiar to English readers who know no

thing of Celtic myth. Originally she was a goddess
of and the hearth, as well as of poetry, which
fire
the Gaels deemed an immaterial, supersensual form

of flame. But the early Christianizers of Ireland
adopted the pagan goddess into their roll of saint-
ship, and, thus canonized, she obtained immense
2
popularity as Saint Bridget, or Bride.
Angus was called Mac Oc, which means the "
Son
of the perhaps, the
"
Young", Young God".or,

This most charming of the creations of the Celtic
mythology is represented as a Gaelic Eros, an
eternally youthful exponent of love and beauty.
Like his he had a harp, but it was of gold,
father,
not oak, as the Dagda s was, and so sweet was its
music that no one could hear and not follow it. His
kisses became birds which hovered invisibly over
the young men and maidens of Erin, whispering
thoughts of love into their ears. He is chiefly

connected with the banks of the Boyne, where he
had a brugh or fairy palace; and many stories
"
",
are told of his exploits and adventures.

Mider, also the hero of legends, would seem to
have been a god of the underworld, a Gaelic
1
Book of Leinster. A paraphrase of the story will be found in O Curry s
Manners and Customs of tht Ancient Irish, Vol. II, p. 143.
2
See chap, xv The Decline and Fall of the Gods
"
".
Pluto. As
was connected with the Isle
such, he
of Falga a name for what was otherwise, and still
is, called the Isle of Man where he had a strong
hold in which he kept three wonderful cows .and
a magic cauldron. He was also the owner of the
Three Cranes of Denial and Churlishness
"
which ",
might be described flippantly as personified gentle

"
hints They stood beside his door, and when any

".
one approached to ask for hospitality, the first one

said: Do not come! do not come!" and the second
"
added: "Get away! get away!" while the third

chimed in with: "Go past the house! go past the
1
These three birds were, however, stolen
house!"
fromMider by Aitherne, an avaricious poet, to

whom they would seem to have been more appro
priate than to their owner, who does not otherwise
appear as a churlish and illiberal deity.
2
On the
contrary, he represented as the victim of others,
is
who plundered him freely. The god Angus took

3
away his wife Etain, while his cows, his cauldron,
and his beautiful daughter Blathnat were carried off
as spoil by the heroes or demi-gods who surrounded
King Conchobar in the golden age of Ulster.

Ogma, who appears
have been also called to
Cermait, that is, the "honey-mouthed", was the

god of literature and eloquence. He married
Etan, the daughter of Diancecht, the god of medi
cine, and had several children, who play parts more
or less prominent in the mythology of the Gaelic
Celts. One of them was called Tuirenn, whose
1 2
Rhys Hibbert Lectures, p. 331.
:
Rhys : Hibbtrt Lectures, p. 331.
8
See chap, xi "The Gods in Exile".
three sons murdered the father of the sun-god, and
were compelled, as expiation, to pay the greatest fine
ever heard of nothing less than the chief treasures
of the world. 1
Another son, Cairpre",
became the
professional bard of the Tuatha D6 Danann, while
three others reigned for a short time over the divine
race. Aspatron of literature, Ogma was naturally
credited with having been the inventor of the famous
Ogam alphabet. This was an indigenous script of

Ireland, which spread afterwards to Great Britain,
inscriptions in ogmic characters having been found
in Scotland, the Isle of Man, South Wales, Devon
shire, and at Silchester in Hampshire, the Roman
city of Calleva Attrebatum. It was originally in
tended for inscriptions upon upright pillar-stones or
upon wands, the equivalents for letters being notches
cut across, or strokes made upon one of the faces of
the angle, the alphabet running as follows:
VOWELS
AGUE
CONSONANTS
BLF S NHDT C QU
M G NG ST ft P
i See chap, vin "The Gaelic Argonauts

When afterwards written in manuscript, the strokes
were placed over, under, or through a horizontal
line, in the manner above; and the vowels were
represented by short lines instead of notches, as:
AGUE I
A good example of an ogmic inscription is given

in Professor Rhys s Hibbert Lectures. It comes from
a pillar on a small promontory near Dunmore Head,
in the west of Kerry, and, read horizontally, reads:
C M A QU I M A QU I
mi /
ER C IASMODOV I N IA
ERC t ThLE SON OF THE SON OF ERCA (DESCENDANT OF) MODOVINIA.1
The origin of this alphabet is obscure. Some

authorities consider it of great antiquity, while others
believe it entirely post-Christian. It seems, at any
have been based upon, and consequently to

rate, to
presuppose a knowledge of, the Roman alphabet.

Ogma, besides being the patron of literature, was
the champion, or professional strong man of the
Tuatha D6 Danann. His epithet is Grianainech,
1
Rhys : Hibbert Lectures^ p. 524.
6o Mythology of the British Islands
that is, the
"
Sunny-faced ",
from his radiant and
shining countenance.
The last of the Dagda s more important children
is Bodb the Red, who
1
plays a greater part in later
than in earlier legend. He succeeded his father as
king of the gods. He is chiefly connected with
the south of Ireland, especially with the Galtee
Mountains, and with Lough Dearg, where he had
a famous sidk, or underground palace.
The Poseidon of the Tuatha D6 Danann Pantheon
was called Ler, but we hear little of him in com
parison with his famous son, Manannan, the greatest

and most popular of his many children. Manannan
2
mac was the special patron of sailors, who
Lir
invoked him as God of Headlands and of mer
"
",
chants, who claimed him as the first of their guild.

His favourite haunts were the Isle of Man, to which
he gave his name, and the Isle of Arran, in the
Firth of Clyde, where he had a palace called Emhain "
of the Apple-Trees He had many famous weapons ".
two spears called Yellow Shaft" and "Red "
a sword called "The Retaliator", which

Javelin",
never failed to slay, as well as two others known as

the Great Fury and the Little Fury
"
He had
"
"
".
a boat called "Wave-sweeper", which propelled and

guided itself wherever its owner wished, and a horse
Splendid Mane which was swifter than
"
called ",
the spring wind, and travelled equally fast on land

or over the waves of the sea. No weapon could
hurt him through his magic mail and breast-plate,
and on his helmet there shone two magic jewels
1
Pronounced Bove. 2 L6r genitive Lir.
bright as the sun. He endowed the gods with

the mantle which made them invisible at will, and
he fed them from his pigs, which, like the boar
Saehrimnir, in the Norse Valhalla, renewed them
selves as soon as they had been eaten. Of these,
no doubt, he made his Feast of Age", the banquet
"
at which those who ate never grew old. Thus the

people of the goddess Danu preserved their im
mortal youth, while the ale of Goibniu the Smith-
God bestowed invulnerability upon them. It is
fitting that Manannan himself should have been
blessed beyond all the other gods with inexhaustible
life; up to the latest days of Irish heroic literature
his luminous figure shines prominent, nor is it even

yet wholly forgotten.
Goibniu, the Gaelic Hephaestus, who made the
people of the goddess Danu invulnerable with his
magic drink, was also the forger of their weapons.

It was he who, helped by Luchtaine", the divine
carpenter, and Credne, the divine bronze worker,

-
made the armoury with which the Tuatha D6 Dan-

ann conquered the Fomors. Equally useful to
them was Diancecht, the god of medicine. 1 It
was he who once saved Ireland, and was indirectly

the cause of the name of the River Barrow. The
Morrigii, the heaven -god s fierce wife, had borne
a son of such terrible aspect that the physician of
the gods, foreseeing danger, counselled that he
should be destroyed in his infancy. This was done;
and Diancecht opened the infant s heart, and found
1
Pronounced Dianket. His name is explained, both in the Choice of Names
and in Cormac s Glossary, as meaning
"
God of Health".
within three serpents, capable, when they grew to
it
full size, of depopulating Ireland. He lost no time

in destroying these serpents also, and burning them
into ashes, to avoid the evil which even their dead

bodies might do. More than this, he flung the
ashes into the nearest river, for he feared that there
might be danger even in them; and, indeed, so
venomous were they that the river boiled up and
slew every living creature in it, and therefore has
1
been called Barrow" (boiling) ever since.
"
Diancecht had several children, of whom two fol

lowed their father s profession. These were Miach
and his sister Airmid. There were also another
daughter, Etan, who married Cermait (or Ogma),

and three other sons called Cian, Ceth6, and Cu.
Cian married Ethniu, the daughter of Balor the
Fomor, and they had a son who was the crowning
its Apollo, the Sun-
glory of the Gaelic Pantheon
2
God, Lugh called Lamhfada?, which means the
,
or the Far-shooter". It was not,

"
"Long-handed",
however, with the bow, like the Apollo of the

Greeks, but rod-sling with the
Lugh per that
formed his worshippers sometimes saw
feats; his
the terrible weapon in the sky as a rainbow, and
the Milky Way was
Lugh s Chain He
called
"
".
alsohad a magic spear, which, unlike the rod-sling,

he had no need to wield, himself; for it was alive,
and thirsted so for blood that only by steeping its
head in a sleeping-draught of pounded poppy leaves
could it be kept at rest. When battle was near, it
i
StandishO Grady: The Story of Ireland, p. 17.
3
Pronounced Luga or Loo. "
Pronounced Lavdda.
LUGH S MAGIC SPEAR
From the Drawing by II. R. Millar
was drawn out; then and struggled against

it roared,
its thongs; fire flashed from it; and, once slipped
from the leash, it tore through and through the

ranks of the enemy, never tired of slaying. Another
of his possessions was a magic hound which an
1
ancient poem, attributed to the Fenian hero, Caoilte,
calls
"
That hound of mightiest deeds,

Which was irresistible in hardness of combat,
Was better than wealth ever known,
A ball of fire every night.
"
Other virtues had that beautiful hound

(Better this property than any other property),
Mead or wine would grow of it,
Should it bathe in spring water."
This marvellous hound, as well as the marvellous

spear, and the indestructible pigs of Mananndn were
obtained for Lugh by the sons of Tuirenn as part of
the blood-fine he exacted from them for the murder
of his father Cian. 2 A hardly less curious story is
that which tells how Lugh got his name of the
8
loldanach, or the
"
Master of All Arts".
These are, of course, only the greater deities of

the Gaelic Pantheon, their divinities which answered
to such Hellenic figures as Demeter, Zeus, Here,
Cronos, Athena, Eros, Hades, Hermes, Hephaestus,

Aesculapius, and Apollo. All of them had many
descendants, some of whom play prominent parts
i
Translated by O Curry in Atlantis, VoL III, from the Book of Lismore.
3
Chap, viii "The Gaelic Argonauts".
Chap, vii" The Rise of the Sun-God
3
".
in the heroic cycles of the
"
Red Branch of Ulster

and of the "
Fenians". In addition to these, there

must have been a multitude of lesser gods who
stood in much the same relation to the great gods
as the rank and file of tribesmen did to their chiefs.
Most of these were probably local deities of the
various clans the gods their heroes swore by. But
it is also
possible that some may have been divini
ties of the aboriginal race. Professor Rhys thinks
that he can still trace a few of such Iberian gods by
name, as Nt, Ri or Roi, Corb, and Beth. 1 But

they play no recognizable part in the stories of the
Gaelic gods.
1
Rhys : Celtic Britain, chap. vu.
CHAPTER VI
THE GODS ARRIVE
The people of the goddess Danu were not the

first divine inhabitants of Ireland. Others had been
before them, dwellers in "the dark backward and
abysm of time". In this the Celtic mythology re
sembles those of other nations, in almost all of which
we find an old, dim realm of gods standing behind
the reigning Pantheon. Such were Cronos and the
Titans, dispossessed by the Zeus who seemed, even
to Hesiod, something of a parvenu deity. Gaelic
tradition recognizes two divine dynasties anterior to
the Tuatha De* Danann. The first of these was
called Race of Partholon
"The Its head and ".
leader came as all gods and men came, according

to Celtic ideas from the Other World, and landed
in Ireland with a retinue of twenty-four males and
twenty-four females upon the first of May, the day
called
"
Beltaine ",
sacred togod of death.
Bile",
the
At this remote time, Ireland consisted of only one
treeless, grassless plain, watered by three lakes and
nine rivers. But, as the race of Partholon increased,
the land stretched, or widened, under them some
said miraculously, and others, by the labours of
Partholon At any
during the three
s people. rate,
hundred years they dwelt there, it grew from one
( B 219 ) 65 E
plain to four, and acquired seven new lakes; which

was fortunate, for the race of Partholon increased
from forty-eight members to five thousand, in spite
of battles with the Fomors.
These would seem to have
been inevitable.
Whatever gods ruled, they found themselves in
eternal opposition to the not-gods the powers of
darkness, winter, evil, and death. The race of
Partholon warred against them with success. At
the Plain of Ith, Partholon defeated their leader,
a gigantic demon Cichol the Footless, and
called
dispersed his deformed and monstrous host. After

this there was quiet for three hundred years. Then
upon the same fatal first of May there began a
mysterious epidemic, which lasted a week, and de

stroyed them all. In premonition of their end, they
foregathered upon the original, first-created plain-

then called Sen Mag, or the Old Plain so that
"
",
those who survived might the more easily bury

those that died. Their funeral-place is still marked
by a mound near Dublin, called Tallaght in the
"
"
maps, but formerly known as Tamlecht Muintre

the Plague grave of Partholon s
-
"
Partholain,
People ". This would seem to have been a de
velopment of the very oldest form of the legend
which knew nothing of a plague, but merely repre
sented the people of Partholon as having returned,
after their sojourn in Ireland, to the other world,
whence they came and is probably due to the
gradual euhemerization of the ancient gods into
ancient men.
Following the race of Partholon, came the race

The Gods Arrive 67
of Nemed, which carried on the work and traditions

of its forerunner. During its time, Ireland again
enlarged herself, to the extent of twelve new plains

and four more lakes. Like the people of Par-
tholon, the race of Nemed struggled with the
Fomors, and defeated them in four consecutive
battles. Then Nemed died, with two thousand of
his people, from an epidemic, and the remnant, left
without their leader, were terribly oppressed by the
Fomors. Two Fomorian kings More, son of
Dela, and Conann, son of Febar had built a tower
of glass upon Tory Island, always their chief strong
hold, and where stories of them still linger, and
from vantage-point they dictated a tax which
this
recalls that paid, in Greek story, to the Cretan
Minotaur. Two-thirds of the children born to the
race of Nemed during the year were to be delivered
up on each day of Samhain. Goaded by this to
a last
desperate effort, the survivors of Nemed s
people attacked the tower, and took it, Conann
perishing in the struggle. But their triumph was
short. More, the other king, collected his forces,
and inflicted such a slaughter upon the people of
Nemed that, out of the sixteen thousand who had
assembled for the storming of the tower, only thirty
survived. And these returned whence they came,
or died the two acts being, mythologically speak
1
ing, the same.
One cannot help seeing a good deal of similarity
between the stories of these two mythical invasions
of Ireland. Especially noticeable is the account of
1
De Jubainville: Cycle Mythologiqut, chap. v.
the epidemic which destroyed all Partholon s people
and nearly all of Nemed s. Hence it has been held
that the two legends are duplicates, and that there
was at first only one, which has been adapted some
what differently by two races, the Iberians and the
Gaels. Professor Rhys considers 1 the account of
Nemed to have been the original Celtic one, and
the Partholon story, the version of it which the
native races made to please themselves. The name
Partholon with its initial /, is entirely foreign to
"
",
the genius of Gaelic speech. Moreover, Partholon

himself is given, by the early chroniclers, ancestors
whose decidedly non-Aryan names reappear after
wards as the names of Fir Bolg chiefs. Nemed was
later than Partholon in Ireland, as the Gaels, or Mi "
lesians", were later than the Iberians, or "Fir Bolgs".
These
"
Fir Bolgs are found in myth as the

"
next colonizers of Ireland. Varying traditions say

that they came from Greece, or from
"
"
Spain
which was a post - Christian euphemism for the
Celtic Hades. 2 They consisted of three tribes,
called the
"
Fir Domnann or Men "

"
of Domnu ",
the
"
Fir Gaillion
"
or "
Men of Gaillion", and the

Fir Bolg or
"
Men of Bolg but, in spite of the

"
"
";
fact that the first-named tribe was the most im
portant, they are usually called collectively after

the last. Curious stories are told of their life in
Greece, and they came to Ireland; but these how
are somewhat factitious, and obviously do not be
long to the earliest tradition.

1
Rhys: "The Mythographical Treatment of Celtic Ethnology", Scottish Review,
Oct. 1890.
8 De Jubainville: Cycle Mythologique, chap. V. Rhys: Hibbert Lectures, pp. 90, 91.
The Gods Arrive 69
In the time of their domination they had, we are

told, partitioned Ireland among them: the Fir Bolg
held Ulster; the Fir Domnann, divided into three
kingdoms, occupied North Munster, South Munster,

and Connaught; while the Fir Gaillion owned Lein-
ster. These five provinces met at a hill then called
"Baler s Hill", but afterwards the "Hill of Uisnech".
It is near Rathconrath, in the county of West

Meath, and was believed, in early times, to mark
the exact centre of Ireland. They held the country
from the departure of the people of Nemed to the
coming of the people of the goddess Danu, and dur
ing this period they had nine supreme kings. At
the time of the arrival of the gods, their king s name
was Eochaid 1 son of Ere, surnamed The Proud "
".
We have practically no other details regarding

their life in Ireland. It is obvious, however, that
they were not really gods, but the pre-Aryan race

which the Gaels, when they landed in Ireland, found
already in occupation. There are many instances
of peoples at a certain stage of culture regarding
tribes in a somewhat lower one as semi-divine, or,
rather, half -diabolical.

2
The suspicion and fear
with which the early Celts must have regarded the
savage aborigines made them seem "larger than

human ".
They feared them for the weird magical
which they practised in their inaccessible forts
rites
among the hills, amid storms and mountain mists.

The Gaels, who held themselves to be the children
of light, deemed these "dark Iberians" children of
1
Pronounced Ecca or Eohee.
"Gomrne: Ethnology in Folklore, chap. Ill "The Mythic Influence of a Con
quered Race
"
;o Mythology of the British Islands
the dark. Their have been, tribal names seem to
in several instances, founded upon this idea. There
were the Corca-Oidce People of Darkness") and ("
the Corca-Duibhne People of the Night"). The ("
territory of the western tribe of the Hi Dorchaide

Sons of Dark
("
was called the Night Country
")
"
V
The Celts, who held their own gods to have preceded
them into Ireland, would not believe that even the
Tuatha Danann could have wrested the land
De"
from these magic-skilled Iberians without battle.

They seem also to have been considered as in
some way connected with the Fomors. Just as
the largest Iberian tribe was called the "Men of
Domnu so the Fomors were called the Gods of
",
"
Domnu and Indech, one of their kings, is a "son

",
of Domnu Thus eternal battle between the gods,

".
children of Danu, and the giants, children of Domnu,

would reflect, in the supernatural world, the per
petual warfare between invading Celt and resisting
Iberian. It is shadowed, too, in the later heroic
cycle. The champions

of Ulster, Aryans and Gaels
par excellence, have no such bitter enemies as the

Fir Domnann of Munster and the Fir Gaillion of
Leinster. A few scholars would even see in the
later death-struggle between the High King of
Ireland and his rebellious Fenians the last historic
or mythological adumbration of racial war. 2
The enemies alike of Fir Bolg and Fomor, the
1
Elton
Origins of English History, note to p. 136.
:
2
has been contended that the Fenians were originally the gods or heroes of an
It
aboriginal people in Ireland, the myths about them representing the pre-Celtic and
pre- Aryan ideal, as the sagas of the Red Branch of Ulster embodied that of the
Celtic Aryans. The question, however, is as yet far from being satisfactorily
The Gods Arrive 71
Tuatha De Danann, gods of the Gaels, were the

next to arrive. What is probably the earliest
account tells us that they came from the sky. Later
versions, however, give them a habitation upon
earth some say in the north, others in the "southern
isles of the world They had dwelt in four mythi
".
Murias, and Falias,

cal cities called Findias, Gorias,
where they had learned poetry and magic to the
primitive mind two not very dissimilar things and
whence they had brought to Ireland their four chief
treasures. From Findias came Nuada s sword,
from whose stroke no one ever escaped or re
covered; from Gorias, Lugh s terrible lance; from
Murias, the Dagda s cauldron; and from Falias, the
Stone of Fal, better known as the Stone of Des "
tiny ",
which afterwards fell into the hands of the
early kings of Ireland. According to legend, it had
the magic property of uttering a human cry when
touched by the rightful King of Erin. Some have
recognized in this marvellous stone the same rude
block which Edward I brought from Scone in the
year 1
300, and placed
Westminster Abbey, where in
it now forms part of the Coronation Chair. It is a
curious fact that, while Scottish legend asserts this
stone to have come to Scotland from Ireland, Irish
legend should also declare that was taken from it
Ireland to Scotland. This would sound like con

clusive evidence, but it is none the less held by
leading modern archaeologists including Dr. W. F.

Skene, who has published a monograph on the sub
1
ject that the Stone of Scone and the Stone of
1
The Coronation Stone, by William Forbes Skene.
Tara were never the same. Dr. Petrie identifies
the real Lia Fdil with a stone which has always
remained in Ireland, and which was removed from
its
original position on Tara Hill, in 1798, to mark
the tomb of the rebels buried close by under a
mound now known as the Croppies grave "
".*
Whether the Tuatha De Danann came from

earth or heaven, they landed in a dense cloud upon
the coast of Ireland on the mystic first of May
without having been opposed, or even noticed by
the people whom it will be convenient to follow the
2
manuscript authorities in calling the
"
Fir Bolgs ".
That those might still be ignorant of their coming,

the Morrigu, helped by Badb and Macha, made use
of the magic they had learned in Findias, Gorias,
Murias, and Falias. They spread druidically-
"
formed showers and fog-sustaining shower-clouds

"
over the country, and caused the air to pour down

fire and blood upon the Fir Bolgs, so that
they were
obliged to shelter themselves for three days and
three nights. But the Fir Bolgs had druids of their
own, and, in the end, they put a stop to these en
chantments by counter-spells, and the air grew clear
again.
The Tuatha De"
Danann, advancing westward,
had reached a place called the
"
Plain of the Sea",
in Leinster, when the two armies met. Each sent

out a warrior to parley. The two adversaries ap-
1
See History and Antiquities of Tara Hill.
2
Our authorities for the details of this war between the Tuatha De Danann and
the Fir Bolgs are the opening verses of the Harleian MS. 5280, as translated by
Stokes and De Jubainville, and Eugene O Curry s translations, in his MS. Materials
of Ancient Irish History and his Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, from
a manuscript preserved at Trinity College, Dublin.
The Gods Arrive 73
preached each other cautiously, their eyes peeping

over the tops of their shields. Then, coming
gradually nearer, they spoke to one another, and the
desire to examine each other s weapons made them
almost friends.
The envoy of the Fir Bolgs looked with wonder
at the
"
beautifully-shaped, thin, slender, long, sharp-

of the warrior of the Tuatha De
"
pointed spears
Danann, while the ambassador of the tribe of the
goddess Danu was not less impressed by the lances
of the Fir Bolgs, which were
"
heavy, thick, point

less, but sharply-rounded They agreed to ex ".
change weapons, so that each side might, by an

examination of them, be able to come to some
opinion as to its opponent s strength. Before part
ing, the envoy of the Tuatha Danann offered D
the Fir Bolgs, through their representative, peace,
with a division of the country into two equal halves.
The Fir Bolg envoy advised his people to accept
this offer. But their king, Eochaid, son of Ere,
would not. we once give these people half,"
"If
he said, "they will soon have the whole."

The people of the goddess Danu were, on the
other hand, very much impressed by the sight of
the Fir Bolgs weapons. They decided to secure a
more advantageous position, and, retreating farther
west into Connaught, to a plain then called Nia, but
now Moytura, near the present village of Cong,
they drew up their line at its extreme end, in front
1
of the pass of Balgatan which offered a retreat in
,
case of defeat.
1
Now called Benlevi.
The
Fir Bolgs followed them, and encamped on
the nearer side of the plain. Then Nuada, King of
the Tuatha Danann, sent an ambassador offer
De"
ing the same terms as before. Again the Fir Bolgs

declined them.
"Then when", asked the envoy, "do
you intend
to give battle?"
"We must have a truce," they said, we "for
want time to repair our armour, burnish our helmets,

and sharpen our swords. Besides, we must have
spears like yours made for us, and you must have
spears like ours made for you."

The result of this chivalrous, but, to modern
ideas, amazing, parley was that a truce of one hun
dred and five days was agreed upon.
It was on Midsummer Day that the opposing
armies at last met. The people of the goddess
Danu appeared in
"
a flaming line ",

wielding their
red-bordered, speckled, and firm shields
"
Oppo ".
site to them were ranged the Fir Bolgs, sparkling, "
brilliant, and flaming, with their swords, spears,
blades, and trowel-spearsproceedings began ". The

with a kind of deadly hurley-match, in which thrice
nine of the Tuatha De Danann played the same
number of the Fir Bolgs, and were defeated and
killed. Then followed another parley, to decide
how the battle should be carried on, whether there
should be fighting every day or only on every
second day. Moreover, Nuada obtained from
Eochaid an assurance that the battles should always
be fought with equal numbers, although this was,
we are told, very disagreeable to the Fir Bolg
"
The Gods Arrive 75
king, because he had largely the advantage in the

numbers of his army Then warfare recommenced
".
with a series of single combats, like those of the

Greeks and Trojans in the Iliad". At the end of
"
each day the conquerors on both sides went back to

their camps, and were refreshed by being bathed in
healing baths of medicinal herbs.

So the fight went on for four days, with terrible
slaughter upon each side. Fir Bolg champion A
called Sreng fought in single combat with Nuada,
the King of the Gods, and shore off his hand and
half his shield with one terrific blow. Eochaid,
the King of the Fir Bolgs, was even less fortunate
than Nuada; for he lost his life. Suffering terribly
from thirst, he went, with a hundred of his men,
to look for water, and was followed, and pursued
as far as the strand of Ballysadare, in Sligo.
Here he turned to bay, but was killed, his grave
being still marked by a tumulus. The Fir Bolgs,
reduced at last to three hundred men, demanded
single combat until all upon one side were slain.
But, sooner than consent to this, the Tuatha D6

Danann offered them a fifth part of Ireland, which
ever province they might choose. They agreed,
and chose Connaught, ever afterwards their especial
home, and where, until the middle of the seven
teenth century, men were still found tracing their
descent from Sreng.
The whole story has a singularly historical, curi
ously unmythological air about it, which contrasts
strangely with the account of the other battle of the
same name which the Tuatha D6 Danann waged
afterwards with the Fomors. The neighbourhood
of Cong preserves both relics and traditions of
still
the fight. Upon the plain of Southern Moytura"

"
(as it is called, to distinguish it from the "
Northern
Moytura" of the second battle) are many circles
and tumuli. These circles are especially numerous
near the village and it is said that there were
itself;
formerly others, which have been used for making

walls and dykes. Large cairns of stones, too, are
scattered over what was certainly once the scene of
a great battle.
1
These various prehistoric monu
ments each have their still - told story and Sir ;
William Wilde, as he relates in his Lough Corrib^

was so impressed by the unexpected agreement
between the details of the legendary battle, as he
read them in the ancient manuscript, and the tra
ditions still attaching to the mounds, circles, and
cairns, that he tells us he could not help coming to

the conclusion that the account was absolutely his
torical. Certainly the coincidences are curious.
His opinion was that the "Fir Bolgs" were a colony
of Belgae, and that the Tuatha De Danann were
"
"
Danes. But the people of the goddess Danu are

too obviously mythical to make it worth while to
seek any standing-ground for them in the world of
reality. In their superhuman attributes, they are
quite different from the Fir Bolgs. In the epical
cycle it is made as clear that the Tuatha De Dan
ann are divine beings as it is that the Fir Bolg, the
Fir Domnann, and the Fir Gaillion stand on exactly
1
See Dr. James Fergusson: Rude Stone Monuments, pp. 177-180.
*
Lough Corrib, Its Shores and Islands, by Sir William R. Wilde, chap. VIII
The Gods Arrive 77
the same footing as the men of Ulster. Later

history records by what Milesian kings and on what
terms of rack-rent the three tribes were allowed
settlements in other parts of Ireland than their
native Connaught. They appear in ancient, medi
aeval,and almost modern chronicles as the old race
of the land. The truth seems to be that the whole
story of the war between the gods and the Fir
Bolgs is an invention of comparatively late times.
In the earliest documents there is only one battle of
Moytura, fought between the people of the goddess

Danu and the Fomors. The idea of doubling it
seems to date from after the eleventh century; 1 and
its inventor may very well have used the legends
concerning this battle field, where two unknown

-
armies had fought in days gone by, in compiling

his story. It never belonged to the same genuine
mythological stratum as the legend of the original

battle fought by the Tuatha D6 Danann, the gods
of the Gaels, against the Fomors, the gods of the
Iberians.
1
De Jubainville :
Cycle Mythologique Irlandais, p. 156.
CHAPTER VII
THE RISE OF THE SUN-GOD 1
It was as a result of the loss of his hand in this

battle with the Fir Bolgs that Nuada got his name
of Argetldm, that is, the Silver Handed". For "
Diancecht, the physician of the Tuatha De Danann,

made him an artificial hand of silver, so skilfully
that it moved in all its joints, and was as strong and
supple as a real one. But, good as it was of its

sort, it was a blemish; and, according to Celtic cus
tom, no maimed person could sit upon the throne.

Nuada was deposed; and the Tuatha D6 Danann
went into council to appoint a new king.
They agreed that it would be a politic thing for

them to conciliate the Fomors, the giants of the
sea, and make an alliance with them. So they sent
a message to Bress, the son of the Fomorian king,
Elathan, asking him to come and rule over them.
Bress accepted this offer; and they made a marriage
between him and Brigit, the daughter of the Dagda.
2
At the same time, Cian ,
the son of Diancecht, the
physician of the Tuatha De Danann, married
1
The principal sources of information for this chapter are the Harleian MS. 5280
entitled The Second Battle of Moytura, of which translations have been made
by Dr. Whitley Stokes in the Revue Celtique and M. de Jubainville in his L J-Lpopte
Celtique en Irlande, and Eugene O Curry s translation in Vol. IV. of Atlantis of
the Fate of the Children of Tuirenn. 2
Pronounced Kian.
78
The Rise of the Sun-God 79
Ethniu, the daughter of the Fomor, Balor. Then

Bress was made king, and endowed with lands and
a palace; and he, on his part, gave hostages that he
would abdicate if his rule ever became unpleasing to
those who had elected him.
But, in spite of all his fair promises, Bress, who
belonged in heart to his own fierce people, began to
oppress his subjects with excessive taxes. He put
a tax upon every hearth, upon every kneading-
trough, and upon every quern, as well as a poll-tax
of an ounce of gold upon every member of the
Tuatha D6 Danann. By a crafty trick, too, he
obtained the milk of all their cattle. He asked at
first produce of any cows which hap
only for the
pened to be brown and hairless, and the people of
the goddess Danu granted him this cheerfully.
But Bress passed all the cattle in Ireland between
two fires, so that their hair was singed off, and thus
obtained the monopoly of the main source of food.
To earn a livelihood, all the gods, even the greatest,
were now forced to labour for him. Ogma, their
champion, was sent out to collect firewood, while
the Dagda was put to work building forts and
castles.
One day, when the Dagda was at his task, his

son, Angus, came to him. You have nearly "
finished that he said. "What reward do

castle,"
you intend to ask from Bress when it is done?"

The Dagda replied that he had not yet thought of
it. Let me give you some advice," said Angus.
"
"
Ask Bress have

the cattle in Ireland gathered
to all
together upon a plain, so that you can pick out one

8o Mythology of the British Islands
for yourself. He will consent to that. Then choose
the black-maned heifer called Ocean ."
The Dagda finished building the fort, and then

went to Bress for his reward. What will you "
have?" asked Bress. "
I want all the cattle in Ire

land gathered together upon a plain, so that I may
choose one of them for myself." Bress did this;
and the Dagda took the black-maned heifer Angus
had told him of. The king, who had expected to
be asked very much more, laughed at what he
thought was the Dagda s simplicity. But Angus
had been wise; as will be seen hereafter.
Meanwhile Bress was infuriating the people of
the goddess Danu by adding avarice to tyranny.
It was for kings to be liberal to all-comers, but at
the court of Bress no one ever greased his knife
with fat, or made his breath smell of ale. Nor were
there ever any poets or musicians or jugglers or
jesters there to give pleasure to the people; for

Bress would distribute no largess. Next, he cut
down the very subsistence of the gods. So scanty
was his allowance of food that they began to grow
weak with famine. Ogma, through feebleness, could
only carry one-third of the wood needed for fuel; so
that they suffered from cold as well as from hunger.
It was at this crisis that two physicians, Miach,
the son, and Airmid, the daughter, of Diancecht,
the god of medicine, came to the castle where the
dispossessed King Nuada lived. Nuada s porter,

blemished, like himself (for he had lost an eye), was
sitting at the gate, and on his lap was a cat curled
up asleep. The porter asked the strangers who

they were.
"
We are good they said. "If

doctors,"
that is so,"
he replied, "perhaps you can give me a
new eye." "Certainly," they said,
"we could take
one of the eyes of that cat, and put it in the place

where your lost eye used to I should be
very
be."
"
pleased if you would do that," answered the porter,

So Miach and Airmid removed one of the cat s
eyes, and put it in the hollow where the man s eye
had been.
The story goes on to say that this was not wholly
a benefit to him; for the eye retained its cat s
nature, and, when the man wished to sleep at nights,

the cat s eye was always looking out for mice, while
it could hardly be kept awake during the day.
Nevertheless, he was pleased at the time, and went
and Nuada, who commanded that the doctors
told
who had performed this marvellous cure should be
brought to him.
As they came in, they heard the king groaning,
for Nuada s wrist had festered where the silver hand
joined the arm of flesh. Miach asked where Nuada s
own hand was, and they told him that it had been
buried long ago. But he dug it up, and placed it
to Nuada s stump; he uttered an incantation over
it, saying: "Sinew to sinew, and nerve to nerve be
joined!"
and in three days and nights the hand had
renewed itself and fixed itself to the arm, so that
Nuada was whole again.
When Diancecht, Miach s father, heard of this
he was very angry to think that his son should have
excelled him in the art of medicine. He sent for him,
and struck him upon the head with a sword, cutting
( B 219 ) V
the skin, but not wounding the flesh. Miach easily
healed this. So Diancecht hit him
again, this time
to the bone. Again Miach cured himself. The
third time his father smote him, the sword went
right through the skull to the membrane of the

brain, but even this wound Miach was able to leech.
At the fourth stroke, however, Diancecht cut the
brain in two, and Miach could do nothing for that.
He died, and Diancecht buried him. And upon his
grave there grew up three hundred and sixty-five
stalks of grass, each one a cure for any illness of
each of the three hundred and sixty-five nerves in
a man s body. Airmid, Miach s sister, plucked all
these very carefully, and arranged them on her
mantle according to their properties. But her angry
and jealous father overturned the cloak, and hope
lessly confused them. If it had not been for that
act, says the early writer, men would know how to

cure every illness, and would so be immortal.
The
healing of Nuada s blemish happened just
at the time when the people of the goddess
all
Danu had at last agreed that the exactions and
tyranny of Bress could no longer be borne. It was
the insult he put upon Cairpr6, son of Ogma the
god of literature, that caused things to come to

this head. Poets were always held by the Celts in
great honour; and when Cairpr6, the bard of the
Tuatha De Danann, went to visit Bress, he ex
pected to be treated with much consideration, and
fed at the king s own table. But, instead of doing
so, Bress lodged him in a small, dark room where
there was no fire, no bed, and no furniture except
The Rise of the Sun-God 8^
a mean table on which small cakes of dry bread
were put on a little dish for his food. The next
morning, Cairpre rose early and left the palace
without having spoken to Bress. It was the custom
of poets when they
a king s court to utter a
left
panegyric on their host, but Cairprd treated Bress

instead to a magical satire. It was the first satire
ever made in Ireland, and seems to us to bear

upon
it all the marks of an early effort. Roughly rendered,
it said:
"
No meat on the plates,

No milk of the cows;
No shelter for the belated;
No money for the minstrels:
May Bress s cheer be what he gives to others!"
This of Cairpre^s was, we are assured, so

satire
virulent that it caused great red blotches to break
out all This in itself constituted
over Bress s face.
a blemish such as should not be upon a king, and

the Tuatha Danann called upon Bress to abdi
De"
cate and let Nuada take the throne again.

Bress was obliged to do so. He went back to
the country of the Fomors, underneath the sea,
and complained to his father Elathan, its king,
asking him to gather an army to reconquer his
throne. The Fomors assembled in council Ela
than, Tethra, Balor, Indech, and all the other
warriors and chiefs and they decided to come with
a great host, and take Ireland away, and put it
under the sea where the people of the goddess
Danu would never be able to find it again.
At the same time, another assembly was also
being held at Tara, the capital of the Tuatha

Danann. Nuada was celebrating his return to the
throne by a feast to his people. While it was at its
height, a stranger clothed like a king came to the
palace gate. The porter asked him his name and
errand.
"
I am called Lugh,"
he said.
"
I am the grand
son of Diancecht by Cian, my father, and the grand
son of Balor by Ethniu, my mother."
But what is your profession?" asked the porter;
"
"for no one is admitted here unless he is a master

of some craft."
"
I am a carpenter,"
said Lugh.
We have no need of a carpenter. We already
"
have a very good one; his name is Luchtaine".

I am an excellent smith," said Lugh.
"
We do not want a smith. We have a very

"
good one; his name is Goibniu."

"
I am a professional warrior," said Lugh.

"
We have no need of one. Ogma is our cham

pion."
"I am a said Lugh.

harpist,"
"
We have an excellent harpist already."

"
I am a warrior renowned for skilfulness rather

than for mere strength."
"
We already have a man like that."

"
I am a poet and tale-teller," said Lugh.

We
have no need of such.
"
We have a most
accomplished poet and tale-teller."
"
I am a said Lugh.
sorcerer,"
do
"We not want one. We have numberless
sorcerers and druids."
The Rise of the S^tn-God 85
I am a
"
physician," said Lugh.

"
Diancecht is our physician."

I am a
"
cup-bearer," said Lugh.

"
We already have nine of them."

"
I ama worker in bronze."

"
We have no need of you. We already have a

worker in bronze. His name is Credne"."
"
Then ask the king,"

said Lugh, "if he has with
him a man who is master of all these crafts at once,
for, if he has, there is no need for me to come to
Tara."
So the door-keeper went inside, and told the

king that a man had come who called himself Lugh
the loldanach^, or the Master of all Arts and "
",
that he claimed to know everything.

The king sent out his best chess-player to play
against the stranger. Lugh won, inventing a new
move called Lugh s enclosure
"
".
Then Nuada invited him in. Lugh entered, and

sat down upon the chair called the "
sage s seat",
kept for the wisest man.

Ogma, the champion, was showing off his strength.
Upon the floor was a flagstone so large that four
score yokes of oxen would have been needed to
move it.
Ogma pushed it before him along the
hall, and out at the door. Then Lugh rose from
his chair, and pushed it back again. But this stone,
as it was, was a broken from a
huge only portion
still
greater rock outside the palace. Lugh picked
it
up,and put it back into its place.
The Tuatha De* Danann asked him to play the
1
Pronounced Ildana,
harp to them. So he played the "sleep-tune",

and
the king and all his court fell asleep, and did not
wake until the same hour of the following day.
Next he played a plaintive and they all wept. air,
Lastly, he played a measure which sent them into

transports of joy.
When Nuadahad seen all these numerous talents
of Lugh, he began to wonder whether one so gifted
would not be of great help against the Fomors.
He took counsel with the others, and, by their
advice, lent his throne to Lugh for thirteen days,
taking the "sage

s seat" at his side.
Lugh summoned all the Tuatha De Danann to a

council.
"
The Fomors are certainly going to make war

on us," he said. "What can each of you do to
help?"
Diancecht the Physician said: will completely "I
cure everyone who is wounded, provided his head

is not cut or his brain or spinal marrow hurt."
off,
said Goibniu the Smith, "will replace every

"
I,"
broken lance and sword with a new one, even though

the war last seven years. And I will make the lances
so well that they shall never miss their mark, or fail
to kill. Dulb, the smith of the Fomors, cannot do
as much as that. The fate of the fighting will be
decided by my lances."
"And I,"
said Credn6 the Bronze-worker, "will
furnish the rivets for the lances, the hilts for the
all
swords, and the rims and bosses for the shields."

"And said Luchtaine" the Carpenter, "will
I,"
provide all the shields and lance-shafts."

Ogma the Champion promised to kill the King

of the Fomors, with thrice nine of his followers, and
to capture one-third of his army.
"
And you, O Dagda,"

said Lugh, "what will you
do?"
"I will Dagda, "both with force

fight,"
said the
and craft. Wherever the two armies meet, I will
crush the bones of the Fomors with my club, till
they are like hailstones under a horse s feet."
"And
you, O Morrigu?"
said Lugh.
pursue them when they she replied.

"
I will flee,"
"And
always catch what I chase."
I
"And
you, O Cairpre, son of Etan?" said Lugh
to the poet, "what can you do?"
pronounce an immediately-effective curse

"
I will
upon them; by one of my satires I will take away

all enchanted by me, they
their honour, and, shall
not be able to stand against our warriors."

"And
ye, O sorcerers, what will ye do?"
"We will hurl by our magic Math-

arts," replied
gan, the head sorcerer, the twelve mountains of
"
Ireland at the Fomors. These mountains will be

Slieve League, Denna Ulad, the Mourne Moun
tains, Bri Ruri, Slieve Bloom, Slieve Snechta,
Slemish, Blai-Sliab, Nephin, Sliab Maccu Belgodon,
Segais
1
,
and Cruachan Aigle 2 ".
Then Lugh asked the cup-bearers what they

would do.
will hide away by magic," they said, "the
"We
twelve chief lakes and the twelve chief rivers of

Ireland from the Fomors, so that they shall not be
a
1
The Curlieu Hills, between Roscommon and Sligo. Croagh Patrick.
able to find any water, however thirsty they may
be; those waters will conceal themselves from the
Fomors so that they shall not get a drop, while they
will give drink to the people of the goddess Danu
as long as the war lasts, even if it last seven years."

And Lugh that the twelve chief lakes were
they told
1
Lough Derg, Lough Luimnigh Lough Corrib, ,
Lough Ree, Lough Mask, Strangford Lough,

Lough Laeig, Lough Neagh, Lough Foyle, Lough
Gara, Lough Reagh, and Mdrloch, and that the
twelve chief rivers were the Bush, the Boyne, the
Bann, the Nem, the Lee, the Shannon, the Moy,
the Sligo, the Erne, the Finn, the Liffey, and the
Suir.
Finally, the Druid, Figol, son of Mamos, said:

"
I will send three streams of fire into the faces of

the Fomors, and I will take away two-thirds of their
valour and strength, but every breath drawn by the
people of the goddess Danu will only make them
more valorous and strong, so that even if the fight
ing lasts seven years, they will not be weary of it.
All decided to make ready for a war, and to give
the direction of it to Lugh.
1
The estiiary of the Shannon.
CHAPTER VIII
THE GAELIC ARGONAUTS
The preparations for this war are said to have

lasted seven years. It was during the interval that
there befel an episode which might almost be called

1
the of the Gaelic mythology.
"
Argonautica"
In spite of the dethronement of Bress, the Fomors
still claimed their annual tribute from the tribe of the
goddess Danu, and sent their tax-gatherers, nine

times nine in number, to Balor s Hill" to collect it.
"
But, while they waited for the gods to come to

tender their submission and their subsidy, they saw
a young man approaching them. He was riding
upon "Splendid Mane", the horse of Manannan
son of Ler, and was dressed in Manannan s breast
plate and helmet, through which no weapon could
wound their wearer, and he was armed with sword
and shield and poisoned darts. Like to the setting "
sun", says the story, was the splendour of his coun

"
tenance and his forehead, and they were not able to

look in his face for the greatness of his splendour."
And no wonder! for he was Lugh the Far-shooter,
the new-come sun-god of the Gaels. He fell upon
1
This story of the Fate of the Children of Tuirenn is mentioned in the ninth-
century Cormac s Glossary". It is found in various Irish and Scottish MSS.,
"
including the Book of Lecan. The present re-telling is from Eugene O Curry s
translation, published in Atlantis, Vol. IV.
89
QO Mythology of the British Islands
the Fomorian tax-gatherers, killing all but nine of
them, and these he only spared that they might go
back to their kinsmen and tell how the gods had
received them.
There was consternation in the under-sea country.
"
Who can this terrible warrior be?" asked Balor.

"
I know," said Balor s wife;

"
he must be the son of

our daugher Ethniu; and I foretell that, since he
has cast in his lot with his father s people, we
shall never bear rule in Erin again."
The chiefs of the Fomors saw

that this slaughter
of their tax-gatherers signified that the Tuatha D6
Danann meant fighting. They held a council to
debate on it. There came to it Elathan and Tethra
and Indech, kings of the Fomors; Bress himself,
and Balor of the stout blows; Cethlenn the crooked
tooth, Balor s wife; Balor s twelve white-mouthed
sons; and all the chief Fomorian warriors and
druids.
Meanwhile, upon earth, Lugh was sending mes

sengers all over Erin to assemble the Tuatha D
Danann. Upon this errand went Lugh s father
Cian, who seems to have been a kind of lesser solar
1
deity, son of Diancecht, the god of medicine. As
2
Cian was going over the plain of Muirthemne, he
saw three armed warriors approaching him, and,
when they got nearer, he recognized them as the
three sons of Tuirenn, son of Ogma, whose names
were Brian, luchar, and lucharba. Between these
three and Cian, with his brothers Ceth6 and Cu,
1
Hibbert Lectures, pp. 390-396.
Rhys :
2 A County Louth, between the Boyne and Dundalk, The heroic cycle
part of
connects it especially with Cuchulainn. Pronounced Murthemna or Miirhevna.
The Gaelic Argonauts 91
there was, for some reason, a private enmity. Cian

saw was now at a disadvantage.
that he my "If
brothers were with me," he said to himself, "what a

fight we would make; but, as I am alone, it will be
best for me to conceal myself." Looking round, he
saw a herd of pigs feeding on the plain. Like all
the gods, he had the faculty of shape-shifting so, ;
striking himself with a magic wand, he changed him

self into a pig, joined the herd, and began feeding
with them.
But he had been seen by the sons of Tuirenn.
What has become of the warrior who was walking
"
on the plain a moment ago?" said Brian to his

brothers. "We saw him then,"
they replied, "but
we do not know where he is now." Then you "
have not used the proper vigilance which is needed

in time of war," said the elder brother. How
"
ever, I know what has become of him. He has

struck himself with a druidical wand, and changed
himself into a pig, and there he is, in that herd,
rooting up the ground, just like all the other pigs.
I can also tell
you who he is. His name is Cian,
and you know that he is no friend of ours."
is a pity that he has taken
"It
refuge among the
pigs," they replied, they belong to some one of
"for
the Tuatha De* Danann, and, even if we were to kill

them all, Cian might still escape us."
Again Brian reproached his brothers.

"
You are
very ignorant," said, he
you cannot distinguish "if
a magical beast from a natural beast. However, I

will show you."
And thereupon he struck his two
brothers with his own wand of shape-changing, and
turned them into two swift, slender hounds, and set
them upon the pigs.
The magic hounds soon found the magic pig, and
drove it out of the herd on to the open plain. Then
Brian threw his spear, and hit it. The wounded pig
came to a stop. was an evil deed of yours, cast
"It
ing that spear," it cried, in a human voice, "for I

am not a pig, but Cian, son of Diancecht. So give
me quarter."
luchar and lucharba would have granted it, and

let him go; but their fiercer brother swore that Cian
should be put an end to, even if he came back to

life seven times. So Cian tried a fresh ruse. "Give
me leave", he asked, "only
to return to my own
shape before you slay me."
"Gladly," replied
Brian, "for I would much rather kill a man than
a pig."
So Cian spoke the befitting spell, cast off his
pig s disguise, and stood before them in his own

shape.
"
You will be obliged to spare my life
now," he said. "We will not," replied Brian.

"
Then it will be the worst day s work for all of
you that you ever did in your lives," he answered;

you had killed me in the shape of a
"
for, if pig, you

would only have had to pay the value of a pig, but
if kill me now, I tell you that there never has
you
been, and there never will be, anyone killed in this
world for whose death a greater blood- fine will be
exacted than for mine."
But the sons of Tuirenn would not listen to him.

They slew him, and pounded his body with stones
until it was a crushed mass. Six times they tried
to bury him, and the earth cast him back in horror;

but, the seventh time, the mould held him, and they
put stones upon him to keep him down. They left
him buried there, and went to Tara.

Meanwhile Lugh had been expecting his father s
return. As he
did not come, he determined to go
and look for him. He traced him to the Plain of
Muirthemne, and there he was at fault. But the
indignant earth itself, which had witnessed the
murder, spoke to Lugh, and told him everything.
So Lugh dug up his father s corpse, and made
certain how he had come to his death; then he
mourned over him, and laid him back in the earth,
and heaped a barrow over him, and set up a pillar
1
with his name on it in ogam".
He went back to Tara, and entered the great

hall. It was filled with the people of the goddess
Danu, and among them Lugh saw the three sons

of Tuirenn. So he shook the chiefs chain", with "
which the Gaels used to ask for a hearing in an

assembly, and when all were silent, he said:
People of the goddess Danu, I ask you a ques
"
tion. What would be the vengeance that any of

you would take upon one who had murdered his
father?"
A great astonishment fell upon them, and Nuada,

their king, said:
"
Surely it is not your father that

has been murdered?"
"It is," replied Lugh. "And I am looking at
1
There is known to have been a hill called Ard Chein (Cian s Mound) in the
of Muirthemne, and
district O Curry identifies it tentatively with one now called
Dromslian.
those who murdered him and ; they know how they
did it better than I do."
"
Then Nuada declared that nothing short of
hewing the murderer of his father limb from limb

would satisfy him, and all the others said the same,
including the sons of Tuirenn.
"
The very ones who did the deed say that,"
cried Lugh. "Then let them not leave the hall

till
they have settled with me about the blood-fine
to be paid for it."
"If it was I who had killed your father," said the

should think myself lucky you were
"
I if
king,
willing to accept a fine instead of vengeance."
Thesons of Tuirenn took counsel together in
whispers. luchar and lucharba were in favour of
admitting their guilt, but Brian was afraid that, if
they confessed, Lugh would withdraw his offer to

accept a fine, and would demand their deaths. So
he stood out, and said that, though it was not they
who had killed Cian, yet, sooner than remain under
Lugh s anger, as he suspected them, they would
pay the same fine as if they had.
Certainly you shall pay the said

"
Lugh, fine,"
"and
you what it shall be.
I will tell It is this:
three apples; and a pig s-skin; and a spear; and

two horses and a chariot; and seven pigs; and a
hound- whelp; and a cooking-spit; and three shouts
on a hill that is the fine, and, if you think it is too
:
much, I will remit some of it, but, if you do not

think it too much, then pay
is it."
"
If were a hundred times that," replied Brian,

it
"we should not think it too much. Indeed, it

seems so little that I fear there must be some
treachery concealed in it."
do not think it
"I too replied Lugh. little,"
Give me your pledge before the people of the

"
goddess Danu that you will pay it faithfully, and

I will give you mine that I will ask no more."
So the sons of Tuirenn bound themselves before

the Tuatha D6 Danann to pay the fine to Lugh.
When they had sworn, and given sureties, Lugh
turned to them again. will now he said, "
I ",
the nature of the you have

"
explain to you fine
pledged yourselves to pay me, so that you may

know whether it is too little or not." And, with
foreboding hearts, the sons of Tuirenn set them
selves to listen.
"
The three apples that I have demanded," he

began, three apples from the
"are Garden of the
Hesperides, in the east of the world. You will
know them by three signs. They are the size of

the head of a month-old child, they are of the
colour of burnished gold, and they taste of honey.
Wounds are healed and diseases cured by eating
them, and they do not diminish in any way by
being eaten. Whoever casts one of them hits
anything he wishes, and then it comes back into
his hand. I will
accept no other apples instead of
these. Their owners keep them perpetually guarded
because of a prophecy that three young warriors
from the west of the world will come to take them
by force, and, brave as you may be, I do not think
that you will ever get them.
"
The pig s-skin that I have demanded is the

g6 Mythology of the British Islands
pig s-skin of Tuis, King of Greece. It has two

virtues: its touch perfectly cures all wounded or
sick persons if only there is any life still left in
them; and every stream of water through which it

passes is turned into wine for nine days. I do not
think that you will get it from the King of Greece,

either with his consent or without it.
And
can you guess what spear it is that I have
"
demanded?" asked Lugh.

"
cannot," they said. We

the poisoned spear of Pisear 1 King of Persia;
"
It is ,
it is irresistible in battle; it is so fiery that its blade
must always be held under water, lest it destroy the

city in which it is kept. You will find it very difficult
to obtain.
"
And the two horses and the chariot are the two
wonderful horses of Dobhar 2 King of Sicily, which ,
run equally well over land and sea; there are no

other horses in the world like them, and no other
vehicle equal to the chariot.
"And the seven pigs are the pigs of Easal 8 ,
King of the Golden Pillars; though they may be

killed every night, they are found alive again the
next day, and every person that eats part of them
can never be afflicted with any disease.
"And the hound- whelp I claim is the hound-
4
whelp of the King of loruaidhe ;
her name is
Failinis; every wild beast she sees she catches at

once. It will not be easy for you to secure her.
cooking-spit which you must get for me is

The
"
one of the cooking-spits of the women of the Island

2
1 Pronounced Pezar. Pronounced Dobar.
3 4 Pronounced Iroda.
Pronounced Asal.
1
of Fianchuive* which is at the bottom of the sea,
,
between Erin and Alba.

You have also pledged yourselves to give three
"
shouts upon a hill. The hill upon which they must

be given is the hill called Cnoc Miodhchaoin 2 in ,
the north of Lochlann 3 Miodhchaoin and his sons .
do not allow shouts to be given on that hill besides ;
this, it was they who gave my father his military
education, and, even if I were to forgive you, they

would not so that, though you achieve all the other
;
adventures, think that you will fail in this one.

I
"
Now you know what sort of a fine it is that you

have bargained to pay me," said Lugh.
And fear and astonishment fell upon the sons of
Tuirenn.
This tale is evidently the work of some ancient
Irish story-teller who wished to compile from various
sources a more or less complete account of how the
Gaelic gods obtained their legendary possessions.
The spear of Pisear, King of Persia, is obviously
the same weapon as the lance of Lugh, which
another tradition describes as having been brought
by the Tuatha De* Danann from their original home
in the city of Gorias;* Failinis, the whelp of the
King of loruaidhe, is
Lugh s
"
hound of mightiest
deeds", which was irresistible in battle, and which
turned any running water it bathed in into wine, 6
a property here transferred to the magic pig s-skin
of King Tuis: the seven swine of the King of the
1
Pronounced Fincdra. 2
The Hill (cnoc) of Midkena.
3 A mythical country inhabited by Fomors.
4
See chap. VI The Gods Arrive
"
6
".Ibid.
(B219) G
Golden Pillars must be the same undying porkers
from whose flesh Manannan mac Lir made the
"
Feast of Age which preserved the eternal youth

"
of the gods; 1 it was with horses and chariot that

ran along the surface of the sea that Manannan
used to journey to and fro between Erin and the
2
Celtic Elysium in the the apples that grew
West;
in the Garden of the Hesperides were surely of the
same celestial growth as those that fed the inhabit
ants of that immortal country; 3 while the cooking-
spit reminds us of three such implements at Tara,

made by Goibniu and associated with the names of
the Dagda and the Morrigu. 4
The burden of collecting all these treasures was
placed upon the shoulders of the three sons of
Tuirenn.
They consulted together, and agreed that they
could never hope to succeed unless they had Ma-
nannan magic horse, s Splendid Mane",
"
and Ma-
nannan s
magic coracle, Wave -sweeper But "
".
both these had been lent by Manannan to Lugh

himself. So the sons of Tuirenn were obliged to
humble themselves to beg them from Lugh. The
sun-god would not lend them the horse, for fear of
making their task too easy, but he let them have
the boat, because he knew how much the spear of
Pisear and the horses of Dobhar would be needed
in the coming war with the Fomors. They bade
farewell to their father, and went down to the shore
and put out to sea, taking their sister with them.
2
1
See chap, vi "The Gods Arrive ". See chap, xi "The Gods in Exile".
4
8 Ibid, Petrie: Hist, and Antiq. of Tara Hill.
portion of the fine shall we seek first?"

Which
"
said the others to Brian. will seek them in

"
We
the order in which they were demanded," he replied.
So they directed the magic boat to sail to the Garden
of the Hesperides, and presently they arrived there.
They landed at a harbour, and held a council of
war. It was decided that their best chance of ob
taining three of the apples would be by taking the

shapes of hawks. Thus they would have
strength
enough in their claws to
carry the apples away,
together with sufficient quickness upon the wing to
hope to escape the arrows, darts, and sling-stones
which would be shot and hurled at them by the
warders of the garden.
They swooped down upon the orchard from above.
It was done soswiftly that they carried off the three
apples, unhit either by shaft or stone. But their
difficulties were not yet over. The king of the
country had three daughters who were well skilled
in witchcraft. sorcery they changed themselves
By
into three ospreys, and pursued the three hawks.
But the sons of Tuirenn reached the shore first,
and, changing themselves into swans, dived into

the sea. They came up close to their coracle, and
got into it, and away with the spoil.
sailed swiftly
Thus their
quest was finished, and they
first
voyaged on to Greece, to seek the pig s-skin of King

Tuis. No one could go without some excuse into
a king s court, so they decided to disguise them
selves as poets, and to tell the door-keeper that
they were professional bards from Erin, seeking

largess at the hands of kings. The porter let them
ioo Mythology of the British Islands
into the great hall, where the poets of Greece were
singing before the king.
When those had all Brian rose, and finished,
asked permission to show his art. This was ac
corded; and he sang:
"
O Tuis, we conceal not thy fame.

We praise thee as the oak above the kings ;
The skin of a pig, bounty without hardness !
This is the reward which I ask for it.
"
A stormy host and raging sea

Are a dangerous power, should one oppose it.
The skin of a pig, bounty without hardness !
This is the reward I ask, O Tuis."
"That is a good poem,"

said the king, "only
I
do not understand it."
"
I will explain it,"

said Brian.
"
We praise thee
as the oak above the kings this \
means that, as the
oak excels all other trees, so do you excel all other
kings in nobility and generosity. The skin of a

pig, bounty without hardness that is a pig s-skin ;
which you have, O Tuis, and which I should like to

receive as the reward of my poem. A stormy host
and raging sea are a dangerous poiver, should one
oppose it ;
this means to say, that we are not used
to going without anything on which we have set our
hearts, O Tuis."
"
I should have liked your poem better," replied

the king, pig s-skin had not been mentioned
"if
my
in it. It was not a wise thing for you to have done,
O poet. But I will measure three fills of red gold
out of the skin, and you shall have those."
BRIAN SEIZES THE PIG-SKIN
From the Drawing by J. H. liacon, A R.A.
"May all
good be thine, O King!"
answered
Brian.
"
I knew that I should get a noble re

ward."
So the king sent for the pig s -skin to measure

out the gold with. But, as soon as Brian saw it,
he seized it with his left hand, and slew the man
who was holding it, and luchar and lucharba also
hacked about them ;
and they cut their way down to
the boat, leaving the King of Greece among the
dead behind them.
"And now we will go and get King Pisear s
spear,"
said Brian. So, leaving Greece, they sailed
in their coracle to Persia.
Their plan of disguising themselves as poets had

served them so well that they decided to make use
of it
again. So they went into the King of Persia s
hall in the same way as they had entered that of the
King of Greece. Brian first listened to the poets of

Persia singing; then he sang his own song:
"Small the esteem of any spear with Pisear;

The battles of foes are broken ;
No oppression to Pisear;
Everyone whom he wounds.
"
A yew-tree, the finest of the wood,

It is called King without opposition.
May that splendid shaft drive on
Yon crowd into their wounds of death."
"
That is a good poem, O man of Erin," said the
king, "but
why is my spear mentioned in it?"
"The
meaning is
replied Brian:
this," "I should
like to receive that spear as a reward for my poem."
IO2 Mythology of the British Islands
"
You make a rash request,"

said the king. "If
I
spare your life after having heard it, it will be a
sufficient reward for your poem."
Brian had one of the magic apples in his hand,

and he remembered its boomerang-like quality. He
hurled it full in the King of Persia s face, dashing
out his brains. The Persians flew to arms, but the
three sons of Tuirenn conquered them, and made
them yield up the spear.
They had now to travel to Sicily, to obtain the
horses and chariot of King Dobhar. But they were
afraid to go as poets this time, for fear the fame of
their deeds might have got abroad. They therefore
decided to pretend to be mercenary soldiers from
Erin, and offer the King of Sicily their service.
This, they thought, would be the easiest way of
finding out where the horses and the chariot were
kept. So they went and stood on the green before
the royal court.
When the King of Sicily heard that there had
come mercenaries from Erin, seeking wages from
the kings of the world, he invited them to take
service with him. They agreed; but, though they
stayed with him a fortnight and a month, they never
saw the horses, or even found out where they were
kept. So they went to the king, and announced
that they wished to leave him.
"Why?"
he asked, for he did not want them to
g-
"
We will tell you, O King!" replied Brian.

"
It
is because we have not been honoured with your

confidence, as we have been accustomed with other
kings. You have two horses and a chariot, the best

in the world, and we have not even been allowed to
see them."
would have shown them to you on the first

"
day you had asked me," said the king; "and you
if
shall see them at once, for I have seldom had war

riors with me so good as you are, and I do not wish
you to leave me."
So he them yoked to
sent for the steeds, and had
the chariot, and the sons of Tuirenn were witnesses
of their marvellous speed, and how they could run
equally well over land or water.

Brian made a sign to his brothers, and they
watched their
opportunity carefully, as the and,
chariot passed close beside them, Brian leaped into
it, hurling its driver over the side. Then, turning

the horses, he struck King Dobhar with Pisear s
spear, and killed him. He took his two brothers

up into the chariot and they drove away.
By the time the sons of Tuirenn reached the
country of Easal, King of the Pillars of Gold,

rumour had gone before them. The king came
down to the harbour to meet them, and asked them
if it were really true that so
many kings had fallen
at their hands. They replied that it was true, but
that they had no quarrel with any of them; only
they must obtain at all costs the fine demanded by

Lugh. Then Easal asked them why they had come
to his land, and they told him that they needed his
seven pigs to add to the tribute. So Easal thought
it better to
give them up, and to make friends with
the three sons of Tuirenn, than to fight with such
IO4 Mythology of the British Islands
warriors. The
sons of Tuirenn were very glad at
this, forthey were growing weary of battles.
It happened that the King of loruaidhe, who had
the hound-whelp that Lugh had demanded, was the

husband of King Easal s daughter. Therefore King
Easal did not wish that there should be fighting be
tween him and the three sons of Tuirenn. He pro
posed to Brian and his brothers that he should sail
with them to loruaidhe, and try to persuade the king
of the country to give up the hound-whelp peace
fully. consented, and all set foot safely on

They
the "delightful, wonderful shores of loruaidhe", 1 as
the manuscript calls them. But King Easal s
son-in-law would not listen to reason. He as

sembled his warriors, and fought; but the sons
of Tuirenn defeated them, and compelled their
king to yield up the hound-whelp as the ransom

for his life.
All these quests had been upon the earth, but the
next was harder. No coracle, not even Manannan s
Wave-sweeper could penetrate to the Island of
"
",
Fianchuivd, in the depths of the sea that severs

Erin from Alba. So Brian left his brothers, and
put on his water-dress, with his transparency of
"
"
glass upon his head evidently an ancient Irish

anticipation of the modern diver s dress. Thus
equipped, he explored the bottom of the sea for
fourteen days before he found the island. But
when he reached it, and entered the hall
at last
of queen, she and her sea-maidens were so
its
amazed at Brian s hardihood in having penetrated

1
The country seems to have been identified with Norway or Iceland.
to their kingdom that they presented him with the
cooking-spit, and sent him back safe.
By this time, Lugh had found out by his magic
arts that the sons of Tuirenn had obtained all the
treasures he had demanded as the blood-fine. He
desired to get them into his own
safely custody
before his victims went to
give their three shouts
upon Miodhchaoin s Hill. He therefore wove a
druidical spell round them, so that
they forgot the
rest of their task and sailed back to Erin.
altogether,
They searched Lugh, to give him the things, but
for
he had gone away, leaving word that
they were to
be handed over to Nuada, the Tuatha Danann De"
king. As soon
as they were in
safe-keeping, Lugh
came back to Tara and found the sons of Tuirenn
there. And he said to them :
"Do
you not know that it is unlawful to keep
back any part of a blood-fine? So have
you given
those three shouts upon Miodhchaoin s Hill?"
Then the magic mist of forgetfulness fell from
them, and they remembered. Sorrowfully they
went back to complete their task.
Miodhchaoin 1 himself was watching for them, and,
when he saw them land, he came down to the beach.
Brian attacked him, and
they fought with the swift
ness of two bears and the
ferocity of two lions until
Miodhchaoin fell.
Then Miodhchaoin s three sons Core, Conn, and
Aedh came out to avenge their father, and they
drove their spears through the bodies of the three
sons of Tuirenn. But the three sons of Tuirenn
1
Pronounced Midkena.
io6 Mythology of the British Islands
also drove their spears through the bodies of the
.
three sons of Miodhchaoin.

The three sons of Miodhchaoin were killed, and
the three sons of Tuirenn were so sorely wounded
that birds might have flown through their bodies
from one side to the other. Nevertheless Brian
was still able to stand upright, and he held his two
brothers, one in each hand, and kept them on their
feet, and, all together, they gave three faint, feeble
shouts.
Their coracle bore them, still living, to Erin.
They sent their father Tuirenn as a suppliant to
Lugh, begging him to lend them the magic pig s-
skin to heal their wounds.
But Lugh would not, for he had counted upon
their fight with the sons of Miodhchaoin to avenge
his father Cian s death. So the children of Tuirenn
resigned themselves to die, and their father made a
farewell song over them and over himself, and died
with them.
Thus ends that famous tale
"
The Fate of the

Sons of Tuirenn ",
known as one of the
"
Three
*
Sorrowful Stories of Erin ".
iThe other two are "The Fate of the Children of L6r", told in chap. XI, and
"The Fate of the Sons of Usnach", an episode of the Heroic Cycle, related in
chap, xiu.
CHAPTER IX
THE WAR WITH THE GIANTS 1
By time the seven years of preparation had

this
come to an end. A
week before the Day of Sam-
hain, the Mordgri discovered that the Fomors had
landed upon Erin. She at once sent a messenger
to tell the Dagda, who ordered his druids and
sorcerers to go to the ford of the River Unius, in
Sligo, and utter incantations against them.

The people of the goddess Danu, however, were
not yet quite ready for battle. So the Dagda
decided to visit the Fomorian camp as an ambas
sador, and, by parleying with them, to gain a little
more time. The Fomors received him with ap
parent courtesy, and, to celebrate his coming, pre

pared him a feast of porridge for it was well-known ;
how fond he was of such food. They poured into

their king s cauldron, which was as deep as five
giant s fists, fourscore gallons of new milk, with

meal and bacon in proportion. To this they added
the whole carcasses of goats, sheep, and pigs; they
boiled the mixture together, and poured it into a hole
in the ground. Now," said they, you do not
"
"if
1
This chapter is, with slight interpolations, based upon the Harleian MS. in
the British Museum numbered 5280, and called the Second Battle of Moytura, 01
rather from translations made of it by Dr. Whitley Stokes, published in the Revue
Celtique, Vol. XII, and by M. de Jubainville in his L Epopte Celtiq-uc en Irlande.
107
io8 Mythology of the British Islands
eat it all, we shall put you to death, for we will not
have you go back to your own people and say that
the Fomors are inhospitable." But they did not
succeed in frightening the Dagda. He took his
spoon, which was so large that two persons of our
puny size might have reclined comfortably in the
middle of it, dipped it into the porridge, and fished
up halves of salted pork and quarters of bacon.
If it tastes as good as it smells," he said,
" "
it is
good fare." And so it

proved; for he ate it all, and
scraped up even what remained at the bottom of the

hole. Then he went away to sleep it off, followed
by the laughter of the Fomors; for his stomach
was so swollen with food that he could hardly
walk. It was larger than the
biggest cauldron in
a large house, and stood out like a sail before the
wind.
But the Fomors little practical joke upon the
Dagda had given the Tuatha De Danann time to
collect their forces. It was on the eve of Samhain
that the two armies came face to face. Even then

the Fomors could not believe that the people of the
goddess Danu would offer them much resistance.

"
Do you think they will really dare to give us

battle?" said Bress to Indech, the son of Domnu.
"If
they do not pay their tribute, we will pound
their bones for them," he replied.
The war of gods and giants naturally mirrored
the warfare of the Gaels, in whose battles, as in those
of most semi-barbarous people, single combat figured
largely. The main armies stood still, while, every

day, duels took place between ambitious combatants
The War with the Giants 109
But no great warriors either of the Tuatha D6

Danann or of the Fomors took part in them.
Sometimes a god, sometimes a giant would be
the victor; but there was a difference in the net
results that astonished the Fomors. If their own
swords and lances were broken, they were of no
more use, and if their own champions were killed,
they never came back to life again; but it was quite
otherwise with the people of the goddess Danu.
Weapons shattered on one day re-appeared upon
the next in as good condition as though they had
never been used, and warriors slain on one day came
back upon the morrow unhurt, and ready, if neces
sary, to be killed again.
The Fomors decided to send someone to discover
the secret of these prodigies. The spy they chose
was Ruadan, the son of Bress and of Brigit, daughter
of the Dagda, and therefore half-giant and half-god.
He disguised himself as a Tuatha De Danann
warrior, and went to look for Goibniu. He found
him at his forge, together with Luchtaine the car
,
penter, and Credn, the bronze- worker. He saw

how Goibniu forged lance-heads with three blows of
his hammer, while Luchtain6 cut shafts for them
with three blows of his axe, and Credne fixed the
two parts together so adroitly that his bronze nails
needed no hammering in. He went back and told
the Fomors, who sent him again, this time to try
and kill Goibniu.
He reappeared at the forge, and asked for a
javelin. Without suspicion, Goibniu gave him one,
and, as soon as he got it into his hand, he thrust it
no Mythology of the British Islands
through the smith s body. But Goibniu plucked it
out, and, hurling it back at his assailant, mortally

wounded him. Ruadan went home to die, and his
father Bress and
mother Brigit mourned for him,
his
inventing for the purpose the Irish

"
keening".
Goibniu, on the other hand, took no harm. He

went to the physician Diancecht, who, with his
daughter Airmid, was always on duty at a miracu
lous well called the "
spring of health". Whenever

one of the Tuatha De Danann was killed or
wounded, he was brought to the two doctors, who
plunged him into the wonder-working water, and
brought him back to life and health again.
The mystic spring was not long, however, allowed
to help the people of the goddess. A young Fo-
morian chief, Octriallach son of Indech, found it out.
He and a number of his companions went to it by
night, each carrying a large stone from the bed of
the River Drowes. These they dropped into the
spring, until they had filled it, dispersed the healing
water, and formed a cairn above it.
Legend has
by the name of the Cairn of
"
identified this place

Octriallach ".
This success determined the Fomors to fight a

pitched battle. They drew out their army in line.
There was not a warrior in it who had not a coat of

mail and a helmet, a stout spear, a strong buckler,
and a heavy sword. Fighting the Fomors on that
"
day says the old author,

",
could only be compared "
to one of three things beating one s head against a

rock, or plunging it into a fire, or putting one s hand
into a serpent s nest."
The War with the Giants in
All the great fighters of the Tuatha De Danann
were drawn out opposite to them, except Lugh. A
council of the gods had decided that his varied
accomplishments made his life too valuable to be

risked inhad, therefore, left him
battle. They
behind, guarded by nine warriors. But, at the last
moment, Lugh escaped from his warders, and ap
peared in his chariot before the army. He made
them a Fight bravely," he said,
"
patriotic speech.
last no longer; it is better
4
that your servitude may
to face death than vassalage and pay
to live in
tribute." With these encouraging words, he drove

round the ranks, standing on tiptoe, so that all the
Tuatha De Danann might see him.
The Fomors saw him too, and marvelled. "It
1
seems wonderful to me," said Bress to his druids,
that the sun should rise in the west to-day and in
"
the east every other day." "It would be better for

us if it were so," replied the druids. "What else
can it be, then?" asked Bress. "It is the radiance
of the face of Lugh of the Long Arms," said they.

Then
the two armies charged each other with a
great shout. Spears and lances smote against shields,

and so great was the shouting of the fighters, the
shattering of shields, the clattering of swords, the
rattling of quivers, and the whistling of darts and
javelins that it seemed as if thunder rolled every
where.
They fought so closely that the heads, hands, and
picturesque passage from the account of a fight between

1 1 have interpolated this
the Tuatha De* Danann and the Fomors in the Fate of the Children of Tuirenn
"
".
O Curry s translation in Atlantis, Vol. IV.

feet of those on one side were touching the heads,
hands, and on the other side; they
feet of those
shed so much blood on to the ground that it became
hard to stand on it without slipping; and the river
of Unsenn was filled with dead bodies, so hard and
swift and bloody and cruel was the battle.
Many great chiefs fell on each side. Ogma, the

champion of the Tuatha De Danann, killed Indech,
the son of the goddess Domnu. But, meanwhile,
Balor of the Mighty Blows raged among the gods,
slaying their king, Nuada of the Silver Hand, as well

as Macha, one of his warlike wives. At last he
met with Lugh. The sun-god shouted
a challenge
to his grandfather in the Fomorian speech. Balor
heard it, and prepared to use his death-dealing
eye.
"
Lift up my eyelid,"
he said to his henchmen,
"
that I
may see this chatterer who talks to
me."
The attendants lifted Balor s eye with a hook,

and if the glance of the eye beneath had rested
upon Lugh, he would certainly have perished. But,

when it was half opened, Lugh flung a magic stone
which struck Balor eye out through the back of hiss
head. The eye

on the ground behind Balor, and
fell
destroyed a whole rank of thrice nine Fomors who

were unlucky enough to be within sight of it.
An ancient poem has handed down the secret of
this magic stone. It is there called a tathlum, mean
"
ing a
"
concrete ball such as the ancient Irish war

riors used sometimes to make out of the brains of
dead enemies hardened with lime.
The War with the Giants 1 1
3
*
A tathlum, heavy, fiery, firm,
Which the Tuatha De Danann had with them,
It was that broke the fierce Balor s eye,
Of old, in the battle of the great armies.
"
The blood of toads and furious bears,

And the blood of the noble lion,
The blood of vipers and of Osmuinn s trunks;
It was of these the tathlum was composed.
"
The sand of the swift Armorian sea,

And the sand of the teeming Red Sea;
All these, being first purified, were used
In the composition of the tathlum.
Briun, the son of Bethar, no mean warrior,

"
Who on the ocean s eastern border reigned;

It was he that fused, and smoothly formed,
It was he that fashioned the tathlum.
"
To the hero Lugh was given

This concrete ball, no soft missile;
In Mag Tuireadh of shrieking wails,
From his hand he threw the tathlum." l
This blinding of the terrible Balor turned the for

tunes of the fight; for the Fomors wavered, and the
Morn gu came and encouraged the people of the
goddess Danu with a song, beginning Kings arise
"
to the battle", so that they took fresh heart, and

drove the Fomors headlong back to their countr>
underneath the sea.

Such was the battle which is called in Irish
Mag Tuireadh na b-Fomorach, that is to say, the
1
This translation was made by Eugene O Curry from an ancient vellum MS.
formerly belonging to Mr. W. Monck Mason, but since sold by auction in London.
See his Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Lecture XII, p. 252.
( B 219 ) H
1 1
"
Plain of the Towers of the Fomors", and, more

popularly, the Battle of Moytura the
"
Northern", to
distinguish it from the other Battle of Moytura

fought by the Tuatha De* Danann against the Fir
Bolgs farther to the south. More of the Fomors
were says the ancient manuscript, than
killed in it,
there are stars in the sky, grains of sand on the sea

shore, snow-flakes in winter, drops of dew upon the
meadows in spring-time, hailstones during a storm,
blades of grass trodden under horses feet, or Man-
annan son of Ler s white horses, the waves of the
sea, when a tempest breaks. The or "towers"
pillars said to mark the graves of the combatants

stand upon the plain of Carrowmore, near Sligo,
still
and form, in the opinion of Dr. Petrie, the finest col

lection of prehistoric monuments in the world, with
the sole exception of Carnac, in Brittany. 1 Mega-
lithic structures of almost every kind are found
among them stone cairns with dolmens in their
interiors, dolmens standing open and alone, dolmens
surrounded by one, two, or three circles of stones,
and circles without dolmens to the number of over
a hundred. Sixty-four of such prehistoric remains
stand together upon an elevated plateau not more
than a mile across, and make the battle-field of Moy
tura, though the least known, perhaps the most im
pressive of all primeval ruins. What they really

commemorated we may never know, but, in all pro
bability, the placewas the scene of some important
and decisive early battle, the monuments marking
the graves of the chieftains who were interred as the
1
See Fergusson : Rude Stone Monuments, pp. 180, &c.
The War with the Giants 1 1
5
result of Those which have been examined were

it.
found to contain burnt wood and the half-burnt bones

of men and horses, as well as implements of flint and
bone. The actors, therefore, were still in the Neo
lithic Age. Whether the horses were domesticated
ones buried with their riders, or wild ones eaten at
the funeral feasts, would be hard to decide. The
it
history of the real event must have been long

lost even at the early date when its relics were
pointed out as the records of a battle between the

gods and the giants of Gaelic myth.
The Tuatha De* Danann, following the routed
Fomors, overtook and captured Bress. He begged
Lugh to spare his life.
"What ransom will you pay for it?" asked

Lugh.
guarantee that the cows of Ireland shall
"
I will
always be promised Bress.

in milk,"
But, before accepting, Lugh took counsel with his

druids.
"
What good will that

they decided, if Bress
be,"
"
does not also lengthen the lives of the cows?"

This was beyond the power of Bress to do; so he
made another offer.
"
Tell your people,"

he said to Lugh, that, if
"
they will spare my life, they shall have a good wheat

harvest every year."
But they said: "We already have the spring to
plough and sow in, the summer to ripen the crops,
the autumn for reaping, and the winter in which to
eat the bread; and that is all we want."
Lugh told this to Bress. But he also said: "You

n6 Mythology of the British Islands
shall have your life in return for a much less service
to us than that."
"What is it?" asked Bress.

"
Tell us when we ought to plough, when we

ought to sow, and when we ought to harvest."
Bress replied: You should plough on a Tuesday,
"
sow on a Tuesday, and harvest on a Tuesday."

And this lying maxim (says the story) saved
Bress s life.
Lugh, the Dagda, and Ogma still pursued the

Fomors, who had carried off in their flight the Dag-
da s harp. They followed them into the submarine
palace where Bress and Elathan lived, and there
they saw the harp hanging on the wall. This harp
of the Dagda s would not play without its owner s
leave. The Dagda sang to it:
Come, oak of the two cries

"
Come, hand of fourfold music !
Come, summer! Come, winter!

Voice of harps, bellows 1 and flutes!" ,
For the Dagda s harp had these two names; it was

called "Oak of the two cries" and Hand of four "
fold music".
It leaped down from

the wall, killing nine of the
Fomors as it passed, and came into the Dagda s
hand. The Dagda played to the Fomors the three
tunes known to clever harpists
all the weeping-
tune, the laughing -tune, and the sleeping -tune.
While he played the weeping-tune, they were bowed
with weeping; while he played the laughing-tune,
i ? Bagpipes.
The War with the Giants 117
they rocked with laughter; and when he played the
sleeping-tune, they all fell asleep. And while they

slept, Lugh, the Dagda, and Ogma got away safely.
Next, the Dagda brought the black-maned heifer
which he had, by the advice of Angus son of the
Young, obtained from Bress. The wisdom of Angus
had been shown in this advice, for it was this very
heifer that the cattle of the people of the goddess
Danu were accustomed to follow, whenever it lowed.
Now, when it lowed, all the cattle which the Fomors
had taken away from the Tuatha De* Danann came
back again.
Yet the power of the Fomors was not wholly
broken. Four of them still carried on a desultory
warfare by spoiling the corn, fruit, and milk of their
conquerors. But the Morrigu and Badb and Mider
and Angus pursued them, and drove them out of
Ireland for ever. 1

Last of all, the Morrigu and Badb went up on to
the summits of all the high mountains of Ireland,
and proclaimed the victory. All the lesser gods

who had not been in the battle came round and
heard the news. And Badb sang a song which
began :
"
Peace mounts to the heavens,

The heavens descend to earth,
Earth lies under the heavens.
Everyone is strong . .
.",
but the rest of and forgotten.

it has been lost
Then she added a prophecy in which she foretold

1
Book of Fermoy. See Revue Celtique, Vol. I. "The Ancient Irish Goddess
of War".
1 1 8 Mythology of the British Islands
the approaching end of the divine age, and the
beginning of a new one in which summers would

be flowerless and cows milkless and women shame
less ana men strengthless, in which there would be
trees without fruit and seas without fish, when old
men would give judgments and legislators
false
make unjust laws, when warriors would betray one

another, and men would be thieves, and there would
be no more virtue left in the world.
CHAPTER X
THE CONQUEST OF THE GODS BY MORTALS
Of what Badb had in mind when she uttered

thisprophecy we have no record. But it was true.
The twilight of the Irish gods was at hand. A
new race was coming across the sea to dispute the
ownership of Ireland with the people of the goddess
Danu. And these new-comers were not divinities
like themselves, but men like ourselves, ancestors
of the Gaels.
This story of the conquest of the gods by mortals
which seems such a strange one to us is typi
cally Celtic. The Gaelic mythology is the only one
which has preserved it in any detail ;
but the doc
trine would seem to have been common at one time
to all the Celts.
was, however, It of less shame to
the gods than would otherwise have been for ;

men
were of as divine descent as themselves. The
dogma of the Celts was that men were descended
from the god of death, and first came from the
Land of the Dead to take possession of the present
tells us, in his too short account of
1
world. Caesar
the Gauls, that they believed themselves to be
1
It may be noted that, according to Welsh legend, the ancestors of the Cymrl
came from Gwlad yr Hav, the Land of Summer", i.e. the Celtic Other World.
"
ni
1
sprung from Dis Pater, the god of the underworld.

In the Gaelic mythology Dis Pater was called Bile,
a name which has for root the syllable bel, meaning
"to The god Beli in British mythology was
die".
no doubt the same person, while the same idea is

expressed by the same root in the name of Balor,
the terrible Fomor whose glance was death. 2
The post-Christian Irish chroniclers, seeking to
reconcile Christian teachings with the still vital
pagan mythology by changing the gods into ancient

kings and incorporating them into the annals of the
country, with appropriate dates, also disposed of the
genuine early doctrine by substituting Spain for
Hades, and giving a highly-fanciful account of the
origin and wanderings of their ancestors. To use
a Hibernicism, appropriate in this connection, the
first Irishman was a
Scythian called Fenius Farsa.
Deprived of his own
he had settled in
throne,
Egypt, where his son Niul married a daughter of
the reigning Pharaoh. Her name was Scota, and
she had a son called Goidel, whose great-grandson
was named Eber Scot, the whole genealogy being
probably invented to explain the origin of the three
names by which the Gaels called themselves Finn,
Scot, and Goidel. Fenius and his family and clan
were turned out of Egypt for refusing to join in the
persecution of the children of Israel, and sojourned

in Africa for forty-two years. Their wanderings
took them to "the altars of the Philistines, by the
1
De Bello Gallico, Book VI, chap. xvm.
2
De Jubainville Cycle Mythologique, chap.
: x. Rhys: Hibbert Lectures "The
Gaulish Pantheon".
The Conquest of the Gods by Mortals 121
Lake of Osiers
"
; then, passing between Rusicada

and the hilly country of Syria, they travelled
through Mauretania as far as the Pillars of Her

cules; and thence landed in Spain, where they lived
many years, greatly increasing and multiplying.
The same route is
given by the twelfth-century
British historian, Geoffrey of Monmouth, as that
taken by Brutus and the Trojans when they came
1
to colonize Britain. Its only connection with any
kind of fact is that it

corresponds fairly well with
what ethnologists consider must have been the
westward line of migration taken, not, curiously
enough, by the Aryan Celts, but by the pre- Aryan
Iberians.
It is sufficient for us to find the first men in
"
Spain, remembering Spain that

"
stood for the

Celtic Hades, or Elysium. In this country Bregon,
the father of two sons, Bile and Ith, had built a
watch-tower, from which, one winter s evening, Ith
saw, far over the seas, a land he had never
off
noticed before. is on winter
evenings, when
"It
the air is
pure, eyesight reaches
that man s
farthest ",
remarks the old tract called the Book "
2
of Invasions", gravely accounting for the fact that
Ith saw Ireland from Spain.
Wishing to examine it nearer, he set sail with
thrice thirty warriors, and landed without
mishap at
the mouth of the River Scene. 3
The country seemed
to him to be uninhabited, and he marched with his
1
Geoffrey of Monmouth s Historia Britonum, Book I, chap. II.
2
Contained in the Book of Leinster and other ancient manuscripts.
*
Now called the Kenmare River.
men towards the north. At last he reached Aileach,
near the present town of Londonderry.
Here he found the three reigning kings of the
people of the goddess Danu, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht,
and Mac Grein6, the sons of Ogma, and grandsons
of the Dagda. These had succeeded Nuada the
Silver-handed, killed in the battle with the Fomors;
and had met, after burying their predecessor in a
tumulus called Grianan Aileach, which still stands
on the base of the Inishowen Peninsula, between
Lough Swilly and Lough Foyle, to divide his king
dom among them. Unable to arrive at any parti
tion satisfactory to all, they appealed to the new
comer to arbitrate.
The advice of Ith was moral rather than practical.
Act according to the laws of justice was all that
"
"
he would say to the claimants; and then he was

indiscreet enough to burst into enthusiastic praises
of Ireland for temperate climate and its richness
its
in fruit, honey, wheat, and fish. Such sentiments

from a foreigner seemed to the Tuatha De Danann
suggestive of a desire to take the country from
them. They conspired together and treacherously
Ith at a place since called Ith s Plain".
"
killed
They, however, spared his followers, who returned
taking their dead leader s body with

"
to Spain",
them. The
indignation there was great, and Mile,
Bile s son and Ith s nephew, determined to go to
Ireland and get revenge.
Mile therefore sailed with his eight sons and
their wives. Thirty-six chiefs, each with his shipful
of warriors, accompanied him. By the magic arts
of their druid, Amergin of the Fair Knee, they

discovered the exact place at which Ith had landed
before them, and put in to shore there. Two alone
failed to reach it alive. The wife of Amergin died
during the voyage, and Aranon, a son of Mile, on
approaching the land, climbed to the top of the
mast to obtain a better view, and, falling off, was
drowned. The rest disembarked safely upon the
first of May.
Amergin was the first to land. Planting his right

foot on Irish soil, he burst into a poem preserved in
both the Book of Lecan and the Book of Ballymote. 1
It isa good example of the pantheistic philosophy
of the Celtic races, and a very close parallel to it
is contained in an early Welsh poem, called the
"
Battle of the Trees and attributed to the famous

",
bard Taliesin. 2 "
I am the wind that blows upon

the sea," the ocean wave; I
sang Amergin; "I am
am the murmur of the surges; I am seven bat
talions; I am a strong bull; I am an eagle on a
rock; I am a ray of the sun; I am the most beauti
ful of herbs; I am a
courageous wild boar; I am a
salmon I am a lake
in the water; upon a plain; I
am a cunning artist; am a gigantic, sword- wielding
I
champion; I can shift my shape like a god. In

what direction shall we go? Shall we hold our
council in the valley or on the mountain -
top ?
Where shall we make our home? What land is
better than this island of the setting sun? Where
1 This
poem and the three following ones, all attributed to Amergin, are said to
be the oldest Irish literary records.
2
Book of Taliesin, poem vin, in Skene s Four Ancient Books of Wales, Vol. I,
p. 276.
shall we walk to and
peace and safety?
fro in
Who can find you clear springs of water as I can?
Who can tell you the age of the moon but I ? Who
can call the fish from the depths of the sea as I
can? Who can cause them to come near the shore
as I can? Who can change the shapes of the hills
and headlands as I can? I am a bard who is called
upon by seafarers to prophesy. Javelins shall be

wielded to avenge our wrongs. I
prophesy victory.
I end my song by prophesying all other good
1
things."
The Welsh bard same strain Taliesin sings in the

as the druid Amergin his unity with, and therefore
his power over, all nature, animate and inanimate.
"
I have been in many shapes",

he says, "before I
attained a congenial form. I have been a narrow
blade of a sword; I have been a drop in the air;

I have been a shining star I have been a word ;
in a book; I have been a book in the beginning;

I have been a
light in a lantern a year and a half;
I have been a
bridge for passing over threescore
rivers; I have journeyed as an eagle; I have been
a boat on the sea; I have been a director in battle;
I have been a sword in the hand; I have been a
shield in fight; I have been the string of a harp;

I have been enchanted for a year in the foam of
water. There is nothing in which I have not been."
It is strange to find Gael and Briton combining to
voice almost in the same words this doctrine of the
mystical Celts, who, while still in a state of semi-
i De Jubainville :
Cycle Mythologique. See also the Transactions of the Ossianic
Society, Vol. V.
barbarism, saw, with some of the greatest of ancient

and modern philosophers, the One in the Many, and
a single Essence in all the manifold forms of life.
The Milesians (for so, following the Irish annal
ists, it will be convenient to call the first Gaelic
settlers in Ireland) began their march on Tara,

which was the capital of the Tuatha De Danann,
as it had been
days the chief fortress of
in earlier
the Fir Bolgs, and would in later days be the
dwelling of the high kings of Ireland. On their

way they met with a goddess called Banba, the
wife of Mac Ciiill. She greeted Amergin. "If
you have come to conquer Ireland," she said,

"your
cause is no just one." "Certainly it is to
conquer it we have come," replied Amergin, with

out condescending to argue upon the abstract
morality of the matter.

"
Then at least grant me

one thing," she asked. "What is that?"
replied
Amergin.
"
That this island shall be called by

my name."
"It shall be," replied Amergin.
A farther on, they met a second goddess,
little
Fotla, the wife of Mac Cecht, who made the same

request, and received the same answer from Amer
gin.
Last of Uisnech, the centre of Ireland,
all, at
they came upon the third of the queens, Eriu, the

wife of Mac Greine*. "Welcome, warriors," she
cried.
"
To you who have come from afar this

island shall henceforth belong, and from the setting
to the rising sun there is no better land. And your
race will be the most perfect the world has ever
seen." "These are fair words and a good pro-
phecy,"
said Amergin. "It will be no thanks to
broke in Donn, Mile s eldest son.
you,"
Whatever "
success we have we shall owe to our own strength."

"That which
prophesy has no concern with you,"
I
retorted the goddess, and neither you nor your "
descendants will live to enjoy this island." Then,

turning to Amergin, she, too, asked that Ireland
might be called after her. shall be its principal "It
name," Amergin promised.

And so it has happened. Of the three ancient
names of Ireland Banba, Fotla, and Eriu the
last, in its genitive form of Erinn is the one
"
",
that has survived.

The invaders came to Tara, then called Drum-
cain, that is, the
"
Beautiful Hill ". Mac Cuill,

Mac Cecht, and Mac Greine" met them, with all
the host of the Gaelic gods. As was usual, they
held a parley. The people of the goddess Danu
complained that they had been taken by surprise,
and the Milesians admitted that to invade a country
without having first warned its inhabitants was not
strictly according to the courtesies of chivalrous
warfare. The Tuatha D6 Danann proposed to
the invaders that they should leave the island for
three days, during which they themselves would
decide whether to fight for their kingdom or to
surrender it; but the Milesians did not care for
this, for they knew that, as soon as they were out
of the island, the Tuatha De" Danann would oppose
them with druidical enchantments, so that they
would not be able to make a fresh landing. In
the end, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht, and Mac Greine
offered to submit the matter to the arbitration of

Amergin, the Milesians own lawgiver, with the
if he gave an obviously
express stipulation that,
partial judgment, he was to suffer death at their
hands. Donn asked his druid if he were prepared
to accept thisvery delicate duty. Amergin replied
that he was, and at once delivered the first judg
ment pronounced by the Milesians in Ireland.
"
The men whom we found dwelling in the land, to them is
possession due by right.

It is therefore your duty to set out to sea over nine green
waves ;
And if you shall be able to effect a landing again in spite

of them,
You are to engage them in battle, and I adjudge to you
the land in which you found them living.
I
adjudge to you the land wherein you found them dwell
ing, by the right of battle.
But although you may desire the land which these people
possess, yet yours is the duty to show them justice.
I forbid you from injustice to those you have found in
the land, however you may desire to obtain 1

it."
This judgment was considered fair by both parties.

The Milesians retired to their ships, and waited at
a distance of nine waves length from the land until
the signal was given to attack, while the Tuatha
De Danann, drawn up upon the beach, were ready
with their druidical spells to oppose them.
The signal was given, and the Milesians bent to
their oars. But they had hardly started before they
discovered that a strong wind was blowing straight
i Translated by Professor Owen Connellan in Vol. V of the Transactions of the

Ossianic Society.
towards them from the shore, so that they could
make no progress. At first they thought it might be
a natural breeze, but Donn smelt magic in it. He
sent a man to climb the mast of his ship, and see
if the wind blew as strong at that height as it did
at the level of the sea. The man returned, report
ing that the air was quite still "up
aloft". Evi
dently it was a druidical wind. But Amergin soon
coped with it.
Lifting up his voice, he invoked
the Land of Ireland itself, a power higher than the
gods it sheltered.
"
I invoke the land of Eriu !
The shining, shining sea!

The fertile, fertile hill!
The wooded vale!
The river abundant, abundant in water!
The fishful, fishful lake!"
In such strain runs the original incantation, one

of those magic formulas whose power was held by
ancient, and still is held by savage, races to reside
in their exact consecrated wording rather than in
their meaning. To us it sounds nonsense, and so
no doubt it did to those who put the old Irish
mythical traditions into literary shape; for a later

1
version expands and explains it as follows:
"
I we may regain the

implore that land of Erin,
We who have come over the lofty waves,
The original versions of this and the following charm are from De Jubainville:
1
Cycle Mythologique Irlandais, the later from Professor Owen Connellan s trans
lations in Vol. V
of the Transactions of the Ossianic Society. "Some of these
explains the Professor, "have been glossed by writers or commentators

poems",
of the Middle Ages, without which it would be almost impossible now for any Irish
scholar to interpret them and it is proper to remark that the translation accom
;
panying them is more in accordance with this gloss than with the original text."
29
This land whose mountains are great and extensive,
Whose streams are clear and numerous,
Whose woods abound with various fruit,
Its riversand waterfalls are large and beautiful,
Its lakes are broad and widely spread,
It abounds with fountains on elevated grounds!
May we gain power and dominion over its tribes!

May we have kings of our own ruling at Tara!
May Tara be the regal residence of our many succeeding
kings !
May the Milesians be the conquerors of its people!

May our ships anchor in its harbours!
May they trade along the coast of Erin !
May Eremon be its first ruling monarch!

May the descendants of Ir and Eber be mighty kings!
I
implore that we may regain the land of Erin,
I implore!"
The incantation proved effectual. The Land of

Ireland was pleased to be propitious, and the
druidical wind dropped down.
But success was not quite so easy as they had
hoped. Manannan, son of the sea and lord of
headlands, shook his magic mantle at them, and
hurled a fresh tempest out over the deep. The
galleys of the Milesians were tossed helplessly on
the waves; many sank with their crews. Donn
was among the lost, thus fulfilling Eriu s prophecy,
and three other sons of also perished.
Mile" In the
end, a broken remnant, after long beating about the
coasts, came to shore at the mouth of the River
Boyne. They landed; and Amergin, from the

shore, invoked the aid of the sea as he had al
ready done that of the land.
(B219) I
"Sea full of fish!
Fertile land!
Fish swarming up!
Fish there!
Under- wave bird!
Great fish!
Crab s hole!
Fish swarming up!
Sea full of fish!"
which, being interpreted like the preceding charm

seems to have meant:
"
May the fishes of the sea crowd in shoals to the land for
our use!
May the waves of the sea drive forth to the shore abun
dance offish!
May the salmon swim abundantly into our nets!
May all kinds of fish come plentifully to us from the sea!
May its flat-fishes also come in abundance!
This poem I compose at the sea-shore that fishes may
swim in shoals to our coast."
Then, gathering their forces, they marched on the

people of the goddess Danu.
Two battles were fought, the first in Glenn Faisi,
a valley of the Slieve Mish Mountains, south of
Tralee, and the second at Tailtiu, now called Tell-
town. In both, the gods were beaten. Their
three kings were killed by the three surviving
sons of Mile" Mac Cuill by Eber, Mac Cecht by
Eremon, and Mac Greine* by the druid Amergin.

Defeated and disheartened, they gave in, and, re
tiring beneath the earth, left the surface of the land
to their conquerors.
From this day begins the history of Ireland
according to the annalists. Mill s eldest son, Donn,

having perished, the kingdom fellby right to the
second, Eremon. But Eber, the third son, backed
by his followers, insisted upon a partition, and Ire
land was divided into two equal parts. At the end
of a year, however, war broke out between the
brothers; Eber was killed in battle, and Eremon
took the sole rule.
CHAPTER XI
THE GODS IN EXILE
But though mortals had conquered gods upon a

scale unparalleled in mythology, they had by no
means entirely subdued them. Beaten in battle,
the people of the goddess Danu had yet not lost
their divine attributes, and could use them either
to help or hurt. Great was the power of the "
says a tract preserved in the Book of

Dagda",
Leinster, over the sons of Mile", even after the

"
conquest of Ireland; for his subjects destroyed their

corn and milk, so that they must needs make a
treaty of peace with the Dagda. Not until then,
and thanks to his. good-will, were they able to
1
harvest corn and drink the milk of their cows."
The basis of this lost treaty seems to have been

that the Tuatha Danann, though driven from
De"
the soil, should receive homage and offerings from

their successors. We are told in the verse dinn-
wnchus of Mag Slecht, that
"
Since the rule

Of Eremon, the noble man of grace,
There was worshipping of stones
2
Until the coming of good Patrick of Macha ".
1 De Jubainville :
Cycle Mythologique Irlandais, p. 269.
2
See chap, iv "
The Religion of the Ancient Britons and Druidism ".
132
The Gods in Exile 133
Dispossessed of upper earth, the gods had, how

ever, to seek for new homes. council was con A
vened, but its members were divided between two
opinions. One section of them chose to shake the
dust of Ireland off its disinherited feet, and seek
refuge in a paradise over-seas, situate in some un
known, and, except for favoured mortals, unknow
able island of the west, the counterpart in Gaelic
myth of the British
..." island-valley of Avilion ;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly but it lies ;
Deep-meadow d, happy, fair with orchard-lawns

And bowery hollows crown d with summer sea "
*
a land of perpetual pleasure and feasting, described

variously as the "Land of Promise" (Tir Tairngir6\
the Plain of Happiness" (Mag Melt), the
"
Land "
of the (Tir-nam-beo), the "Land of the

Living"
(Tir-nan-og), and Breasal s Island" (Hy-

"
Young"
Breasail). Celtic mythology is full of the beauties

and wonders of this mystic country, and the tradition
of it has never died out. Hy-Breasail has been set
2
down on maps as a reality again and again;
old
some pioneers in the Spanish seas thought they
had discovered it, and called the land they found
"Brazil"; and it is still said, by lovers of old lore,
that a patient watcher, after long gazing westward
from the westernmost shores of Ireland or Scotland,
1
Tennyson Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur.
:
2
See Wood-Martin: Traces of the Elder Faiths oj Ireland, Vol I, pp. 213-215.
may sometimes be lucky enough to catch a glimpse

against the sunset of its
"
summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea ".
Of these divine emigrants the principal was

Manannan son of Ler. But, though he had cast
in his lot beyond the seas, he did not cease to visit
Ireland. An
old Irish king, Bran, the son of Febal,
met him, according to a seventh-century poem, as
Bran journeyed to, and Manannan from, the earthly
paradise. Bran was in his boat, and Manannan
was driving a chariot over the tops of the waves,
and he sang: 1
"
Bran deems it a marvellous beauty

In his coracle across the clear sea:
While to me in my chariot from afar
It is a flowery plain on which he rides about.
"
What is a clear sea

For the prowed skiff in which Bran is,
That is a happy plain with profusion of flowers
To me from the chariot of two wheels.
"
Bran sees
The number of waves beating across the clear sea:
Mag Mon
2
I
myself see in
Red-headed flowers without fault.
"
Sea-horses glisten in summer

As far as Bran has stretched his glance:
Rivers pour forth a stream of honey
In the land of Manannan son of Ler.
i The following verses are taken from Dr. Kuno Meyer s translation of the
romance entitled The Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal, published in Mr. Nutt s
2
Grimm Library, Vol. IV. The Plain of Sports.
"
The sheen of the main, on which thou art,

The white hue of the sea, on which thou rowest about,
Yellow and azure are spread out,
It is land, and is not rough.
Speckled salmon leap from the womb

Of the white sea, on which thou lookest:
They are calves, they are coloured lambs
With friendliness, without mutual slaughter.
Though but one chariot-rider seen

"
is
In Mag Mell 1 of many flowers,

There are many steeds on its surface,
Though them thou seest not.
Along the top of a wood has swum

"
Thy coracle across ridges,

There is a wood of beautiful fruit
Under the prow of thy little skiff.
"
A wood with blossom and fruit,

On which is the vine s veritable fragrance;
A wood without decay, without defect,
On which are leaves of a golden hue."
And, after this singularly poetical enunciation of the
philosophical and mystical doctrine that all things

are, under their diverse forms, essentially the same,
he goes on to describe to Bran the beauties and plea
sures of the Celtic Elysium.
But there were others indeed, the most part of
the gods who refused to expatriate themselves. For
these residences had to be found, and the Dagda,
their new king, proceeded to assign to each of those
who stayed in Ireland a sidk. These stdhe were
barrows, or hillocks, each being the door to an under-
1
The Happy Plain.
ground realm of inexhaustible splendour and delight,

according to the somewhat primitive ideas of the
Celts. A given of one which the
description is
Dagda kept for himself, and out of which his son

Angus cheated him, which will serve as a fair ex
ample of all. There were apple-trees there always
in fruit, and one pig alive and another ready roasted,
and the supply of ale never failed. One may still
visit in Ireland the sidhe of many of the gods, for
the spots are known, and the traditions have not
died out. To Ler was given Sidh Fionnachaidh^ ^
now known as the

"
Hill of the White Field ",

on the
top of Slieve Fuad, near Newtown Hamilton, in
County Armagh. Bodb Derg received a stdh called
by his own name, Sidh Bodb*, just to the south of
Portumna, in Gal way. Mider was given the sidh of
Bri Leitk, now called Slieve Golry, near Ardagh, in
County Longford. Ogma s sidh was called Aircelirai\
to Lugh was assigned Rodrubdn Manannan s son, ;
Ilbhreach, received Sidh Eas Aedha Ruaidh*, now

the Mound of Mullachshee, near Ballyshannon,
in Donegal; Fionnbharr 4 had Sidh Meadha, now
"
Knockma ",
about five miles west of Tuam, where,
as present king of the fairies, he is said to live to
day; while the abodes of other gods of lesser fame

are also recorded. For himself the Dagda retained
two, both near the River Boyne, in Meath, the best
of them being the famous Brugh-na- Boyne. None
of the members of the Tuatha De Danann were left
unprovided for, save one.

2
i Pronounced Shee Finneha. Pronounced Shee Bove.
3
Pronounced Shee Assaroe. 4
Pronounced Finnvar.
It was from this time that the Gaelic gods re

ceived the name by which the peasantry know them
to-day Aes Sidhe, the People of the Hills", or,
"
more shortly, the Sidhe. Every god, or fairy, is a

Fer-Sidhe^, a Man "
of the Hill"; and every goddess

a Bean-Stdhe, a "Woman of the Hill", the banshee
2
of popular legend.
The most famous of such fairy hills are about five
3
miles from Drogheda. They are still connected
with the names of the Tuatha D Danann, though
they are now not called their dwelling-places, but
their tombs. On the northern bank of the Boyne
stand seventeen barrows, three of which Knowth,
Dowth, and New Grange are of great size. The
last named, largest, and best preserved, is over
300 feet in diameter, and 70 feet high, while its top

makes a platform 120 feet across. It has been ex
plored, and Roman coins, gold torques, copper pins,
and iron rings and knives have been found in it;
but what else it may have once contained will never
be known, for, like Knowth and Dowth, it was
thoroughly ransacked by Danish spoilers in the
ninth century. It is entered by a square doorway,
the rims of which are elaborately ornamented with

a kind of spiral pattern. This entrance leads to a
stone passage, more than 60 feet long, which gradu
ally widens and rises, until it
opens into a chamber
with a conical dome 20 feet high. On each side of
this central chamber is a recess, with a shallow oval
i Pronounced Far-shec.
5
O Curry : Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History, Appendix
p. 505.
3 See Fergusson Rude Stone Monuments, pp. 200-213.
:
stone basin in it. The huge slabs of which the
whole decorated upon both the outer
is built are
and the inner faces with the same spiral pattern as
the doorway.
The origin of these astonishing prehistoric monu
ments is unknown, but they are generally attributed
to the race that inhabited Ireland before the Celts.
Gazing at marvellous New Grange, one might very

well echo the words of the old Irish poet Mac Nia,
in the Book of Ballymote:
"
Behold the Sidh before your eyes,

It is manifest to you that it is a king s mansion,
Which was built by the firm Dagda,
1
It was a wonder, a court, an admirable hill."
It is not, however, with New Grange, or even

with Knowth or Dowth, that the Dagda s name is
now associated. It is a smaller barrow, nearer to

the Boyne, which is known as the
"
Tomb of the
Dagda".
It has never been opened, and Dr. James
Fergusson, the author of Rude Stone Monument s>
who holds the Tuatha De" Danann have been a

to
real people, thinks that the bones and armour of
"
the great Dagda may still be found in his honoured

2
grave Other Celtic scholars might not be so
".
sanguine, though verses as old as the eleventh

century assert that the Tuatha De Danann used
the brughs for burial. It was about this period that
the mythology of Ireland was being rewoven into
spurious history. The poem, which is called the

Chronicles of the Tombs", not only mentions the
"
i O Curry: MS. Materials, p. 505.

Fergusson Rude Stone Monuments,
11
:
p. 209.
"Monument of the Dagda"

and the "Monument
of the Morrigii but also records the last resting-

",
places of Ogma, Etain, Cairpre, Lugh, Boann, and

Angus.
We have for the present, however, to consider
Angus in a far He is, indeed,
less sepulchral light.
very much alive in the story to be related. The

Son of the Young was absent when the distri
"
"
bution of the sidhe was made. When he returned,

he came to his father, the Dagda, and demanded
one. The Dagda pointed out to him that they had
all been given away. Angus protested, but what
could be done? By fair means, evidently nothing;
but by a great deal.
craft, The wily Angus ap
peared to reconcile himself to fate, and only begged
his father to allow him to stay at the sidh of Brugh-
na-Boyne (New Grange) for a day and a night.

The Dagda agreed to this, no doubt congratulating
himself on having got out of the difficulty so easily.
But when he came to Angus to remind him that the
time was up, Angus refused to go. He had been
granted, he claimed, day and night, and it is of days
and nights that time and eternity are composed;
therefore there was no limit to his tenure of the
sidh. The seem very convincing to
logic does not
our modern minds, but the Dagda is said to have
been satisfied with it. He abandoned the best of
his two palaces to his son, who took peaceable pos
session of it. Thus it
got a second name, that of
the Sidh or Brugh of the "Son of the Young ".*
The Dagda does not, after this, play much active

i This story is contained in the Book of Leinster.
part in the history of the people of the goddess

Danu. We next hear of a council of gods to elect
a fresh ruler. There were five candidates for the
vacant throne Bodb the Red, Mider, Ilbhreach 1
son of Manannan, Lr, and Angus himself, though

the last-named, we are told, had little real desire to
rule, as he preferred a life of freedom to the dig
nities of kingship. The Tuatha De Danann went
into consultation, and the result of their deliberation
was that their choice fell
upon Bodb the Red, for
three reasons firstly, for his own sake; secondly,
for his father, the Dagda s sake; and thirdly, be
cause he was the Dagda s eldest son. The other
competitors approved this
choice, except two.
Mider refused to give hostages, as was the custom,
to Bodb Derg, and fled with his followers to "a
desert country round Mount Leinster", in County

Carlow, while Ler retired in great anger to Si dh
Fionnachaidh, declining to recognize or obey the
new king.
Why Ler and Mider should have so taken the
matter to heart is understand, unless it
difficult to
was because they were both among the oldest of the

gods. The indifference of Angus is easier to explain.
He was the Gaelic Eros, and was busy living up
to his character.At this time, the object of his love
was a maiden who had visited him one night in a
dream, only to vanish when he put out his arms to
embrace her. All the next day, we are told, Angus
took no food. Upon the following night, the un
substantial lady again appeared, and played and
1
Pronounced Ilbrec.
BHHBBHHBBHBRiii
THE DREAM-MAIDEN VISITS ANGUS
sang to him. That following day, he also fasted.

So things went on for a year, while Angus pined
and wasted for love. At last the physicians of the
Tuatha De Danann guessed his complaint, and told
him how fatal it might be to him. Angus asked
that his mother Boann might be sent for, and, when
she came, he told her his trouble, and implored her
help. She went to the Dagda and begged him,
if he did not wish to see his son die of unrequited
love, a disease that all Diancecht s medicine and
Goibniu s magic could not heal, to find the dream-
maiden. The Dagda could do nothing himself, but
he sent the Red, and the new king of the
to Bodb
gods sent in turn to the lesser deities of Ireland,
ordering all of them to search for her. For a year
she could not be found, but at last the disconsolate
lover received a message, charging him to come and
see he could recognize the lady of his dreams.
if
Angus came, and knew her at once, even though

she was surrounded by thrice fifty attendant nymphs.
Her name was Caer, and she was the daughter of
Etal Ambuel, who had a sidh at Uaman, in Con-
naught. Bodb the Red demanded her for Angus

in marriage, but her father declared that he had no
control over her. She was a swan-maiden, he said;
and every year, as soon as summer was over, she
went with her companions to a lake called Dragon- "
Mouth and there all of them became swans. But,

",
refusing to be thus put off, Angus waited in patience

until the day of the magical change, and then went
down to the shore of the lake. There, surrounded
by thrice fifty swans, he saw Caer, herself a swan
surpassing all the rest in beauty and whiteness. He

called to her, proclaiming his passion and his name,
and she promised to be his bride, if he too would
become a swan. He agreed, and with a word she
changed him into swan-shape, and thus they flew
side by side to Angus s sidh, where they retook the
human form, and, no doubt, lived happily as long as
could be expected of such changeable immortals as
1
pagan deities.
Meanwhile, the people of the goddess Danu were
justly incensed against both Ler and Mider. Bodb
the Red made a yearly war upon Mider in his stdh,
and many of the divine race were killed on either
side. But against Ler, the new king of the gods
refused to move, for there had been a great affection
between them. Many times Bodb Derg tried to
regain LeVs friendship by presents and compliments,
but for a long time without success.
At last Ler s wife died, to the sea-god s great
sorrow. When Bodb the Red heard the news, he
sent a messenger to Ler, offering him one of his
own foster -daughters, Aebh 2 ,
Aeife 8 ,
and Ailbhe 4 ,
the children of Ailioll of Arran. Ler, touched by

this, came to visit Bodb the Red at his sidh>
and
chose Aebh for his wife.
"
She is the eldest, so she

must be the noblest of them," he said. They were
married, and a great feast made, and Ler took her
back with him to Sidh Fionnachaidh.
Aebh bore four children to Lr. The eldest was
i This story, called the Dream of Angus, will be found translated into English
by Dr. Edward Muller in Vol. III. of the Revue Celtique, from an eighteenth-
century MS. in the British Museum.
z Pronounced Aive. 3 Pronounced Aiva. * Pronounced Alva,
a daughter called Finola, the second was a son called

Aed; the two others were twin boys called Fiachra
and Conn, but giving birth to those Aebh died.
in
Bodb the Red then offered Ler another of his

and he chose the second, Aeife.
foster-children,
Every year Ler and Aeife and the four children
used to go to Manannan s Feast of Age", which
"
was held at each of the sidhe in turn. The four

children grew up to be great favourites among the
people of the goddess Danu.

But Aeife was childless, and she became jealous
of Ler s children for she feared that he would love
;
them more than he did her. She brooded over this
until she began, first to hope for, and then to plot

their deaths. She persuade her servants to
tried to
murder them, but they would not. So she took the
four children to Lake Darvra (now called Lough
Derravargh in West Meath), and sent them into the
water to bathe. Then she made an incantation over
them, and touched them, each in turn, with a druidical
wand, and changed them into swans.
But, though she had magic enough to alter their
shapes, she had not the power to take away their
human speech and minds. Finola turned, and
threatened her with the anger of Ler and of Bodb
the Red when they came to hear of it. She, how
ever, hardened her heart, and refused to undo what
she had done. The Lr, finding their
children of
case a hopeless one, asked her how long she in
tended to keep them in that condition.
"You would be easier in mind," she said, "if
you
had not asked the question; but I will tell you.
You shall be three hundred years here, on Lake
Darvra; and three hundred years upon the Sea of
1
Moyle which is between Erin and Alba; and
,
three hundred years more at Irros Domnann 2 and

the Isle of Glora in Erris 8 Yet you shall have two .
consolations in your troubles; you shall keep your

human minds, and yet suffer no grief at knowing
that you have been changed into swans, and you
shall be able to sing the softest and sweetest
songs
that were ever heard in the world."
Then Aeife went away and left them. She re
turned to Ler, and told him that the children had
fallen by accident into Lake Darvra, and were
drowned.
But Ler was not satisfied that she spoke the truth,
and went in haste to the lake, to see if he could find
traces of them. He saw four swans close to the
shore, and heard them talking to one another with
human voices. As he approached, they came out
of the water to meet him. They told him what
Aeife had done, and begged him to change them
back into their own shapes. But Ler s magic was
not so powerful as his wife s, and he could not.
Nor even could Bodb the Red to whom Ler
went for help, for all that he was king of the gods.
What Aeife had done could not be undone. But
she could be punished for it! Bodb ordered his
foster-daughter to appear before him, and, when she
came, he put an oath on her to tell him truly
"
what
shape of all others, on the earth, or above the earth,
1
Now called "
North Channel"
2 The Peninsula of Ems, in Maya
8 A small island off Benmullet.
LER AND THE SWANS
From the Drawing by J. H. Bacon, A.R. A.
or beneath the earth, she most abhorred, and into

which she most dreaded to be transformed". Aeife
was obliged to answer that she most feared to be
come a demon of the air. So Bodb the Red struck
her with his wand, and she fled from them, a shriek
ing demon.
All the Tuatha D6 Danann went to Lake Darvra
to visit the four swans. The Milesians heard of it,
and also went; for it was not till

long after this that
gods and mortals ceased to associate. The visit

became a yearly feast. But, at the end of three
hundred years, the children of Ler were compelled
to leave Lake Darvra, and go to the Sea of Moyle,
to fulfil the second period of their exile.
They bade farewell to gods and men, and went.

And, for fear lest they might be hurt by anyone, the
Milesians made it law in Ireland that no man should
harm a swan, from that time forth for ever.
The children of Ler suffered much from tempest
and cold on the stormy Sea of Moyle, and they were
very lonely. Once only during that long three
hundred years did they see any of their friends.
An embassy of the Tuatha Danann, led by two
De"
sons of Bodb the Red, came to look for them, and

told them all that had happened in Erin during their
exile.
At last that long penance came to an end, and

they went to Irros Domnann and Innis Glora for
their third stage. And while it was wearily drag
ging through, Saint Patrick came to Ireland, and
put an end to the power of the gods for ever. They
had been banned and banished when the children of
(B219) K
Ler found themselves free to return to their old
home. Sidh Fionnechaidh was empty and deserted,
for Ler had been killed by Caoilt, the cousin of
Finn mac Coul. 1
So, after long, vain searching for their lost relatives,
they gave up hope, and returned to the Isle of Glora.
They had a friend there, the Lonely Crane of Innis-
2
kea ,
which has lived upon that island ever since the
beginning of the world, and will be still
sitting there
on the day of judgment. They saw no one else
until, one day, a man came to the island. He told
3
them that he was Saint Caemhoc and that he had ,
heard their story. He brought them to his church,

and preached the new faith to them, and they believed
on Christ, and consented to be baptised. This broke
the pagan spell, and, as soon as the holy water was
sprinkled over them, they returned to human shape.

But they were very old and bowed three aged men
and an ancient woman. They did not live long after
this, and Saint Caemhoc, who had baptised them,
buried them all together in one grave. 4
But, in telling this story, we have leaped nine
hundred years a great space in the history even
of gods. We must retrace our steps, if not quite
to the days of Eremon and Eber, sons of and Mile",
firstkings of Ireland, at any rate to the beginning

of the Christian era.
1 See chap. XIV" Finn and the Fenians".

2
An Its lonely crane was one of the "Wonders
island off the coast of Mayo.
3 Pronounced Kemoc.
of and
Ireland", an object of folk-belief.
is still
4
story of the Fate of the Children of Ler is not found in any MS.
This famous
earlier than the beginning of the seventeenth century. A translation of it has been
published by Eugene O Curry in Atlantis, Vol. IV, from which the present abridg
ment is made.
At time Eochaid Airem was high king of

this
Ireland, and reigned at Tara; while, under him, as

vassal monarchs, Conchobar mac Nessa ruled over
the Red Branch Champions of Ulster; Curoi son of
Daire 1 was king of Munster; Mesgegra was king
,
of Leinster; and Ailell, with his famous queen, Medb,
governed Connaught.
Shortly before, among the gods, Angus Son of
the Young, had stolen away Etain, the wife of Mider.
He kept her imprisoned in a bower of glass, which
he carried everywhere with him, never allowing her
to leave it, for fear Mider might recapture her. The
Gaelic Pluto, however, found out where she was,
and was laying plans to rescue her, when a rival of
E tain s herself decoyed Angus away from before the
pleasant prison-house, and set his captive free. But,
instead of returning her to Mider, she changed the
luckless goddess into a fly, and threw her into the
air, where she was tossed about in great wretched
ness at the mercy of every wind.
At the end of seven years, a gust blew her on to
the roof of the house of Etair, one of the vassals of
Conchobar, who was celebrating a The un
feast.
happy fly, who was Etain, was blown down the

chimney into the room below, and fell, exhausted,
into a golden cup full of beer, which the wife of the
master of the house was just going to drink. And
the woman drank Etain with the beer.
But, of course, this was not the end of her for
the gods cannot really die, but only the beginning
of a new life. Etain was reborn as the daughter of
1
Pronounced Dara.
Etair no one knowing that she was not of
s wife,
mortal lineage. She grew up to be the most beauti
ful woman in Ireland.
When she was twenty years old, her fame reached
the high king, who sent messengers to see if she
was as fair as men reported. They saw her, and
returned to the king full of her praises. So Eochaid
himself went to pay her a visit. He chose her to be
his queen, and gave her a splendid dowry.
It was not till then that Mider heard of her. He
came to her shape of a young man, beautifully
in the
dressed, and told her who she really was, and how
she had been his wife among the people of the
goddess Danu. He begged her to leave the king,
and come with him to his sidh at Bri Leith. But
Etain refused with scorn.
"
Do you think," she said, would give up

"
that I
the high king of Ireland for a person whose name

and kindred I do not know, except from his own
lips?"
The god baffled for the time.

retired, But one
day, as King Eochaid sat in his hall, a stranger
entered. He was dressed in a purple tunic, his hair
was like gold, and his eyes shone like candles.
The king welcomed him.
"But who are you?" he asked; "for I do not
know you."
"
Yet I have known you a long time," returned the

stranger.
"
Then what is your name?"

"
Not a very famous one. I am Mider of Bri

Leith."
"
Why have you come here?"
"
To challenge you to a game of chess."
"
I am a
good chess-player," replied the king, who
was reputed to be the best in Ireland.
"
I think I can beat you,"

answered Mider.
But the chess-board in the queen s room, and
"
is
she is asleep,"
objected Eochaid.
"
It does not matter," replied Mider. "
I have
brought a board with me which can be in no way
worse than yours."
He showed it to the king, who admitted that the
boast was true. The chess-board was made of
silver set in precious stones, and the pieces were
of gold.
"
Play!"
said Mider to the king.
never play without a wager," replied Eochaid.
"
"What shall be the stake?" asked Mider.

"
I do not care," replied Eochaid.

"Good!" returned Mider. "Let it be that the
loser pays whatever the winner demands."
"
That is a wager fit for a king,"

said Eochaid.
They played, and Mider lost. The stake that

Eochaid claimed from him was that Mider and his
subjects should make
through Ireland. a road
Eochaid watched the road being made, and noticed
how Mider s followers by the yoked their oxen, not
horns, as the Gaels did, but at the shoulders, which

was better. He adopted the practice, and thus got
his nickname, Airem, that is, "The
Ploughman".
After a year, Mider returned and challenged the
king again, the terms to be the same as before.
Eochaid agreed with joy; but, this time, he lost.
could have beaten you before, if I had
"
I wished,"
said Mider, "and now the stake I demand is Etain,

your queen."
The astonished king, who could not for shame

go back upon his word, asked for a year s delay.
Mider agreed to return upon that day year to claim
Etain. Eochaid consulted with his warriors, and
they decided to keep watch through the whole of
the day fixed by Mider, and let no one pass in or
out of the royal palace till sunset. For Eochaid
held that if the fairy king could not get Etain upon
thatone day, his promise would be no longer bind
ing on him.
So, when the day came, they barred the door and
guarded it, but suddenly they saw Mider among

them stood beside Etain, and sang
in the hall. He
this song to her, setting out the pleasures of the
homes of the gods under the enchanted hills.
"
O lady will you come with me

fair !
To a wonderful country which is mine,

Where the people s hair is of golden hue,
And their bodies the colour of virgin snow?
"
There no grief or care is known ;
White are their teeth, black their eyelashes;

Delight of the eye is the rank of our hosts,
With the hue of the fox-glove on every cheek.
"
Crimson are the flowers of every mead,

Gracefully speckled as the blackbird s egg;
1
Though beautiful to see be the plains of Inisfail
They are but commons compared to our great plains.
1
A poetical name for Ireland.
Though intoxicating to you be the ale-drink of Inisfail,

"
More intoxicating the ales of the great country;

The only land to praise is the land of which I speak,
Where no one ever dies of decrepit age.
Soft sweet streams traverse the land

"
The choicest of mead and of wine ;
Beautiful people without any blemish;

Love without sin, without wickedness.
"
We can see the people upon all sides,

But by no one can we be seen ;
The cloud of Adam s transgression it is
That prevents them from seeing us.
"
O lady, should you come to my brave land,

It is golden hair that will be on your head ;
Fresh pork, beer, new milk, and ale,

You there with me shall have, O fair lady!"
1
Then Mider greeted Eochaid, and told him that

he had come to take away Etain, according to the
king s wager. And, while the king and his warriors
looked on helplessly, he placed one arm round the
now willing woman, and they both vanished. This
broke the spell that hung over everyone in the hall;
they rushed to the door, but all they could see were
two swans flying away.
The king would not, however, yield to the god.
He sent to every part of Ireland for news of Etain,
but his messengers allcame back without having
been able to find her. At last, a druid named
Dalan learned, by means of ogams carved upon
wands of yew, that she was hidden under Mider s
1
Translated by O Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Lecture
IX, p. 192, 193.
sldh of Bri Leith.So Eochaid marched there with
an army, and began to dig deep into the abode of
the gods of which the
"
fairy hill was the portal. "
Mider, as terrified as was the Greek god Hades

when it seemed likely that the earth would be rent
1
open, and his domains laid bare to the sight, sent
out fifty fairy maidens to Eochaid, every one of
them having the appearance of Etain. But the
king would only be content with the real Etain, so
that Mider, to save his sidh, was at last obliged to
give her up. And she lived with the King of Ire
land after that until the death of both of them.
But Mider never forgave the insult. He bided
his time for three generations, until Eochaid and
Etain had a male descendant. For they had no
son, but only a daughter called Etain, like her
mother, and this second Etain had a daughter called
Messbuachallo, who had a son called Conaire*, sur-
named "
the Great Mider and the gods wove

".
the web of fate round Conaire, so that he and all his

men died violent deaths. 2
Iliad, Book XX.

The story of Mider s revenge and Conaird s death is told in the romance
Bruidhen Dd Derga, "The Destruction of Da Derga s Fort", translated by Dr.
Whitley Stokes, Eugene O Curry and Professor Zimmer from the original text.
CHAPTER XII
THE IRISH ILIAD
With Eber and Eremon, sons of Mile, and

conquerors of the gods, begins a fresh series of
"
characters in Gaelic tradition the early Milesian "
kings of Ireland. Though monkish chroniclers

have striven to find history in the legends handed
down concerning them, they are none the less
almost as mythical as the Tuatha De Danann. The
first of them who has the least appearance of reality
is
Tigernmas, who is recorded to have reigned a
hundred years after the coming of the Milesians.
He seems to have been what is sometimes called
a "
Culture-king", bearing much same kind of

the
relation to Ireland as Theseus bore to Athens or
Minos to Crete. During his reign, nine new lakes
and three new rivers broke forth from beneath the
earth to give their waters to Erin. Under his
auspices, goldwas first smelted, ornaments of gold

and silver were first made, and clothes first dyed.
He is said to have perished mysteriously with 1
1 "There came
Tigernmas, the prince of Tara yonder,
On Hallowe en with many hosts,
A cause of grief to them was the deed.
Dead were the men
Of Bnnba s host, without happy strength,
153
three-fourths of the men
of Erin while worshipping
Cromm Cruaich on the field of Mag Slecht. In him
Mr. Nutt sees, no doubt rightly, the great mythical
king who, in almost all national histories, closes
the strictly mythological age, and inaugurates a new
era of less obviously divine, if hardly less apocryphal
characters. 1
In spite, however, of the worship of the Tuatha
D6 Danann instituted by Eremon, we find the early
kings and heroes of Ireland walking very familiarly
with their gods. Eochaid Airem, high king of
Ireland, was apparently reckoned a perfectly fit
suitor for the goddess Etain, and proved a far from
unsuccessful rival of Mider, the Gaelic Pluto. And 2
adventures of love or war were carried quite as

cheerfully among the s{dh dwellers by Eochaid s
contemporaries Conchobar son of Nessa, King

of Ulster, Curoi son of Daire, King of Munster,
Mesgegra, King of Leinster, and Ailell and Medb

3
,
King and Queen of Connaught.

All these figures of the second Gaelic cycle (that
of the heroes of Ulster, and especially of their
great champion, Cuchulainn) lived, according to

Irish tradition, at about the beginning of the
Around Tigernmas, the destructive man in the North,

From the worship of Cromm Cruaich t was no luck for them.
"
For I have learnt,

Except one-fourth of the keen Gaels
Not a man alive lasting the snare 1
Escaped without death in his mouth."

Dr. Kuno Meyer s translation of the Dinnsenckus of Mag Sleckt.
1
Nutt Voyage of Bran, p. 164.
:
2
See chap, xi "The Gods in Exile".
8
Pronounced Maine.
The Irish Iliad 155
Christian era, Conchobar, indeed, is said to have

expired in a fit of rage on hearing of the death
of Christ. 1
But this is a very transparent monkish interpola
tion into the original story. A quite different view
is taken by most modern scholars, who would see
gods and not men in all the legendary characters
of the Celtic heroic cycles. Upon such a subject,
however, one may legitimately take sides. Were
King Conchobar and his Ultonian champions, Finn
and his Fenians, Arthur and his Knights once living
men round whom the attributes of gods have
gathered, or were they ancient deities renamed and
stripped of some of their divinity to make them
more akin to their human worshippers? History
or mythology? A mingling, perhaps, of both.
Cuchulainn may have been the name of a real
2
Gaelic warrior, however suspiciously he may now

resemble the sun-god, who is said to have been his
father. King Conchobar may have been the real
chief of a tribe of Irish Celts before he became an
adumbration of the Gaelic sky-god. It is the same
problem that confronts us in dealing with the heroic

legends of Greece and Rome. Were Achilles,
Agamemnon, Odysseus, Paris, ^neas gods, demi
gods, or men? Let us call them all alike whether
they be Greek or Trojan heroes, Red Branch
Champions, or followers of the Gaelic Finn or the
British Arthur demi-gods. Even so, they stand
1
The story of the Tragical Death of King Conchobar, translated by Eugene
O Curry from the Book of Leinster, will be found in the appendix to his MS.
Materials of Irish History, and (more accessible) in Miss Hull s Cuchullin Saga.
8 The
name is best pronounced Cuhoolin or Cuchullin (ch as in German),
definitelyapart from the older gods who were

greater than they were.
We are stretching no point in calling them demi
1
gods, for they were god-descended.
Cuchulainn,
the greatest hero of the Ulster cycle, was doubly
so; for on his mother s side he was the grandson
of the Dagda, while Lugh of the Long Hand is
said to have been his father. His mother, Dechtire,

daughter of Maga, the daughter of Angus Son of
the Young was half-sister to King Conchobar,
",
and all the other principal heroes were of hardly

less lofty descent. It is small wonder that they are
2
described in ancient manuscripts as terrestrial gods
and goddesses.
"
Terrestrial may have been but

"
they in form,
their acts were superhuman. Indeed, compared
with the more modest exploits of the heroes of the
"
Iliad they were those of giants.

",
Where Greek
warriors slew their tens, these Ultonians despatched
their hundreds. They came home after such ex
ploits so heated that their cold baths boiled over.
When they sat down to meat, they devoured whole
oxen, and drank their mead from vats. With one
stroke of their favourite swords they beheaded hills
for sport. The gods themselves hardly did more,
and it is
easy to understand that in those old days
not only might the sons of gods look upon the
daughters of men and find them fair, but immortal
1
The descent of the principal Red Branch Heroes from the Tuatha Danann De"
is given in a table in Miss Hull s Introduction to her Cuchullin Saga.

Conchobar is called a terrestrial god of the Ultonians in the Book of the Dun
Cow, and Dechtire" is termed a goddess in the Book of Leinster.
The Irish Iliad 157
women also need not be too proud to form passing

alliances with mortal men.
Some of the older deities seem to have already
at the time of the compilation
passed out of memory
of the Ulster cycle. At any rate, they make no
appearance in it. Dead Nuada rests in the grianan
low in stdh Airceltrai; while
of Aileach; Ogma lies
the Dagda, thrust into the background by his son
Angus, mixes himself very little in the affairs

of
Erin.
1
But the Morrigu is no less eager in en
couraging human or semi-divine heroes to war than

she was when she revived the fainting spirits of the
folk of thegoddess Danu at the Battle of Moytura.
The gods who appear most often in the cycle of
the Red Branch of Ulster are the same that have
lived on throughout with the most persistent vitality.
Lugh the Long-handed, Angus of the Brugh, Mider,

Bodb the Red, and Manannan son of Ler, are the
principal deities that move in the background

of the
stage where the chief parts are now played by

mortals. But, to make up for the loss of some of
the greater divine figures, the ranks of the gods are
being recruited from below. All manner of inferior

divinities claim to be members of the tribe of the
goddess Danu. The
goblins and sprites and demons
of the air who shrieked around battles are described
collectively as Tuatha D
Danann. 2
As for the Fomors, they have lost their distinc
tive names, though they are still
recognized as
dwellers beneath the deep, who at times raid upon
i He is last heard of as chief cook to Conaire" the Great, a mythical king of

a In the
Ireland. Book of Leinster.
the coast, and do battle with the heroes over whom
Conchobar ruled at Emain Macha.
This seat of his government, the traditionary site
of which is still marked by an extensive prehistoric
1
entrenchment called Navan Fort near Armagh, ,
was the centre of an Ulster that stretched south

wards as far as the Boyne, and round its ruler
gathered such a galaxy of warriors as Ireland had
never seen before, or will again. They called them
selves the Champions of the Red Branch"; there
"
was not one of them who was not a hero; but they
are all dwarfed by one splendid figure Cuchulainn,
whose name means Culann s Hound
"
Mr. ".
2
Alfred Nutt calls him "the Irish Achilles" while ,
Professor Rhys would rather see in him a Heracles

3
of the Gaels. Like Achilles, he was the chosen
hero of his people, invincible in battle, and yet
once to early death and sorrows doomed be
"at
yond the lot of man", while, like Heracles, his life
was a series of wonderful exploits and labours. It
matters little enough; for the lives of all such

mythical heroes must be of necessity somewhat
alike.
If Heracles were, as some think,

Achilles and
personifications of the sun, Cuchulainn is not less

so. Most of his attributes, as the old stories record
them, are obviously solar symbols. He seemed
generally small and insignificant, yet, when he was
i For a description of Navan Fort see a paper by M. de Jubainville in the Revue
Celtique, Vol. XVI.
3
Cuchulainn, the. Irish Achilles, By Alfred Nutt. Popular Studies in Myth
ology, Romance, and Folklore, No. 8.
interesting parallels between Cuchulainn and Heracles in Studies
3 See a series of
in the Arthurian Legend, chap. IX and X.

The Irish Iliad 159
at his full strength, no one could look him in the

face without blinking, while the heat of his con
stitution melted snow for thirty feet all round him.
He turned red and hissed as he dipped his bod)
into its bath the sea. Terrible was his trans
formation when sorely oppressed by his enemies,
as the sun is
by mist, storm, or eclipse. At such
times the aerial clouds over his head were
"
among
visible the virulentpouring showers and sparks of
ruddy which the seething of his savage wrath
fire
caused to mount up above him. His hair became

tangled about his head, as it had been branches of
a red thorn-bush stuffed into a strongly-fenced gap.
.
Taller, thicker, more rigid, longer than mast
. .
of a great ship was the perpendicular jet of dusky

blood which out of his scalp s very central point
shot upwards and then was scattered to the four
cardinal points; whereby was formed a magic mist
of gloom resembling the smoky pall that drapes
a regal dwelling, what time a king at nightfall of a
1
winter s day draws near to it."
So marvellous a being 2 was, of course, of mar

vellous birth. His mother, Dechtire, was on the
point of being married to an Ulster chieftain called
Sualtam, and was sitting at the wedding- feast, when
a may-fly flew into her cup of wine and was un
wittingly swallowed by her, That same afternoon
The Tdin B6 Chuailgnt. Translated by Standish Hayes O Grady.

1
3
The Irish romances relating to Cuchulainn and his cycle, nearly a hundred in
number, need hardly be referred to severally in this chapter. Of many of the
there exist several slightly-varying versions.
tales, too, Many of them have been
translatedby different scholars. The reader desiring a more complete survey of
the Cuchulainn legend is referred to Miss Hull s Cuchullin Saga or to
Lady
Gregory s Cuchvlain of Muirthemne.
she fell
deep sleep, and in her dream the
into a
sun-god Lugh appeared to her, and told her that

it was he whom she had swallowed, and bore within
her. He ordered her and her fifty attendant maidens

to come with him at once, and he put upon them
the shapes of birds, so that they were not seen to
go. Nothing was heard of them again. But one

day, months later, a flock of beautiful birds appeared
before Emain Macha, and drew out its warriors in
their chariots to hunt them.
They followed the birds till

nightfall, when they
found themselves at the Brugh on the Boyne, where
the great gods had their homes. As they looked
everywhere suddenly saw a splen
for shelter, they
did palace. A and
tall handsome man, richly
dressed, came out and welcomed them and led
them in. Within the hall were a beautiful and
noble-faced woman and fifty maidens, and on the
tables were the richest meats and wines, and every
thing fit for the needs of warriors. So they rested

there the night, and, during the night, they heard
the cry of a new-born child. The next morning,
the man told them who he was, and that the woman
was Conchobar s half-sister Dechtire, and he ordered
them to take the child, and bring it up among the
warriors of Ulster. So they brought him back,
together with his mother and the maidens, and
Dechtir6 married Sualtam, and all the chiefs, cham
pions, druids, poets, and lawgivers of Ulster vied
with one another in bringing up the mysterious infant.
At first they called him Setanta; and this is how
he came to change his name. While still a child,
The Irish Iliad 161
he was the strongest of the boys of Emain Macha,

and the champion in their sports. One day he was
playing hurley single-handed against all the others,
and beating them, when Conchobar the King rode
by with his nobles on the way to a banquet given
by Culann, the chief smith of the Ultonians. Con
chobar called to the boy, inviting him to go with
them, and he replied that, when the game was
finished, he would follow. As soon as the Ulster
champions were in Culann s hall, the smith asked
the king s leave to unloose his terrible watch-dog,
which was as strong and fierce as a hundred hounds;
and Conchobar, forgetting that the boy was to
follow them, gave his permission. Immediately
the hound saw Setanta coming, it rushed at him,
open-mouthed. But the boy flung his playing-ball

into its mouth, and then, seizing it by the hind-legs,
dashed it against a rock till he had killed it.
The smith Culann was very angry at the death
of his dog; for there was no other hound in the
world like him for guarding a house and flocks.
So Setanta promised to find and train up another
one, not less good, for Culann, and, until it was
trained, to guard the smith s house as though he
were a dog himself. This is why he was called
Cuchulainn, that is, Culann s Hound"; and Cath-
"
bad the Druid prophesied that the time would

come when the name would be in every man s
mouth.
Not long after this, Cuchulainn overheard Cath-
bad giving druidical instruction, and one of his
pupils asking him what that day would be pro-
(B219) L
pitious for. Cathbad replied that, if any young

man first took arms on that day, his name would
be greater than that of any other hero s, but his
life would be short. At once, the boy went to King
Conchobar, and demanded arms and a chariot. Con-
chobar asked him who had put such a thought into
his head; and he answered that it was Cathbad the
Druid. So Conchobar gave him arms and armour,
and sent him out with a charioteer. That evening,
Cuchulainn brought back the heads of three cham
pions who had killed many of the warriors of Ulster.
He was then only seven years old.
The women of Ulster so loved Cuchulainn after
this that the warriors and insisted that
grew jealous,
a wife should be found for him. But Cuchulainn
was very hard to please. He would have only one,
Emer 1
,
the daughter of Forgall the Wily, the best
maiden in Ireland for the six gifts the gift of
beauty, the gift of voice, the gift of sweet speech,

the gift of needlework, the gift of wisdom, and the
gift of chastity. So he went to woo her, but she

laughed at him for a boy. Then Cuchulainn swore
by the gods of his people that he would make his
name known wherever the deeds of heroes were
spoken of, and Emer promised to marry him if he
could take her from her warlike kindred.
When Forgall, her father, came to know of this
betrothal, he devised a plan to put an end to it.
He went to visit King Conchobar at Emain Macha.
There he pretended to have heard of Cuchulainn
for the first time, and he saw him do all his feats.
i Pronounced Avair.
The Irish Iliad 163
He loud enough to be overheard by all, that if

said,
so promising a youth dared to go to the Island of
1
Scathach the Amazon, in the east of Alba, and
learn all her warrior- craft, no living man would be
able to stand before him. It was hard to reach
Scathach s Isle, and still harder to return from it,
and Forgall felt certain that, if Cuchulainn went,

he would get his death there.
Of course, nothing would now satisfy Cuchulainn but
going. His two friends, Laegaire the Battle- winner
and Conall the Victorious, said that they would go
with him. But, before they had gone far, they lost
heart and turned back. Cuchulainn went on alone,
crossing the Plain of 1 11- Luck, where men s feet
stuck fast, while sharp grasses sprang up and cut
them, and through the Perilous Glens, full of devour
ing wild beasts, until he came to the Bridge of the
Cliff, which rose on end, till it stood straight up like
a ship s mast, as soon as anyone put foot on it.
Three times Cuchulainn tried to cross it, and thrice
he failed. Then anger came into his heart, and a
magic halo shone round his head, and he did his
famous feat of the hero s salmon leap", and landed,
"
in one jump, on the middle of the bridge, and then

slid down it as it rose up on end.
Scathach was in the dun, with her two sons.

Cuchulainn went to her, and put his sword to her
breast, and threatened to kill her if she would not
teach him all her own skill in arms. So he became
her pupil, and she taught him all her war-craft. In
return, Cuchulainn helped her against a rival queen
1
Usually identified, however, with the Isle of Skye.
of the Amazons, called Aoife
1
. He conquered Aoife,
and compelled her to make peace with Scathach.
Then he returned to Ireland, and went in a
scythed chariot
Forgall to
palace. leaped s He
over its triple walls, and slew everyone who came
near him. Forgall met his death in trying to
escape Cuchulainn s rage. He found Emer, and
placed her in his chariot, and drove away; and,
every time that Forgall s warriors came up to them,
he turned, and slew a hundred, and put the rest
to flight. He reached Emain Macha in safety, and
he and Emer were married there.
And this, were the fame of Cu
so great, after
chulainn prowess sand Emer s beauty that the men
and women of Ulster yielded them precedence
him among the warriors and her among the women
in every feast and banquet at Emain Macha.
But all that Cuchulainn had done up to this time
was as nothing to the deeds he did in the great war
which all the rest of Ireland, headed by Ailill and
Medb, King and Queen of Connaught, made upon
2
Ulster, to get the Brown Bull of Cualgne. This
Bull was one of two, of fairy descent. They had
originallybeen the swineherds of two of the gods,
Bodb, King of the Sidhe of Munster, and Ochall
Ochne, King of the Sidhe of Connaught. As
swineherds they were in perpetual rivalry; then,
the better to carry on their quarrel, they changed
themselves into two ravens, and fought for a year;
1 Pronounced Eefa.
2 A literal translation by Miss Winifred Faraday of the Tdin Bo Chuailgnt from
the Book ofDun Cow and the Yellow Book
the of Lecan has been published by
Mr. Nutt Grimm Library, No. 16.
The Irish Iliad 165
next they turned into water - monsters, which tore

one another for a year in the Suir and a year in
the Shannon; then they became human again and
fought as champions; and ended by changing into
eels. One of these eels went into the River Cruind,
1
in Cualgne in Ulster, where it was swallowed by
,
a cow belonging to Daire of Cualgne, and the other

into the spring of Uaran Garad, in Connaught,
where it passed into the belly of a cow of Queen
Medb s. Thus were born those two famous beasts,
the Brown Bull of Ulster and the White-horned
Bull of Connaught.
Now
the White-horned was of such proud mind
that he scorned to belong to a woman, and he went
out of Medb s herds into those of her husband
Ailill. So that when Ailill and Medb one day, in
their idleness, counted up their possessions, to set
them off one against the other, although they were
equal in every other thing, in jewels and clothes
and household vessels, in sheep and horses and
swine and cattle, Medb had no one bull that was
worthy to be set beside Ailill s White-horned. Re
fusing to be less in anything than her husband,
the proud queen sent heralds, with gifts and compli
ments, to Daire, asking him to lend her the Brown
Bull for a year. Daire would have done so gladly
had not one of Medb s messengers been heard boast
ing in his cups that, if Daire had not lent the Brown
Bull of his own free-will, Medb would have taken
it. This was reported to Daire, who at once swore
that she should never have Medb s messenger
it.
i Pronounced Cooley.
returned; and the Queen of Connaught, furious at
his refusal, vowed that she would take it by force.
She assembled the armies of all the rest of Ireland
to go against Ulster, and made Fergus son of Roy,
an Ulster champion who had quarrelled with King
Conchobar, its leader. They expected to have an
easy victory, for the warriors of Ulster were at that
time lying under a magic weakness which fell upon
them for many days in each year, as the result of a
curse laid upon them, long before, by a goddess who
had been insulted by one of Conchobar s ancestors.
Medb called up a prophetess of her people to fore
tell victory. How do you see our hosts?" asked
"
the queen of the seeress. I see crimson on them;

"
I see she replied.

red," But the warriors of Ulster "
are lying in their sickness. Nay, how do you see

our men?" see them all crimson; I see them
"I
all she repeated.

red," And then she added to the
astonished queen, who had expected a quite different
foretelling: For I see a small man doing deeds of
"
arms, though there are many wounds on his smooth

skin the hero-light shines round his head, and there
;
is victory on his forehead; he is

richly clothed, and
young and beautiful and modest, but he is a dragon
in battle. His appearance and his valour are those
of Cuchulainn of Muirthemne who that Culann s ;
hound from Muirthemne may be, I do not know ;
but I know this, that all our army will be reddened

by him. He
setting out for battle; he will hew
is
down your hosts; the slaughter he shall make will

be long remembered; there will be many women
crying over the bodies mangled by the Hound of
The Irish Iliad 167
the Forge whom I see before me now."

1
For Cu-
chulainn was, for some reason unknown to us, the
only man in Ulster who was not subject to the
magic weakness, and therefore it fell upon him to
defend Ulster single-handed against the whole of
Medb s army.
In spite of the injury done him by King Concho-
bar, Fergus still kept a love for his own country.
He had not the heart to march upon the Ultonians
without first secretly sending a messenger to warn
them. So that, though all the other champions of
the Red Branch were helpless, Cuchulainn was
watching the marches when the army came.

Now begins the story of the aristeia of the Gaelic
hero. Itis, after the manner of epics, the record of
a series of single combats, in each of which Cuchu

lainn slays his adversary. Man after man comes
against him, and not one goes back. In the in
tervals between these duels, Cuchulainn harasses
the army with hundred men a
his sling, slaying a
day. He kills Medb s pet dog, bird, and squirrel,

and creates such terror that no one dares to stir out
of the camp. Medb herself has a narrow escape;
for one of her serving - women, who puts on her
mistress s golden head-dress, is killed by a stone
flung from Cuchulainn s sling.
The great queen determines to see with her own
eyes this marvellous hero who is holding all her
warriors at bay. She sends an envoy, asking him
to come and parley with her. Cuchulainn agrees,
and, at the meeting, Medb is amazed at his boyish
1
This prophecy (here much abridged) is, in the original, in verse.
look. She finds it hard to believe that it is this
beardless stripling of seventeen who is killing her
champions, until the whole army seems as though

it were melting away. She offers him her own
friendship and great honours and possessions in
Connaught if he will forsake Conchobar. He re
fuses; but she offers it again and again. At last
Cuchulainn indignantly declares that the next man
who comes with such a message will do so at his
peril. One bargain, however, he will make. He is
willing to fight one of the men of Ireland every day,
and, while the duel lasts, the main army may march
on; but, as soon as Cuchulainn has killed his man,
it must halt until the next
day. Medb agrees to
this,thinking it better to lose one man a day than a
hundred.
Medb makes the same every famous war
offer to
rior, to induce him to go against Cuchulainn. The

reward for the head of the champion will be the
hand of her daughter, Findabair 1 . In spite of this,
not one of the aspirants to the princess .can stand
before Cuchulainn. All perish; and Findabair,
when she finds out how she is being promised to a
fresh suitor every day, dies of shame. But, while
Cuchulainn is
engaged in these combats, Medb sends
men who scour Ulster for the brown bull, and find
him, and drive him, with fifty heifers, into her camp.
Meanwhile the Ês Sidhe, the fairy god-clan, are
watching the half-divine, half-mortal hero, amazed
at his achievements. His exploits kindle love in the
fierce heart of the Morrigii, the great war-goddess.
1
Finnavdr.
The Irish Iliad 169
Cuchulainn is awakened from sleep by a terrible

shout from the north. He orders his driver, Laeg,
to yoke the horses to his chariot, so that he may find
out who raised it. They go in the direction from
which the sound had come, and meet with a woman
in a chariot drawn by a red horse. She has red
eyebrows, and a red dress, and a long, red cloak,
and she carries a great, gray spear. He asks her
who she and she tells him that she is a king s
is,
daughter, and that she has fallen in love with him

through hearing of his exploits. Cuchulainn says
that he has other things to think of than love. She
replies that she has been giving him her help in his
battles, and will still do so; and Cuchulainn answers
that he does not need any woman s help.

"
Then/
says she, if you will not have
"
my love and help,

you shall have my hatred and enmity. When you
are fighting with a warrior as good as yourself,
I come against you in various shapes and hinder
will
you, so that he shall have the advantage." Cuchu

lainn draws his sword, but all he sees is a hoodie
crow sitting on a branch. He knows from this that
the red woman in the chariot was the great queen
of the gods.
The next day, a warrior named Loch went to
meet Cuchulainn. At first he refused to fight one
who was beardless; so Cuchulainn smeared his chin
with blackberry juice, until it looked as though he
had a beard. While Cuchulainn was fighting Loch,
the Morrfgri came against him three times first as
a heifer which tried to overthrow him, and next as
an eel which got beneath his feet as he stood in
running water, and then as a wolf which seized hold

of his right arm. But Cuchulainn broke the heifer s
leg, and trampled upon the and put out one of
eel,
the wolf s eyes, though, every one of these three
times,Loch wounded him. In the end, Cuchulainn
slew Loch with his invincible spear, the gae bolg^,
made of a sea-monster s bones. The Morrigu came
back to Cuchulainn, disguised as an old woman, to
have her wounds healed by him, for no one could
cure them but he who had made them. She became
his friend after this, and helped him.
But the fighting was so continuous that Cuchu
lainn got no sleep, except just for a while, from
time to time, when he might rest a little, with his
head on his hand and his hand on his spear and his
spear on his knee. So that his father, Lugh the Long-
handed, took pity on him and came to him in the
semblance of a tall, handsome man in a green cloak
and a gold-embroidered silk shirt, and carrying a
black shield and a five-pronged spear. He put him
into a sleep of three days and three nights, and,
while he rested, he laid druidical herbs on to all his
wounds, so that, in the end, he rose up again com
pletely healed and as strong as at the very beginning
of the war. While he was asleep, the boy-troop of
Emain Macha, Cuchulainn s old companions, came
and fought instead of him, and slew three times their
own number, but were all killed.
It was at this time that Medb asked Fergus to
go and fight with Cuchulainn. Fergus answered

that he would never fight against his own foster-
1 "
Bellows-dart", apparently a kind of harpoon. It had thirty barbs.

The Irish Iliad 171
son, Medb
asked him again and again, and at last
he went, but without his famous sword. Fergus,
"
my guardian," said Cuchulainn, "it is not safe for
you to come out against me without your sword."

"
If I had the sword," replied Fergus, I would not "
use it on you."
Then Fergus asked Cuchulainn,
for the sake of all he had done forhim in his boy
hood, to pretend to fight with him, and then give
way before him and run away. Cuchulainn answered
that he was very loth to be seen running from any
man. But Fergus promised Cuchulainn that, if
Cuchulainn would run away from Fergus then,
Fergus would run away from Cuchulainn at some
future time, whenever Cuchulainn wished. Cuchu
lainn agreed to this, for he knew that it would be
for the profit of Ulster. So they fought a little,
and then Cuchulainn turned and fled in the sight

of all Medb s army. Fergus went back; and Medb
could not reproach him any more.
But she cast about to find some other way of
vanquishing Cuchulainn. The agreement made had
been that only one man a day should be sent against
him. But now Medb sent the wizard Calatin with
his twenty-seven sons and his grandson all at once,
for she said they are really only one, for they are
"
all from Calatin s body". They never missed a

throw with their poisoned spears, and every man
they hit died, either on the spot or within the week.
When Fergus heard of this, he was in great grief,
and he sent a man called Fiacha, an exile, like him
self, from Ulster, to watch the fight and report how
it went. Now Fiacha did not mean to join in it,
but when he saw Cuchulainn assailed by twenty-nine
at a time, and overpowered, he could not restrain
himself. So he drew his sword and helped Cuchu
lainn, and, between them, they killed Calatin and his
whole family.
As a last resource, now, Medb sent for Ferdiad,
who was the great champion of the Iberian Men "
of Domnu", who had thrown in their lot with Medb

in the war for the Brown Bull. Ferdiad had been
a companion and fellow-pupil of Cuchulainn with
Scathach, and he did not wish to fight with him.
But Medb told him he refused, her satirists
that, if
should make such lampoons on him that he would
die of shame, and his name would be a reproach
for ever. She also offered him great rewards and
honours, and bound herself in six sureties to keep
her promises. At last, reluctantly, he went.
Cuchulainn saw him coming, and went out to
welcome him; but Ferdiad said that he had not
come as a friend, but to fight. Now Cuchulainn
had been Ferdiad s junior and serving-boy in Sca
thach s Island, and he begged him by the memory
of those old times to go back but Ferdiad said he
;
could not. They fought all day, and neither had

gained any advantage by sunset. So they kissed
one another, and each went back to his camp. Fer
diad sent half his food and drink to Cuchulainn,
and Cuchulainn sent half his healing herbs and
medicines to Ferdiad, and their horses were put
in same stable, and their charioteers slept by
the
the same fire. And so it happened on the second
day. But at the end of the third day they parted
I
:
CUCHULAINN CARRIES FERDIAD ACROSS THE RIVER

The Irish Iliad 173
gloomily, knowing that on the morrow one ot them

must fall; and their horses were not put in the same
stallthat night, neither did their charioteers sleep at
the same fire. On the fourth day, Cuchulainn suc
ceeded in Ferdiad, by casting the gae bolg
killing
at him from underneath. But when he saw that
he was dying, the battle-fury passed away, and he
took his old companion up in his arms, and carried
him across the river on whose banks they had
fought, so that he might be with the men of Ulster
in his death, and not with the men of Ireland. And
he wept over him, and said: was all a game and
"It
a sport until Fecdiad came; Oh, Ferdiad! your death

willhang over me like a cloud for ever. Yesterday
he was greater than a mountain to-day he is less ;
than a shadow."
By this Cuchulainn was so covered with

time,
wounds thathe could not bear his clothes to touch
his skin, but had to hold them off with hazel-sticks,
and fill the spaces in between with grass. There
was not a place on him the size of a needle-point
that had not a wound on it, except his left hand,
which held the shield.
But Sualtam, Cuchulainn s reputed father, had
learned what a sore plight his son was in. Do I "
hear the heaven bursting, or the sea running away,

or the earth breaking open," he cried, is it
my "or
son groaning that I hear?" He came to look for

s
him, and found him covered with wounds and blood.

But Cuchulainn would not let his father either weep
for him or try to avenge him. "Go, rather," he
said to him, Emain Macha, and tell Conchobar
"to
1
that can no longer defend Ulster against all the
I
four provinces of Erin without help. Tell him that

there no part of my body on which there is not
is
a wound, and that, if he wishes to save his kingdom,

he must make no delay."
Sualtam mounted Cuchulainn s war-horse, the
Gray of Battle", and galloped to Emain Macha.
"
Three times he shouted: Men are being killed,

"
women carried off, and cattle lifted in Ulster".

Twice he met with no response. The third time,
Cathbad the Druid roused himself from his lethargy
to denounce the man who was disturbing the king s
sleep. In his indignation Sualtam turned away so
sharply that the gray steed reared, and struck its

rider s shield against his neck with such force that
he was decapitated. The startled horse then turned
back into Conchobar s stronghold, and dashed
through it, Sualtam s severed head continuing to
cry out: "Men are being killed, women carried off,
and cattle lifted in Ulster." Such a portent was

enough to rouse the most drowsy. Conchobar,
himself again, swore a great oath. The heavens "
are over us, the earth is beneath us, and the sea
circles us round, and, unless the heavens fall, with
all their stars, or the earth gives way beneath us,
or the sea bursts over the land, I will restore every

cow to her stable, and every woman to her home."
He sent messengers to rally Ulster, and they
gathered, and marched on the men of Erin. And
then was fought such a battle as had never been
before in Ireland. First one side, then the other,
gave way and rallied again, until Cuchulainn heard

The Irish Iliad 175
the noise of the fight, and rose up, in spite of all his
wounds, and came to it.
He reminding him how he

called out to Fergus,
had bound himself with an oath to run from him
when upon to do so. So Fergus ran before
called
Cuchulainn, and when Medb s army saw their leader

running they broke and fled like one man.
But the Brown Bull of Cualgne went with the
army into Connaught, and there he met Ailill s
bull, the White-horned. And he fought the White-
horned, and tore him limb from limb, and carried
off pieces of him on his horns, dropping the loins
at Athlone and the liver at Trim. Then he went
back to Cualgne, and turned mad, killing all who
crossed his path, until his heart burst with bellowing,
and he fell dead.
This was the end of the great war called Tdin B6
ChuailgnS, the Driving of the Cattle of Cooley
"
".
Yet, wondrous as it was, it was not the most mar

vellous of Cuchulainn s exploits. Like all the solar
gods and heroes of Celtic myth, he carried his con
quests into the dark region of Hades. On this
occasion the mysterious realm is an island called
Dun Scaith, that is, the
"
Shadowy Town and

",
is not mentioned
its seems
though king by name, it
was Mider, and that Dun Scaith is
likely that he
another name for the Isle of Falga, or Man. The
1
story, as a poem relates
curiously suggestive it, is
of a raid which the powers of light, and especially

the sun-gods, are represented as having made upon
1
It is contained in the Book of the Dun Cow story called the "Phantom
Chariot".
Hades in kindred British myth. 1 The same loath
some combatants issue out of the underworld to
repel its There was a pit in the centre

assailants.
of Dun Scaith, out of which swarmed a vast throng
of serpents. No sooner had Cuchulainn and the
heroes of Ulster disposed of these than a house full "
was loosed upon them

"
of toads sharp, beaked

"
"
monsters (says the poem), which caught them by

the noses, and these were in turn replaced by fierce
dragons. Yet the heroes prevailed and carried off

the spoil three cows of magic qualities and a
marvellous cauldron in which was always found an
inexhaustible supply of meat, with treasure of silver
and gold to boot. They started back for Ireland in
a coracle, the three cows being towed behind, with
the treasure in bags around their necks. But the
gods of Hades raised a storm which wrecked their
ship, and they had to swim home. Here Cuchulainn s
more than mortal prowess came in useful. We are
told thathe floated nine men to shore on each of his
hands, and thirty on his head, while eight more,
clinging to his sides, used him as a kind of life-belt.
After came the tragedy of Cuchulainn s
this,
unhappy duel in which he killed his only

career, the
son, not knowing who he was. The story is one
common, apparently, to the Aryan nations, for it is
found not only in the Gaelic, but in the Teutonic
and Persian mythic traditions. It will be remem
bered that Cuchulainn defeated a rival of Scathach
the Amazon, named Aoife, and compelled her to
render submission. The hero had also a son by
1
See chap, xx "
The Victories of Light over Darkness ".

The Irish Iliad 177
Aoife, and he asked that the boy should be called

Conlaoch 1 and that, when he was of age to travel,
,
he should be sent to Ireland to find his father.

Aoife promised this, but, a little later, news came to
her that Cuchulainn had married Emer. Mad with
jealousy, she determined to make the son avenge
her slight upon the father. She taught him the
craft of arms until there was no more that he could
learn, and sent him to Ireland. Before he started,
she laid three geasa? upon him. The first was that
he was not to turn back, the second that he was
never to refuse a challenge, and the third that he
was never to tell his name.
He arrived at Dundealgan
3
,
Cuchulainn home,
s
and the warrior Conall came down to meet him,

and asked him his name and lineage. He refused
to tell them, and this led to a duel, in which Conall
was disarmed and humiliated. Cuchulainn next
approached him, asked the same question, and re
ceived the same answer. Yet if I was not under "
a command," said Conlaoch, who did not know he

was speaking to his father, there is no man in the "
world to whom I would sooner tell it than to your

self, for love your face."
I Even this compliment
could not stave off the fight, for Cuchulainn felt it
his duty to punish the insolence of this stripling who
refused to declare who he was. The fight was a
fierce one, and the invincible Cuchulainn found him
"
self so pressed that the

"
hero-light shone round
1 Pronounced Conla.
2
A kind of mystic prohibition or taboo ; singular, geis.
3 Now called Dundalk.
(B219) M
him and transfigured his face. When Conlaoch saw
this, he knew who his antagonist must be, and pur
posely flung his spear slantways that it might not
hit his father. But before Cuchulainn understood,
he had thrown the terrible
gae bolg. Conlaoch,
dying, declared his name and so passionate was Cu-
;
chulainn s grief that themen of Ulster were afraid

that in his madness he might wreak his wrath upon
them. They, therefore, called upon Cathbad the
Druid to put him under a glamour. Cathbad turned
the waves of the sea into the appearance of armed
men, and Cuchulainn smote them with his sword
until he fell prone from weariness.
It would take too long to relate all the other
adventures and exploits of Cuchulainn. Enough

has been done if any reader of this chapter should
be persuaded by itto study the wonderful saga of
ancient Ireland for himself. We
must pass on
quickly to its tragical close the hero s death.
Medb, Queen of Connaught, had never forgiven
him for keeping back her army from raiding Ulster,
and for slaying so many of her friends and allies.
So she went secretly to all those whose relations
Cuchulainn had killed (and they were many), and
stirred them up to revenge.
Besides this, she had sent the three daughters of
Calatin the Wizard, born after their father s death
at the hands of Cuchulainn, to Alba and to Babylon
to learn witchcraft. When they came back they
were mistresses of every kind of sorcery, and could
make the illusion of battle with an incantation.
And, lest she might fail even then, she waited
The Irish Iliad 179
with patience until the Ultonians were again in their

magic weakness, and there was no one to help
Cuchulainn but himself.
1
Lugaid son of the Curoi, King of Munster
,
whom Cuchulainn had killed for the sake of Blath-

nat, Mider s daughter, gathered the Munster men;
Ere, whose father had also fallen at Cuchulainn s
hands, called the men of Meath; the King of
Leinster brought out his army; and, with Ailill
and Medb and all Connaught, they marched into

Ulster again, and began to ravage it.
Conchobar called his warriors and druids into
council, to see if they could find some means of
putting off war until they were ready to meet it.

He did not wish Cuchulainn to go out single-
handed a second time against all the rest of Ireland,
for he knew that, if the champion perished, the
prosperity of Ulster would fall with him for ever.

So, when Cuchulainn came to Emain Macha, the
king set all the ladies, singers, and poets of the

court to keep his thoughts from war until the men
of Ulster had recovered from their weakness.
But while they sat feasting and talking in the
sunny house
"
the three daughters of Calatin came

",
fluttering down on to the lawn before it, and began

gathering grass and thistles and puff-balls and
withered leaves, and turning them into the semblance
of armies. And, by the same magic, they caused
shouts and shrieks and trumpet-blasts and the
clattering of arms to be heard all round the house,

as though a battle were being fought.
1 Pronounced Lewy.
i8o Mythology of the British Islands
Cuchulainn leaped up, red with shame to think
that fighting should be going on without his help,
and seized his sword. But Cathbad s son caught
him by the arms. All the druids explained to him
that what he saw was only an enchantment raised
by the children of Calatin to draw him out to his

death. But it was as much as all of them could do
to keep him quiet while he saw the phantom armies
and heard the magic sounds.
So they decided that it would be well to remove
Cuchulainn from Emain Macha to GUon-na-Bodkar\
the Deaf Valley
"
until all the enchantments of

",
the daughters of Calatin were spent. It was the
quality of this valley that, if all the men of Ireland

were to shout round it at once, no one within it
would hear a sound.
But the daughters of Calatin went there too, and
again they took thistles and puff-balls and withered
leaves, and put on them the appearance of armed
men; so that there seemed to be no place outside
the whole valley that was not filled with shouting
battalions. And they made the illusion of fires all
around and the sound of women shrieking. Every
one who heard that outcry was frightened at it, not
only the men and women, but even the dogs.

Though the women and the druids shouted back
with all the strength of their voices, to drown it
they could not keep Cuchulainn from hearing.

"
Alas!" he cried,
"
I hear the men of Ireland shout
ing as they ravage the province. My triumph is at

an end; my fame is gone; Ulster lies low for ever."
1
Pronounced Glen na Mower.
The Irish Iliad 181
"
Let it
pass,"
said Cathbad; "it is only the idle
magic noises made by the children of Calatin, who
want draw you out, to put an end to you. Stay
to
here with us, and take no heed of them."
Cuchulainn obeyed; and the daughters of Calatin
went on for a long time filling the air with noises of
battle. But they grew tired of it at last; for they
saw that the druids and women had outwitted them.
They did not succeed until one of them took
the form of a leman of Cuchulainn s, and came to
him, crying out that Dundealgan was burnt, and
Muirthemne ruined, and the whole province of
Ulster ravaged. Then, at last, he was deceived,
and took his arms and armour, and, in spite of all
that was said to him, he ordered Laeg to yoke his
chariot.
and portents now began to gather as
Signs
thickly round the doomed hero as they did round
the wooers in the hall of Odysseus. His famous
war-horse, the Gray of Macha, refused to be bridled,
and shed large tears of blood. His mother, Dech-
tire, brought him a goblet full of wine, and thrice
the wine turned into blood as he put it to his lips.

At the first ford he crossed, he saw a maiden of the
sidhe washing clothes and armour, and she told him
that it was the clothes and arms of Cuchulainn, who
was soon to be dead. He met three ancient hags
cooking a hound on spits of rowan, and they invited
him to partake of it. He refused, for it was taboo
to him to eat the flesh of his namesake; but
they
shamed him into doing so by telling him that he ate
at rich men s tables and refused the
hospitality of
the poor. The forbidden meat paralysed half his
body. Then he saw his enemies coming up against
him in their chariots.
Cuchulainn had three spears, of which it was
prophesied that each should kill a king. Three
druids were charged in turn to ask for these spears;
for was not thought lucky to refuse anything to
it
a druid. The first one came up to where Cuchu

lainn was making the plain red with slaughter.
Give me one of those spears," he said,
"
I will "or
lampoon you." "Take replied Cuchulainn, it,"

"I
have never yet been lampooned for refusing anyone

a And he threw the spear at the druid, and
gift."
killed him. But Lugaid, son of Curoi, got the

spear, and killed Laeg with it. Laeg was the king
of all chariot-drivers.
Give me one of your spears, Cuchulainn," said
"
the second druid. I need it

myself,"
he replied.
"
lampoon the province of Ulster because of

"
I will
you, if you refuse." I am not obliged to give "
more than one gift in a day," said Cuchulainn, "but

Ulster shall never be lampooned because of me."
He threw the spear at the druid, and it went
through his head. But Ere, King of Leinster, got
it, and mortally wounded the Gray of Macha, the
king of all horses.
"Give me your spear,"
said the third druid.
"
have paid due from myself and Ulster,"

all that is
replied Cuchulainn. your kindred

"
I will satirize
I shall never
you do not," said the druid.
"
if go
home, but I will be the cause of no lampoons there,"
answered Cuchulainn, and he threw the spear at the
The Irish Iliad 183
asker, and killed him. But Lugaid threw it back,

and it went through Cuchulainn s body, and wounded
him to the death.
Then, in his agony, he greatly desired to drink.

He asked his enemies to let him go to a lake that
lay close by, and quench his thirst, and then come
back again. If I cannot come back to you, come
"
to fetch me," he said; and they let him go.

Cuchulainn drank, and bathed, and came out of
the water. But he found that he could not walk;
so he called to his enemies to come to him. There
was a pillar-stone near; and he bound himself to it
with his belt, so that he might die standing up, and
not lying down. His dying horse, the Gray of
Macha, came back to fight for him, and killed fifty
men with his teeth and thirty with each of his hoofs.
But the hero-light" had died out of Cuchulainn s
"
face, leaving it as pale as one-night s snow and

"a ",
a crow came and perched upon his shoulder.

Truly it was not upon that pillar that birds used
"
to sit,"
said Ere.
Now were certain that Cuchulainn was
that they
dead, they all gathered round him, and Lugaid cut
off his head to take it to Medb. But vengeance
came quickly, for Conall the Victorious was in
pursuit, and he made a terrible slaughter of Cuchu
lainn s enemies.
Thus perished
the great hero of the Gaels in the
twenty-seventh year of his age. And with him fell

the prosperity of Emain Macha and of the Red
Branch of Ulster.
CHAPTER XIII
SOME GAELIC LOVE-STORIES
The was not, however, the

heroic age of Ireland
mere orgy of which one might assume from
battle
the previous chapter. It had room for its Helen
and its Andromache as well as for its Achilles and

its Hector. Its champions could find time to make
love as well as war. More than this, the legends of
their courtships often have a romantic beauty found
in no other early literature. The women have free
scope of choice, and claim the respect of their
wooers. Indeed, it has been pointed out that the
mythical stories of the Celts must have created the
chivalrous romances of mediaeval Europe. In them,
and in no other previous literature, do we find such
knightly treatment of an enemy as we see in the
story of Cuchulainn and Ferdiad, or such poetic

delicacy towards a woman as is displayed in the
wooing of Emer.
1
The talk between man and
maid when Cuchulainn comes in his chariot to pay
his suit to Emer at Forgall s dtin might, save for its
strangeness, almost have come out of some quite

modern romance.
1 The romance of the
Wooing of Emer, a fragment of which is contained in the
Book of the Dun Cow, has been translated by Dr. Kuno Meyer, and published by
him in the Archaeological Review, Vol. I, 1888. Miss Hull has included this
translation in her Cuchullin Saga. Another version of it from a Bodleian MS.,
translated by the same scholar, will be found in the Revue Ctltiqut, Vol. XI.
184
Some Gaelic Love-Stories 185
"
Emer
up her lovely face and recognised
lifted
Cuchulainn, and she said, May God make smooth

the path before you!
"
And you, he said, may you be safe from

harm."
every
She asks him whence he has come, and he tells
her. Then he questions her about herself.

"I am a Tara of women," she replies, "the
whitest of maidens, one who is gazed at but who

gazes not back, a rush too far to be reached, an
untrodden way. ... I was brought up in ancient
virtues, behaviour, in the keeping of
in lawful
chastity, in rank equal to a queen, in stateliness of

form, so that to me is attributed every noble grace
among the hosts of Erin s women." In more boast
ful strain Cuchulainn and
tells of his own birth
deeds. Not like the son of a peasant had he been
reared at Conchobar s court, but among heroes and
champions, jesters and druids. When he is weakest
his strength is that of twenty; alone he will fight
against forty; a hundred men would feel safe under

his protection. One can imagine Emer s smile as
she listens to these braggings. Truly,"
she says,
"
they are goodly feats for a tender boy, but they

"
are not yet those of chariot-chiefs." Very modern,

too, is the way in which she coyly reminds her
wooer that she has an elder sister as yet unwed.
But, when at last he drives her to the point, she
answers him with gentle, but proud decision. Not
by words, but by deeds is she to be won. The man
she will marry must have his name mentioned
wherever the exploits of heroes are spoken of.
Even as thou hast commanded, so shall
"
all by
me be done," said Cuchulainn.
And by me your offer is accepted, it is
"
taken,
it is
replied Emer.
granted,"
seems a pity that, after so fine a wooing,

It
Cuchulainn could not have kept faithful to the bride

he won. Yet such is not the way of heroes whom
goddesses as well as mortal women conspire to
tempt from their loyalty. Fand, the wife of Man-
annan son of Ler, deserted by the sea-god, sent
her sister Liban to Cuchulainn as an ambassador of
love. At first he refused to visit her, but ordered
Laeg, his charioteer, to go with Liban to the
"
Plain spy out the land.

"
Happy to Laeg re
turned enraptured. "If all Ireland were mine,"
he assured his master, "
with supreme rule over

its fair inhabitants, I would give it
up without
regret to go and live in the place that I have
seen."
So Cuchulainn himself went and stayed a month

in the Celtic Paradise with Fand, the fairest woman
of the Sidhe. Returning he to the land of mortals,
made a tryst with the goddess to meet him again in
his own country by the yew - tree at the head of
Baile s strand.
But Emer came to hear of it, and went to the
meeting-place herself, with fiftyof her maidens, each

armed with a knife to kill her rival. There she
found Cuchulainn, Laeg, and Fand.
What has led you, Cuchulainn," said Emer, to
" "
shame me before the women of Erin and all honour

able people? I came under your shelter, trusting
CUCHULAINN REBUKED BY EMER
From the Draining by H. R. Millar
in your faithfulness, and now you seek a cause of

quarrel with me."
But Cuchulainn, hero-like, could not understand

why his wife should not be content to take her turn
with this other woman surely no unworthy rival,
for she was beautiful, and came of the lofty race of
gods. We
see Emer yield at last, with queenly
pathos.
"
I will not refuse this woman to you, if you long

for her," she said, for I know that everything that
is new seems fair, and everything that is common
seems bitter, and everything we have not seems
desirable to us, and everything we have we think
little of. And yet, Cuchulainn, I was once pleasing
to you, and I would wish to be so again."
Her grief touched him. By my word," he said,
"
"you
are pleasing to me, and will be as long as I
live."
"
Then let me be given up,"

said Fand.
"
It is
better that I should be," replied Emer. "
No," said
Fand;
"
it is I who must be given up in the end.

"It is I who will go, though I go with great
sorrow. would rather stay with Cuchulainn than
I
live in the sunny home of the gods.

"
O Emer, he is yours, and you are worthy of

him! What my hand cannot have, my heart may
yet wish well to.
"
A
sorrowful thing it is to love without return.
Better to renounce than not to receive a love equal
to one s own.
"It was not well of you, O fair- haired Emer, to
come to kill Fand in her misery."
was while the goddess and the human woman
It
were contending with one another in self-sacrifice

that Manannan, Son of the Sea, heard of Fand s
trouble, and was sorry that he had forsaken her.
So he came, invisible to all but her alone. He
asked her pardon, and she herself could not forget
that she had once been happy with the horseman "
of the crested waves and still might be happy

",
with him again. The god asked her to make her

choice between them, and, when she went to him,
he shook his mantle between her and Cuchulainn.
It was one of the magic properties of Manannan s
mantle that those between whom it was shaken

could never meet again. Then Fand returned with
her divine husband to the country of the immortals;
and the druids of Emain Macha gave Cuchulainn
and Emer each a drink of oblivion, so that Cuchu
1
lainn forgot his love and Emer her jealousy.
The scene of this story takes its name from
another, and hardly less beautiful love -tale. The
"
yew-tree at the head of Baile s strand had grown

"
out of the grave of Baile of the Honeyed Speech,

and it bore the appearance of Baile s love, Ailinn.
This Gaelic Romeo and were of royal birth:
Juliet
Baile was heir to Ulster, and Ailinn was daughter
of the King of Leinster s son. Not by any feud
of Montague and Capulet were they parted, how
ever, but by the craft of a ghostly enemy. They
had appointed to meet one another at Dundealgan,
i This
story, known as the Sick-Bed of Cuchulainn, translated into French by
M. d Arbois de Jubainville, will be found in his LjApopte Celtique en Irlande, the fifth
volume of Cour de Litttrature Celtique. Another translation, into English, by
Eugene O Curry is in Atlantis, Vols. I and II.
and Baile, who arrived there first, was greeted by a

stranger. What news do you bring?" asked Baile.
"
replied the stranger, except that Ailinn

"
"None,"
of Leinster was setting out to meet her lover, but

the men of Leinster kept her back, and her heart
broke then and there from grief." When Baile
heard this, his own heart broke, and he fell dead
on the strand, while the messenger went on the
wings of the wind home of Ailinn, who had

to the
not yet started. "
Whence come you?" she asked

him. "
From Ulster, by the shore of Dundealgan,

where I saw men raising a stone over one who had
just died, and on the stone I read the name of Baile.
He had come to meet some woman he was in love
with, but it was destined that they should never see
one another again in At this news Ailinn, too,
life."
fell dead, and was buried; and we are told that an
apple-tree grew out of her grave, the apples of which

bore the likeness of the face of Baile, while a yew-
tree sprung from Baile s grave, and took the appear
ance of Ailinn. This legend, which is probably a
part of the common
heritage of the Aryans, is found
in folk-lore over an area which stretches from Ireland
to India. The Gaelic version has, however, an end
ing unknown to the others. The two trees, it relates,
were cut down, and made into wands upon which
the poets of Ulster and of Leinster cut the songs of
the love-tragedies of thefr two provinces, in ogam.
But even these mute memorials of Baile and Ailinn
were destined not to be divided. After two hundred
years, Art the "Lonely", High-King of Ireland,
ordered them to be brought to the hall of Tara,
and, as soon as the wands found themselves under
the same roof, they all sprang together, and no force
or skill could part them again. So the king com
manded them to be "
kept, like any other jewel, in

the treasury of Tara." 1
Neither of these stories,however, has as yet
attained the fame of one now to be retold.
2
To
many, no doubt, Gaelic romance is summed up in
the one word Deirdre. It is the legend of this
Gaelic Helen that the poets of the modern Celtic

school most love to elaborate, while old men still tell
it round the
peat-fires of Ireland and the Highlands.
Scholar and peasant alike combine to preserve a
tradition no one knows how many hundred years
old, for it was written down in the twelfth-century

Book of Leinster as one of the "prime stories"
which every bard was bound to be able to recite
It takes rank with the Fate of the Sons of Tui- "
renn and with the Fate of the Children of Ler

",
"
",
as one of the Three Sorrowful Stories of Erin

"
".
So favourite a tale has naturally been much altered

and added to in its passage down the generations.
But its essential story is as follows:
King Conchobar of Ulster was holding festival in
the house of one of his bards, called Fedlimid, when
Fedlimid s wife gave birth to a daughter, concerning
whom Cathbad the Druid uttered a prophecy. He
1 For the full story of Baile and Ailinn see Dr. Kuno Meyer s translation in
Vol. XIII of the Revue Celtique.
2
There are not only numerous translations of this romance, but also many
Gaelic versions. The of Leinster, while the fullest
oldest of the latter is in the Book
are in two MSS. in the Advocates Library at Edinburgh. The version followed
here is from one of these, the so-called Glenn Masain MS., translated by Dr.
Whitley Stokes, and contained in Miss Hull s Cuchullin Saga.
foretold that the new-born child would grow up to

be the most lovely woman the world had ever
seen, but that her beauty would bring death to
many heroes, and much peril and sorrow to Ulster.
On hearing this, the Red Branch warriors demanded
that she should be killed, but Conchobar refused,
and gave the infant to a trusted serving-woman,
to be hidden in a secret place in the solitude of
the mountains, until she was of an age to be his
own wife.
So Deirdre Cathbad named her) was taken
(as
away to a hut so remote from the paths of men that
none knew of it save Conchobar. Here she was
brought up by a nurse, a fosterer, and a teacher,
and saw no other living creatures save the beasts
and birds of the hills. Nevertheless, woman-like,
she aspired to be loved.
One day, her fosterer was killing a calf for their
food, and its blood ran out upon the snowy ground,
which brought a black raven swooping to the spot.
there were a man," said Deirdre, "who had
"If
hair of the blackness of that raven, skin of the

whiteness of the snow, and cheeks as red as the
calf s blood, that is the man whom I would wish
to marry me."
Indeed there is such a man," replied her teacher
"
1
thoughtlessly. Naoise one of the sons of Usnach 2
"
, ,
heroes of the same race as Conchobar the King.

The curious Deirdre prevailed upon her teacher
to bring Naoise to speak with her. When they
met she made good use of her time, for she offered
1
Pronounced Natsi. a
Pronounced Usna.
Naoise her love, and begged him to take her away
from King Conchobar.
Naoise, bewitched by her beauty, consented.
Accompanied by his two brothers, Ardan and
Ainle, and their followers, he fled with Deirdre
to Alba, where they made alliance with one of its
kings, and wandered over the land, living by follow
ing the deer, and by helping the king in his battles.
The revengeful Conchobar bided his time. One
day, as the heroes of the Red Branch feasted to
gether at Emain Macha, he asked them if they had
ever heard of a nobler company than their own.
They replied that the world could not hold such
another. "Yet",
said the king, "we lack our full
tale. The three sons of Usnach could defend the

province of Ulster against any other province of
Ireland by themselves, and it is a pity that they
should still be exiles, for the sake of any woman
in the world. Gladly would I welcome them back!"
"We ourselves", replied the Ultonians, "would
have counselled this long ago had we dared, O

King!"
"
Then I will send one of my three best champions

said Conchobar. Either Conall
"
to fetch them,"
the Victorious, or Cuchulainn, the son of Sualtam,

or Fergus, the son of Roy and I will find out which ;
of those three loves me best."
First he called Conall to him secretly.

"What would you he asked,
do, O Conall," "if
you were sent to fetch the sons of Usnach, and they

were killed here, in spite of your safe-conduct?"
There is not a man in Ulster," answered Conall,
"
had hand
"who in it that would escape his own
death from me."
"I see that I am not dearest of all men to you,"
replied Conchobar, and, dismissing Conall,

he called
Cuchulainn, and put the same question to him.
By my sworn
"
Cuchulainn,
"
if
word," replied
such a thing happened with your consent, no bribe
or blood-fine would I accept in lieu of your own
head, O Conchobar."
"
Truly,"
said the king,
"
it is not you I will
send."
The king and he replied

then asked Fergus,
that, if the sons of Usnach were slain while under
his protection, he would revenge the deed upon
anyone who was party to it, save only the king

himself.
"
Then it is you who shall go,"

said Conchobar.
"
Set forth to-morrow, and rest not by the way,

and when you put foot again in Ireland at the
Dun of Borrach, whatever may happen to you
yourself, send the sons of Usnach forward with
out delay."
The
next morning, Fergus, with his two sons,
Illann the Fair and Buinne the Ruthless Red, set
out for Alba in and reached Loch their galley,
Etive, by whose shores the sons of Usnach were

then living. Naoise, Ainle, and Ardan were sitting
at chess when they heard Fergus s shout.
"
That is the cry of a man of Erin," said Naoise.
"Nay," replied Deirdre, who had forebodings of

trouble.
"
Do not heed it; it is

only the shout of a
man of Alba." But the sons of Usnach knew better,
and sent Ardan down to the sea-shore, where he
found Fergus and his sons, and gave them greet
ing, and heard their message, and brought
them
back with him.
That night Fergus persuaded the sons of Usnach
to return with him to Emain Macha. Deirdre, with
her "second sight", implored them to remain in
Alba. But the exiles were weary for the sight of
their own country, and did not share their com
panion s fears. As
they put out to sea, Deirdre
uttered her beautiful Farewell to Alba", that land
"
she was never to behold again.

"
A lovable land is yon eastern land,

Alba, with its marvels.
I would not have come hither out of it,
Had I not come with Naoise.
"
Lovable are Dun-fidga and Dun-firm,

Lovable the fortress over them;
Dear to the heart Inis Draigende,
And very dear is Dun Suibni.
"Caill Cuan!
Unto which Ainle would wend, alas!
Short the time seemed to me,
With Naoise in the region of Alba.
"Glenn Laid!
Often I slept there under the cliff;
Fish and venison and the fat of the badger
Was my portion in Glenn Laid.
"Glenn Masain!
Its garlicwas tall, its branches white;
We slept a rocking sleep,
Over the grassy estuary of Masain.
"Glenn Etive!
Where my first house I raised ;
Beauteous its wood: upon rising

A cattle-fold for the sun was Glenn Etive.
"Glenn Da-Ruad!
My love to every man who hath it as an heritage!
Sweet the cuckoos note on bending bough,
On the peak over Glenn Da-Ruad.
"
Beloved is Draigen,
Dear the white sand beneath its waves;
I would not have come from it, from the East,
Had I not come with my beloved."
They crossed the sea, and arrived at the Dtin of

Borrach, who bade them welcome to Ireland. Now
King Conchobar had sent Borrach a secret com
mand, that he should offer a feast to Fergus on his
landing. Strange taboos called geasa are laid upon
the various heroes of ancient Ireland in the stories;
there are certain things that each one of them may
not do without forfeiting life or honour; and it was
a geis upon Fergus to refuse a feast.
Fergus, are told, we
reddened with anger from "
crown to sole at the invitation. Yet he could not

"
avoid the asked Naoise what he should

feast. He
do, and Deirdre broke in with: Do what is asked "
of you if you prefer to forsake the sons of Usnach

for a feast. Yet forsaking them is a good price to
pay for it."
Fergus, however, perceived a possible compro

mise. Though he himself could not refuse to stop
to partake of Borrach s
hospitality, he could send
Deirdre and the sons of Usnach on to Emain
Macha under the safeguard of his two sons,
at once,
Illann the Fair and Buinne the Ruthless Red. So
this was done, albeit to the annoyance of the sons
of Usnach and the terror of Deirdre. Visions came
to the sorrowful woman; she saw the three sons of
Usnach and Illann, the son of Fergus, without their
heads; she saw a cloud of blood always hanging
over them. She begged them to wait in some safe
place until Fergus had finished the feast. But
Naoise, Ainle, and Ardan laughed at her fears.
They arrived at Emain Macha, and Conchobar

Red Branch palace to be placed at
"
ordered the "
their disposal.
In the evening Conchobar called Levarcham,
Deirdre s old teacher, to him. "Go", he said,"to
the Red Branch and see Deirdre, and bring me

,
back news of her appearance, whether she still

keeps her former beauty, or whether it has left her."
So Levarcham came to the "Red Branch", and

kissed Deirdre and the three sons of Usnach, and
warned them that Conchobar was preparing treach
ery. Then she went back to the king, and reported
to him that Deirdre s hard life upon the mountains
sf Alba had ruined her form and face, so that she
was no longer worthy of his regard.
At this, Conchobar s jealousy was partly allayed,
and he began to doubt whether it would be wise to
attack the sons of Usnach. But later on, when he
had drunk well of wine, he sent a second messenger
to see if what Levarcham had reported about Deir
dre was truth.
The messenger, this time a man, went and looked

in through a window. Deirdre saw him and pointed
him out who flung a chessman at the peer
to Naoise,
ing face, and put out one of its eyes. But the man
went back to Conchobar, and told him that, though
one of his eyes had been struck out, he would gladly
have stayed looking with the other, so great was
Deirdre s loveliness.
Then Conchobar, in his wrath, ordered the men

of Ulster to set fire to the Red Branch House and
slay all within it
except Deirdre. They flung fire
brands upon it, but Buinne the Ruthless Red came
out and quenched them, and drove the assailants
back with slaughter. But Conchobar called to him
and offered him a
hundred of land and
"
"
to parley,
his friendship to desert the sons of Usnach. Buinne
was tempted, and fell; but the land given him
turned barren that very night in indignation at
being owned by such a traitor.
The
other of Fergus s sons was of different make.
He charged out, torch in hand, and cut down the
Ultonians, so that they hesitated to come near the
house again. Conchobar dared not offer him a
bribe. But he armed his own son, Fiacha, with
his own magic weapons, including his shield, the
"
which roared when its owner was in

Moaner",
danger, and sent him to fight Illann.

The duel was a fierce one, and Illann got the
better of Fiacha, so that the son of Conchobar had
to crouch down beneath his shield, which roared for
help. Conall the Victorious heard the roar from far

off, and thought that his king must be in peril. He
came to the place, and, without asking questions,
Blue-green through Illann. The

"
thrust his spear

"
dying son of Fergus explained the situation to

Conall, who, by way of making some amends, at
once killed Fiacha as well.
After this, the sons ofUsnach held their fort till
dawn against all Conchobar s host. But, with day,
they saw that they must either escape or resign
themselves to perish. Putting Deirdre in their
centre, protected by their shields, they opened the

door suddenly and fled out.
They would have broken through and escaped,
had not Conchobar asked Cathbad the Druid to
put a spell upon them, promising to spare their
lives. So Cathbad raised the illusion of a stormy
sea before and around the sons of Usnach.
all
Naoise lifted Deirdre upon his shoulder, but the

magic waves rose higher, until they were all obliged
to fling away their weapons and swim.
Then was seen the strange sight of men swim
ming upon dry land. And, before the glamour

passed away, the sons of Usnach were seized from
behind, and brought to Conchobar.
In spite of his promise to the druid, the king
condemned them to death. None of the men of
Ulster would, however, deal the blow. In the end,
a foreigner from Norway, whose father Naoise had
slain, offered to behead them. Each of the brothers
begged to die first, that he might not witness the
deaths of the others. But Naoise ended this noble
rivalry by lending their executioner the sword
called "The Retaliator", which had been given
DEIRDRE S LAMENT
From the Drawing by J. H. Bacon, A.R.A.
him by Manannan son of Ler. They knelt down
side by side, and one blow of the sword of the god
shore off all their heads.
As varying stories of her
for Deirdre, there are
death, but most of them agree that she did not

survive the sons of Usnach many hours. But,
before she died, she made an elegy over them.
That it is of a singular pathos and beauty the few
verses which there is space to give will show. 1
the day without Usnach s children

"
Long !
Itwas not mournful to be in their company!

Sons of a king by whom sojourners were entertained,
Three lions from the Hill of the Cave.
Three darlings of the women of Britain,

Three hawks of Slieve Gullion,
Sons of a king whom valour served,
To whom soldiers used to give homage 1
"
That I should remain after Naoise

Let no one in the world suppose:
After Ardan and Ainle
My time would not be long.
Ulster s over-king, my first husband,

"
I forsook for Naoise s love.

Short my life after them :
I will perform their funeral game.
"
After them I shall not be alive

Three that would go into every conflict,
i It will be found in full in Miss Hull s Cuchullin Saga. The version there
given was first translated into French by M. Ponsinet from the Book of Leinster.
2OO Mythology of the British Islands
Three who liked to endure hardships,
Three heroes who refused not combats.
"
O man, that diggest the tomb

And puttest my darling from me,
Make not the grave too narrow:
I shall be beside the noble ones."
was a poor triumph for Conchobar. Deirdre in

It
allher beauty had escaped him by death. His own

chief followers never forgave it. Fergus, when he
returned from Borrach s feast, and found out what
had been done, gathered his own people, slew Con
chobar s son and many of his warriors, and fled to
Ulster s bitterest enemies, Ailill and Medb of Con-
naught. And Cathbad the Druid cursed both king

and kingdom, praying that none of Conchobar s
race might ever reign in Emain Macha again.
So it came to pass. The capital of Ulster was
only kept from ruin by Cuchulainn s prowess. When
he perished, it also fell, and soon became what it is
now a grassy hill.
CHAPTER XIV
1
FINN AND THE FENIANS
The epoch of Emain Macha is followed in the

annals of ancient Ireland by a succession of mon-
archs who, though doubtless as mythical as King
Conchobar and his court, seem to grow gradually
more human. Their line lasts for about two cen
turies, culminating in a dynasty with which legend
has occupied itself more than with its immediate pre
decessors. This is the one which began, according
to the annalists, in A.D. 177, with the famous Conn
the Hundred- Fighter", and, passing down to the
4
reign of his even more famous grandson, Cormac

"
the Magnificent", is connected with the third Gaelic

cycle that which relates the exploits of Finn and
the Fenians. All these kings had their dealings with
the national gods. A story contained in a fifteenth-
century Irish manuscript, and called "The
Champion s
2
Prophecy", tells how Lugh appeared to Conn, en
veloped him in a magic him away to an
mist, led
enchanted palace, and there prophesied to him the
number of his descendants, the length of their reigns,
i The translations of Fenian

stories are numerous. The reader will find many of
them popularly retold in Lady Gregory s Gods and Fighting Men. Thence he may
pass on to Mr. Standish Hayes O Grady s Silva Gadelica the Waifs and Strays ;
of Celtic Tradition, especially Vol. IV Mr. J. G. Campbell s The Fians as well

; ;
as the volumes of the Revue Celtique and the Transactions

of the Ossianic Society.
3
See O Curry s translation in Appendix cxxvni to his MS. Materials.
201
2O2 Mythology of the British Islands
and the manner of their deaths. Another tradition
relates how Conn s son, Connla, was wooed by a
goddess and borne away, like the British Arthur,
in a boat of glass to the Earthly Paradise beyond
the sea. 1 Yet another relates Conn s own marriage
with Becuma of the Fair Skin, wife of that same
Labraid of the Quick Hand on Sword who, in an
other legend, married Liban, the sister of Fand,
Cuchulainn s fairy love. Becuma had been dis
covered an intrigue with Gaiar, a son of Man-
in
annan, and, banished from the Land of Promise", "
crossed the sea that sunders mortals and immortals

to offer herhand to Conn. The Irish king wedded
her, but evil came of the marriage. She grew
jealous of Conn s other son, Art, and insisted upon
his banishment; but they agreed to play chess to
decide which should go, and Art won. Art, called
"the
Lonely" because he had lost his brother
Connla, was king after Conn, but he is chiefly
known to legend as the father of Cormac.
Many Irish stories occupy themselves with the

fame of Cormac, who is pictured as a great legislator
a Gaelic Solomon. Certain traditions credit him
with having been the first to believe in a purer
doctrine than the Celtic polytheism, and even with
having attempted to put down druidism, in revenge

for which a druid called Maelcen sent an evil spirit
who placed a salmon-bone crossways in the king s
throat, as he sat at meat, and so compassed his
death. Another class of stones, however, make him
1 The story, found in the Book of the Dun Cow, appears in French in De Jubain-
ville s 6pope Celtique.
Finn and the Fenians 203
an especial favourite with those same heathen deities.
Manannan son of Ler, was so anxious for his friend
ship that he decoyed him into fairyland, and gave

him a magic branch. It was of silver, and bore
golden apples, and, when it was shaken, it made
such sweet music that the wounded, the sick, and
the sorrowful forgot their pains, and were lulled into
deep sleep. Cormac kept this treasure all his life;

but, at his death, it returned into the hands of the
1
gods.
King Cormac was a contemporary of Finn mac
Coul 2 ,
whom
he appointed head of the Fianna*
Eirinn, more generally known as the Fenians "
".
Around Finn and his men have gathered a cycle

of legends which were equally popular with the
Gaels of both Scotland and Ireland. read of We
their exploits in stories and poems preserved in the
earliest Irish manuscripts, while among the pea
santry both of Ireland and of the West Highlands

their names and the stories connected with them are
still current lore. Upon some of these floating tra
as preserved in folk ballads, MacPherson
ditions,
founded his factitious Ossian, and the collection
of them from the lips of living men still affords
plenty of employment to Gaelic students.

How far Finn and his followers may have been
historicalpersonages it is impossible to say. The
Irish people themselves have always held that the
Fenians were a kind of native militia, and that Finn
1
This famous story is told in several MSS. of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen
turies. For translations see Dr. Whitley Stokes, Irische Texte, and Standish Hayes
O Grady, Transactions of the Ossianic Society, Vol. III.
* 8 Pronounced Fena.
In Gaelic spelling, Fionn mac Cumhail.
was their general. The early historical writers of
Ireland supported this view. The chronic/er Tigher-
nach, who
died in 1088, believed in him, and the
"
Annals of the Four Masters", compiled between

the years 1632 and 1636 from older chronicles, while
they ignore King Conchobar and his Red Branch

Champions as unworthy of the serious consideration
of historians, treat Finn as a real person whose death
took place in 283 A.D. Even so great a modern
scholar as Eugene O Curry declared in the clearest
language that Finn, so far from being "a
merely
imaginary or mythical character", was "an un
doubtedly historical personage; and that he existed
about the time at which his appearance is recorded
in the Annals is as certain as that Julius Caesar
lived and ruled at the time stated on the authority
of the Roman historians".
1
The
opinion of more recent Celtic scholars, how
ever, opposed to this view. Finn s pedigree, pre
is
served in the Book of Leinster, may seem at first to

give some support to the theory of his real existence,
but, on more careful examination of it, his own name
and that of his father equally bewray him. Finn
or Fionn, the name of one of the
"
is
meaning fair",
mythical ancestors of the Gaels, while his father s

2
name, Cumhal signifies the ,
and is the same "sky",
word as Camulus, the Gaulish heaven-god identified

by the Romans with Mars. His followers are as
doubtfully human as himself. One may compare
them with Cuchulainn and the rest of the heroes of
Emain Macha. Their deeds are not less marvellous.
1
O Curry MS.
:
Materials, Lecture XIV, p. 303.
2
Pronounced Coul or Cooal.
Like the Ultonian warriors, they move, too, on equal

terms with the gods. "The Fianna of Erin", says
1
a tract called "The Dialogue of the Elders", con
tained in thirteenth and fourteenth century manu
scripts, had not more frequent and free intercourse

"
with the men of settled habitation than with the
Angus, Mider, Ler, Man-

2
Tuatha De" Danann".
anndn, and Bodb the Red, with their countless sons

and daughters, loom as large in the Fenian, or so-
called "Ossianic" stories as do the Fenians them
selves. fight for them, or against them; they
They
marry them, and are given to them in marriage.
A luminous suggestion of Professor Rhys also
hints that the Fenians inherited the conduct of that
ancient war formerly waged between the Tuatha
De" Danann and the Fomors. The most common
antagonists of Finn and his heroes are tribes of
invaders from oversea, called in the stories the
Locklannach. These Men of Lochlann" are usually
"
by those who look for history in the stories

identified,
of the Fenian cycle, with the invading bands of
Norsemen who harried the Irish coasts in the ninth
century. But the nucleus of the Fenian tales ante

dates these Scandinavian raids, and mortal foes have
probably merely stepped into the place of those im

mortal enemies of the gods whose Lochlann" was
"
3
a country, not over the sea but under it.
The earlier historians of Ireland were as ready

with their dates and facts regarding the Fenian band
i
Agalamh na Sentirach. Under the title The Colloquy of the Ancients, there is
an excellent translation of it, from the Book of Lismore, in Standish Hayes O Grady s
Silva Gadelica. 5
O Grady Silva Gadelica.
:
3 Hibbert
Lectures, p. 355.
as an institution as with the personality of Finn.
It was said to have been first organized by a king
called Fiachadh, in 300 and abolished, or rather,

B.C.,
exterminated, by Cairbre, the son of Cormac mac

Art, in 284 A.D. We
are told that it consisted of
three regiments modelled on the Roman legion;
each of these bodies contained, on a peace footing,
three thousand men, but in time of war could be
indefinitely strengthened. Its object was to defend

the coasts of and the country generally,
Ireland
throwing weight upon the side of any prince

its
who happend to be assailed by foreign foes. During

the six months of winter, its members were quar
tered upon the population, but during the summer
they had to forage for themselves, which they did
by hunting and fishing. Thus they lived in the

woods and on the open moors, hardening themselves
for battle by their adventurous life. The sites of
their enormous camp-fires were long pointed out
under the name of the Fenians cooking-places".
"
It was not easy to become a member of this famous
band. A candidate had to be not only an expert

warrior, but a poet and a man of culture as well.
He had practically to renounce his tribe; at any
rate he made oath that he would neither avenge
any of his relatives nor be avenged by them. He

put himself under bonds never to refuse hospitality
to anyone who asked, never to turn his back in
battle, never to insult any woman, and not to accept

a dowry with his wife. In addition to all this, he
had to pass successfully through the most stringent
physical tests. Indeed, as these have come down
to us, magnified by the perfervid Celtic imagination,

they are of an altogether marvellous and impossible
character. An aspirant to the Fianna Eirinn, we
are told, had first to stand up to his knees in a pit
dug for him, his only arms being his shield and a
hazel wand, while nine warriors, each with a spear,
standing within the distance of nine ridges of land,

all hurled their weapons at him at once; if he failed
to ward them all off, he was rejected. Should he
succeed in this first test, he was given the distance
of one tree-length s start, and chased through a

forest by armed men; if any of them came up to
him and wounded him, he could not belong to the
Fenians. If he escaped unhurt, but had unloosed
a single lock of his braided hair, or had broken a
single branch in his flight, or if, at the end of the
run, his weapons trembled in his hands, he was
refused. As, besides these tests, he was obliged to
jump over a branch as high as his forehead, and
stoop under one as low as his knee, while running
at full speed, and to pluck a thorn out of his heel
without hindrance to his flight, it is clear that even
the rank and file of the Fenians must have been
1
quite exceptional athletes.
But time to pass on to a more detailed de
it is
2
scription of these champions. They are a goodly
company, not less heroic than the mighty men of
Ulster. First comes Finn himself, not the strongest
in body of the Fenians, but the truest, wisest, and
kindest, gentle to women, generous to men, and
1
See The Enumeration of Finn s Household, translated by O Grady in Silva
2
J. G. Campbell s The Fians, pp. 10-80.
Gadelica. jr or a g OOCj account, see
trusted by all. If he could help
he would never it,
let anyone be
in trouble or poverty. the dead "If
leaves of the forest had been gold, and the white

foam of the water silver, Finn would have given it
all away."
Finn had two sons, Fergus and his more famous

brother Ossian 1 Fergus of the sweet speech was
.
the Fenian s bard, and, also, because of his honeyed

words, their diplomatist and ambassador. Yet, by
the irony of fate, it is to Ossian, who is not men
tioned as a poet in the earliest texts, that the poems
concerning the Fenians which are current in Scot

land under the name of "Ossianic Ballads" are
attributed. Ossianmother was Sadb, a daughter
s
of Bodb the Red. A

goddess changed her into
rival
a deer which explains how Ossian got his name,
which means With such advantages of
"fawn".
birth, naturally he was speedy enough to run down

a red deer hind and catch her by the ear, though
2
far less swift-footed than his cousin Caoilte the ,
"
Thin Man". Neither was he so strong as his own

son Oscar, the mightiest of all the Fenians, yet, in
his youth, so clumsy that the rest of the band refused
to take him with them on their warlike expeditions.
They changed their minds, however, when, one day,

he followed them unawares, found them giving way
before an enemy, and, rushing to their help, armed
only with a great log of wood which lay handy on

the ground, turned the fortunes of the fight. After
this, Oscar was hailed the best warrior of all the
i In more correct spelling, Oisin, and pronounced Usheen or hheen,

3 Pronounced Kylta or Cwecltia
Fianna; he was given command of a battalion,

and its banner, called the Terrible Broom",
was regarded as the centre of every battle, for
it was never known to retreat a foot. Other pro
1
minent Fenians were Goll son of Morna, at first,
Finn s enemy but afterwards his follower, a man

skilled alike in war and learning. Even though
he was one-eyed, we are told that he was much
loved by women, but not so much as Finn s
cousin, Diarmait O Duibhne
2
whose fatal beauty ,
3
ensnared even Finn s betrothed bride, Grainne .
Their comic character was Conan, who is repre

sented as an old, bald, vain, irritable man, as great
a braggart as ancient Pistol and as foul-mouthed as
Thersites, and yet, after he had once been shamed
into activity, a true man of his hands. These are
the prime Fenian heroes, the chief actors in its
stories.
The Fenian epic begins, before the birth of its
hero, with the struggle of two rival clans, each of

whom claimed to be the and only Fianna real
Eirinn. They were called the Clann Morna, of
which Goll mac Morna was head, and the Clann
4
Baoisgne commanded by Finn s father, Cumhal.
,
A battle was fought at Cnucha 5 in which Goll ,
killed Cumhal, and the Clann Baoisgne was scat

tered. Cumhal s wife, however, bore a posthumous
son, who was brought up among the Slieve Bloom
Mountains secretly, for fear his father s enemies
should find and kill him. The boy, who was at first
1
Pronounced Gaul. 2
Pronounced Dermal O Dyna. 3 Pronounced Crania.
*
Pronounced Basktn. Now Castleknock, near Dublin.
(B219) O
2io Mythology of the British Islands
called Deimne 1 grew up ,
to be an expert hurler,
swimmer, runner, and hunter. Later, like Cuchu-
lainn, and indeed many modern savages, he took a
second, more personal name. Those who saw him
asked who was the youth. He accepted the "fair"
omen, and called himself Deimne Finn.

At length, he wandered to the banks of the Boyne,
where he found a soothsayer called Finn the Seer
living beside a deep pool near Slane, named Fee s "
Pool", in hope of catching one of the "salmons of
knowledge and, by eating it, obtaining universal

",
wisdom. He had been there seven years without

result, though success had been prophesied to one
named Finn When the wandering son of
"
".
Cumhal appeared, Finn the Seer engaged him as

his Shortly afterwards, he caught the
servant.
coveted fish, and handed it over to our Finn to
cook, warning him to eat no portion of it. Have "
you eaten any of he asked the boy, as he brought it?"
it
up ready boiled. "No indeed," replied Finn;
"
was cooking it, a blister rose upon the

but, while I
skin, and, laying my thumb down upon the blister, I

scalded it, and so I put it into my mouth to ease the
pain."
The man was perplexed. "You told me
your name was Deimne," he said; "but have you
any other name?" "Yes, I am also called Finn.
"
It is
enough," replied his disappointed master,
"
Eat the salmon yourself, for you must be the one

of whom the prophecy told." Finn ate the "salmon
of knowledge and thereafter he had only to put his
",
thumb under his tooth, as he had done when he

1
Pronounced Demna.
iL-i_A Re.
FINN FINDS THE SALMON OF KNOWLEDGE

From the
Drawing by H. R. Millar
scalded it, to receive fore-knowledge and magic

1
counsel.
Thus armed, Finn was more than a match for the
Clann Morna. Curious legends tell how he dis
covered himself to his father s old followers, con
founded his enemies with his magic, and turned
2
them into faithful servants. Even Goll of the
Blows had toGradually he
submit to his sway.
welded the two opposing clans into one Fianna,
over which he ruled, taking tribute from the kings
of Ireland, warring against the Fomorian Loch- "
lannach destroying every kind of giant, serpent,

",
or monster that infested the land, and at last carry
ing his mythical conquests over all Europe.

Out of the numberless stories of the Fenian ex
ploits it is hard to choose examples. All are heroic,
romantic, wild, fantastic. In many of them the

Tuatha Danann
play prominent parts.
De" One
such story connects itself with an earlier mythological
episode already related. The reader will remember
3
how, when the Dagda gave up the kingship of the

immortals, five aspirants appeared to claim it; how
of these five Angus, Mider, Lr, Ilbhreach son
of Mannanan, and Bodb the Red the latter was
chosen; how Lr refused to acknowledge him, but
was reconciled later; how Mider, equally rebellious,
Mount Leinster in
"
desert country round

"
fled to
County Carlow; and how a yearly war was waged

upon him and his people by the rest of the gods to
irThis and other of Finn mac Cumhail are contained in a little
"boy-exploits"
tract written upon a fragment of the ninth century Psalter of Cashel. It is trans
lated in Vol. IV of the Transactions of the Ossianic Society.
*
Campbell s Fians, p. 22. 3 See
chap. XI The Gods in Exile".
"
bring them to subjection. This war was still raging

in the time of Finn, and Mider was not too proud to
seek his help. One day that Finn was hunting in
Donegal, with Ossian, Oscar, Caoilte, and Diarmait,
theirhounds roused a beautiful fawn, which, although
at every moment apparently nearly overtaken, led
them in full chase as far as Mount Leinster. Here
itsuddenly disappeared into a cleft in the hillside.
Heavy snow, making the forest s branches as it
"
were a withe-twist now fell, forcing the Fenians to

",
seek for some shelter, and they therefore explored

the place into which the fawn had vanished. It led
to a splendid sidh in the hollow of the hill. Enter

ing it, they were greeted by a beautiful goddess-
maiden, who told them that it was she, Mider s
daughter, who had been the fawn, and that she had
taken that shape purposely to lead them there, in
the hope of getting their help against the army that

was coming to attack the sidh. Finn asked who the
assailants would be, and was told that they were
Bodb the Red with seven sons, Angus
his Son "
of the Young" with his seven sons, Ler of Sfdh

Fionnechaidh with his twenty -seven sons, and
Fionnbharr of Sidh Meadha with his seventeen
sons, as well as numberless gods of lesser fame
drawn from sidhe not only over all Ireland, but from
Scotland and the islands as well. Finn promised
same day, the
his aid, and, with the twilight of that
attacking forces appeared, and made their annual

assault. They were beaten off, after a battle that
lasted all night, with the loss of "ten men, ten
score, and ten hundred ".
Finn, Oscar, and Diarmait,
Mider s many sons, were sorely
as well as most of
wounded, but the leech Labhra healed all their
wounds. 1
Sooth to say, the Fenians did not always require
the excuse of fairy alliance to start them making
war on the race of the hills. One of the so-called
"
Ossianic ballads" Chase of the

is entitled "The
Enchanted Pigs of Angus of the Brugh 2 This ".
Angus is, of course, the "Son of the Young",

and
the Brugh that famous sidh beside the Boyne out
of which he cheated his father, the Dagda. After
the friendly manner of gods towards heroes, he in
vited Finn and a picked thousand of his followers
to a banquet at the Brugh. They came to it in their
finest clothes, "goblets went from hand to hand,

and waiters were kept in motion At last con ".
versation fell upon the comparative merits of the
pleasures of the table and of the chase, Angus stoutly

the gods life of perpetual feast
"
contending that
ing"
was better than all the Fenian
huntings, and
Finn as stoutly denying it. Finn boasted of his
hounds, and Angus said that the best of them could
not kill one of his pigs. Finn angrily replied that
his two hounds, Bran 3 and Sgeolan 4 would kill any ,
pig that trod on dry land. Angus answered that he

could show Finn a pig that none of his hounds or
huntsmen could catch or kill. Here were the
makings of a pretty quarrel among such inflammable
creatures as gods and heroes, but the steward of
1
From the Colloquy of the Ancients in O
Grady s Silva Gadelica.
2
It is translated in Vol. VI of the Transactions of the Ossianic Society.
3
Pronounced Bran, not Bran. 4
Pronounced Skolaun or Scolaing,
the feast interposed and sent everyone to bed. The
next morning, Finn left the Brugh, for he did not
want to fight all Angus s fairies with his handful of
a thousand men. A year passed before he heard
more of it; then came a messenger from Angus,
reminding Finn of his promise to pit his men and
hounds against Angus s pigs. The Fenians seated
themselves on the tops of the hills, each with his
favourite hound leash, and they had not been
in
there long before there appeared on the eastern
plain a hundred and one such pigs as no Fenian had

ever seen before. Each was as tall as a deer, and
blacker than a smith s having hair like a
coals,
thicket and bristles like ships masts. Yet such was
the prowess of the Fenians that they killed them all,
though each of the pigs slew ten men and many

hounds. Then Angus complained that the Fenians
had murdered his son and many others of the
Tuatha D6 Danann, who, indeed, were none other
than the pigs whose forms they had taken. There
were mighty recriminations on both sides, and, in the
end, the enraged Fenians prepared to attack the
Brugh on the Boyne. Then only did Angus begin
to yield, and, by the advice of Ossian, Finn made
peace with him and his fairy folk.

Such are specimens of the tales which go to
make up the Fenian cycle of sagas. Hunting is the
most prominent feature of them, for the Fenians
were essentially a race of mighty hunters. But the
creatures of their chase were not always flesh and
blood. Enchanters who wished the Fenians ill
could always lure them into danger by taking the
în v d the Fenians 215
~
shape of boar or deer, ariu , n y a story begins
with an innocent chase and ends with a murderous
battle. But out of such struggles the Fenians
always emerge successfully, as Ossian is represented
through truthfulness and the
"
proudly boasting,
might of their hands ".
The most famous chase of all is, however, not

that of deer or boar, but of a woman and a man,
Finn s betrothed wife and his nephew Diarmait. 1
Ever fortunate in war, the Fenian leader found
disaster in his love. Wishing for a wife in his old
age, he sent to
seek Grainne, the daughter of
Cormac, the High- King of Ireland. Both King

Cormac and his daughter consented, and Finn s
ambassadors returned with an invitation to the
suitor to come in a fortnight s time to claim his
bride. He arrived with his picked band, and was
received in state in the great banqueting -hall of
Tara. There they feasted, and there Grainne, the
king s daughter, casting her eyes over the assembled
Fenian heroes, saw Diarmait O Duibhne.
This Fenian Adonis had a beauty-spot upon his
cheek which no woman could see without falling
instantly in love with him. Grainne, for all her
royal birth, was no exception to this rule. She
asked a druid to point her out the principal guests.
The druid told her all their names and exploits.
Then she called for a jewelled drinking-horn, and,
with a drugged wine, sent it round to each
filling it
in turn, except to Diarmait. None could be so
1
A fine translation of the Pursuit of Diarmait and Grainne has been published
by S. H. O Grady in Vol. Ill of the Transactions of the Ossianic Society
discourteous as to refuse wine from the hand of a
princess. All drank, and fell into deep sleep.
Then, rising, she came to Diarmait, told him her
passion for him, and asked for its return.
"
I will
not love the betrothed of my chief," he replied,

"and, even if I wished, I dare not." And he
praised Finn s virtues, and decried his own fame.
But Grainne merely answered that she put him
under geasa (bonds which no hero could refuse to
redeem) to flee with her; and at once went back to
her chair before the rest of the company awoke
from their slumber.
After the feast, Diarmait went round to his com
rades,one by one, and told them of Grainne s love
for him,and of the geasa she had placed upon him
to take her from Tara. He asked each of them
what he ought to do. All answered that no hero
could break a geis put upon him by a woman. He
even asked Finn, concealing Grainne s name, and
Finn gave him the same counsel as the others.
That night, the lovers fled from Tara to the ford of
the Shannon at Athlone, crossed it, and came to
a place called the Wood of the Two Tents
"
",
where Diarmait wove a hut of branches for Grainne

to shelter in.
Meanwhile Finn had discovered their flight, and

his rage knew no bounds. He sent his trackers,
the Clann Neamhuain 1 to follow them.,
They
tracked them to the wood, and one of them climbed
a tree, and, looking down, saw the hut, with a strong
seven -doored fence built round it, and Diarmait and
1
Pronounced Navin or Nowin.
Grainne inside. When the news came to the
Fenians, they were sorry, for their sympathies were

with Diarmait and not with Finn. They tried to
warn him, but he took no heed; for he had deter
mined to fight and not to flee. Indeed, when Finn
himself came and called over it to
to the fence,
Diarmait, asking if he and Grainne were within, he

replied that they were, but that none should enter
unless he gave permission.
So Diarmait, like Cuchulainn in the war of Ulster
against Ireland, found himself matched single-
handed against a host. But, also like Cuchulainn,
he had a divine helper. The favourite of the
Tuatha De Danann, he had been the pupil of
Manannan son of Ler in the Land of Promise "
",
and had been fostered by Angus of the Brugh.

Mananndn had given him his two spears, the
"Red
Javelin"
and the "Yellow Javelin", and his
and the
"
two swords, the Great Fury

"
Little
"
Fury And
". now Angus came to look for his
foster-son, and brought with him the magic mantle

of invisibility used by the gods. He advised Diar
mait and Grainne to come out wrapped in the
cloak, and thus rendered invisible. Diarmait still
refused to flee, but asked Angus to protect Grainne.
Wrapping the magic mantle round her, the god led

the princess away unseen by any of the Fenians.
By this time, Finn had posted men outside all the

seven doors in the fence. Diarmait went to each of
them in turn. At the first, were Ossian and Oscar
with the Clann Baoisgne. They offered him their
protection. At the second, were Caoilte and the
Clann Ronan, who said they would fight to the
death for him. At the third, were Conan and the
Clann Morna, also his friends. At the fourth, stood
Cuan with the Fenians of Munster, Diarmait s native
province. At the fifth, were the Ulster Fenians,
who promised him protection against Finn.
also
But at the sixth, were the Clann Neamhuain, who
hated him; and at the seventh, was Finn himself.
by your door that I will pass out, O Finn,"
"
It is
cried Diarmait. Finn charged his men to surround

Diarmait as he came out, and kill him. But he
leaped the fence, passing clean over their heads,
and fled away so swiftly that they could not follow
him. He he reached the place to
never halted till
which he knew Angus had taken Grainne. The

friendly god left them with a little sage advice:
never to hide in a tree with only one trunk; never
to rest in a cave with only one entrance; never to
land on an island with only one channel of ap
proach; not to eat their supper where they had
cooked it, nor to sleep where they had supped, and,
where they had slept once, never to sleep again.
With these Red- Indian-like tactics, it was some time
before Finn discovered them.
However, he found out at last where they were,
and sent champions with venomous hounds to take
or kill them. But Diarmait conquered all who were
sent against him.
Yet still Diarmait, as a last
Finn pursued, until
hope of escape, took refuge under a magic quicken-

1
tree which bore scarlet fruit, the ambrosia of the
,
1 The mountain-ash, or rowan.

gods. had grown from a single berry dropped

It
by one of the Tuatha D Danann, who, when they

found that they had carelessly endowed mortals with
celestial and immortal food, had sent a huge, one-
eyed Fomor called Sharvan the Surly to guard it,

so that no man might eat of its fruit. All day, this
Fomor sat at the foot of the tree, and, all night, he
slept among its branches, and so terrible was his
appearance that neither the Fenians nor any other
people dared to come within several miles of him.
But Diarmait was willing to brave the Fomor in
the hope of getting a safe hiding-place for Grainne.
He came boldly up to him, and asked leave to camp
and hunt in his neighbourhood. The Fomor told
him surlily that he might camp and hunt where he
pleased, so long as he refrained from taking any of
the scarlet berries. So Diarmait built a hut near
a spring; and he and Grainne lived there, killing
the wild animals for food.
But, unhappily, Grainne conceived so strong a
desire to eat the quicken berries that she felt that
she must die unless her wish could be gratified. At
she tried to hide this longing, but in the end
first
she was forced to tell her companion. Diarmait

had no desire to quarrel with the Fomor; so he
went to him and told the plight that Grainne was
in, and asked for a handful of the berries as a
gift.
But the Fomor merely answered: swear to
"I
you that if nothing would save the princess and her

unborn child except my berries, and if she were the
last woman upon the earth, she should not have any
of them."
Whereupon Diarmait fought the Fomor,
and, after much trouble, killed him.
was reported to Finn that the guardian of the
It
magic quicken-tree lived no longer, and he guessed

that Diarmait must have killed him; so he came
down place with
to the seven battalions of the
Fenians to look for him. By this time, Diarmait
had abandoned his own hut and taken possession of
that built by the Fomor among the branches of the
magic quicken. He was sitting in it with Grainne
when Finn and his men came and camped at the
foot of the tree, to wait till the heat of noon had
passed before beginning their search.
To beguile the time, Finn called for his chess
board and challenged his son Ossian to a game.
They played until Ossian had only one more
move.
One move would make you a winner," said
"
Finn to him, but I challenge you and all the

"
Fenians to guess it"
Only Diarmait, who had been looking down

through the branches upon the players, knew the
move. He could not resist dropping a berry on to
the board, so deftly that it hit the very chess-man
which Ossian ought to move in order to win.
Ossian took the hint, moved it, and won. A second
and a third game were played; and in each case the
same thing happened. Then Finn felt sure that
the berries that had prompted Ossian must have
been thrown by Diarmait.
He called out, asking Diarmait if he were there,
and the Fenian hero, who never spoke an untruth,
answered that he was. So the quicken-tree was

surrounded by armed men, just as the fenced hut in
the woods had been. But, again, things happened in
the same way; for Angus of the Brugh took away
Grainne wrapped in the invisible magic cloak, while
Diarmait, walking to the end of a thick branch,
cleared the circle of Fenians at a bound, and
escaped untouched.
This was the end of the famous
"
Pursuit"; for
Angus came as ambassador Finn, urging him to

to become reconciled to thefugitives, and all the
best of the Fenians begged Finn to consent. So
Diarmait and Grainne were allowed to return in
peace.
But Finn never really forgave, and, soon after, he
urged Diarmait to go out to the chase of the wild
boar of Benn Gulban 1 . Diarmait killed the boar
without getting any hurt; for, like the Greek
he was invulnerable, save in his heel alone.
Achilles,
Finn, who knew this, told him to measure out the
length of the skin with his bare feet. Diarmait did
so. Then Finn, declaring that he had measured it
wrongly, ordered him to tread it
again in the op
posite direction. This was against the lie of the
bristles;and one of them pierced Diarmait s heel,
and inflicted a poisoned and mortal wound.
This Pursuit of Diarmait and Grainne
"
which ",
has been told at such length, marks in some degree

the climax of the Fenian power, after which it began
to decline towards its end. The friends of Diarmait
never forgave the treachery with which Finn had
1
Now called Benbulben. It is near Sligo.
compassed his death. The ever-slumbering rivalry

between Goll and his Clann Morna and Finn and
his Clann Baoisgne began to show itself as open
enmity. Quarrels arose, too, between the Fenians

and the High- Kings of Ireland, which culminated
at last in the annihilation of the Fianna at the battle
of Gabhra \
This is said to have been fought in A.D. 284.
Finn himself had perished a year before it, in a
skirmish with rebellious Fenians at the Ford of
Brea on the Boyne. King Cormac the Magnificent,
Grainne s father, was also dead. It was between
Finn s grandson Oscar and Cormac s son Cairbre"

that war broke out. This mythical battle was as
fiercely waged as that of Arthur s last fight at
Camlan. Oscar slew Cairbr6, and was slain by him.
Almost all the Fenians fell, as well as all Cairbre" s
forces.
Only two of the greater Fenian figures survived.

One was Caoilte, whose swiftness of foot saved
him at the end when all was lost. The famous
story, called the Dialogue of the
"
represents
Elders",
him discoursing to St. Patrick, centuries after, of

the Fenians wonderful deeds. Having lost his
friends of the heroic age, he is said to have cast
in his lot with the Tuatha Danann. He fought
De"
in a
battle, with Ilbhreach son of Manannan, against
Ler himself, and killed the ancient sea-god with his
own hand. 2 The tale represents him taking posses
sion of Ler s fairy palace of Sidh Fionnechaidh,
after which we know no more of him, except that
i Pronounced Gavra. a
See O Gradv s Silva Gudelica.
he has taken rank in the minds of the Irish pea
santry as one of, and a ruler among, the Sidhe.
The other was Ossian, who did not fight at
Gabhra, long before, he had taken the great
for,
journey which most heroes of mythology take, tc

that bourne from which no ordinary mortal ever
returns. Like Cuchulainn, it was upon the invita
tion of a goddess that he went. The Fenians were
hunting near Lake Killarney when a lady of more
than human beauty came to them, and told them
1
that her name was Niamh daughter of the Son
,
of the Sea. The

Gaelic poet, Michael Comyn, who,
in the eighteenth century, rewove the ancient
story
into his own words, 2 describes her in just the same
way as one of the old bards would have done :
"
A royal crown was on her head ;
And a brown mantle of precious silk,

Spangled with stars of red gold,
Covering her shoes down to the grass.
"
A gold ring was hanging down

From each yellow curl of her golden hair;
Her eyes, blue, clear, and cloudless,
Like a dew-drop on the top of the grass.
"
Redder were her cheeks than the rose,

Fairer was her visage than the swan
upon the wave,
And more sweet was the taste of her balsam lips
Than honey mingled thro red wine.
Pronounced Nee-av.
2
The Lay of Oisin in the Land of Youth, translated O Looney foi
by Brian
the Ossianic Society Transactions, Vol. IV. A fine modern poem on the same
subject is W. B. Yeats Wanderings of Oisin.
"
A garment, wide, long, and smooth

Covered the white steed,
There was a comely saddle of red gold,
And her right hand held a bridle with a golden bit.
"
Four shoes well-shaped were under him,

Of the yellow gold of the purest quality;
A silverwreath was on the back of his head,
And there was not in the world a steed better."
Such was Niamh of the Golden Hair, Mananndn s

daughter; and it is small wonder that, when she
chose Ossian from among the sons of men to be her
lover, Finn s supplications could not keep him.
all
He mounted behind her on her fairy horse, and

they rode across the land to the sea-shore, and then
over the tops of the waves. As they went, she
described the country of the gods to him in just the
same terms as Manannan himself had pictured it
to Bran, son of Febal, as Mider had painted it to
Etain, and as everyone that went there limned it
to those that stayed at home on earth.
"
It is the most delightful country to be found

Of greatest repute under the sun ;
Trees drooping with fruit and blossom,

And foliage growing on the tops of boughs.
honey and wine,

there, are
"
Abundant,
And everything that eye has beheld,
There will not come decline on thee with lapse of time.
Death or decay thou wilt not see."
As they went they saw wonders. Fairy palaces with

bright sun-bowers and lime-white walls appeared on

the surface of the sea. At one of these they halted,
and Ossian, at Niamh s request, attacked a fierce
Fomor who lived there, and set free a damsel of
the Tuatha D6 Danann whom
he kept imprisoned.
He saw a hornless fawn leap from wave to wave,
chased by one of those strange hounds of Celtic
myth which are pure white, with red ears. At last
they reached the "Land of the Young", and there
Ossian dwelt with Niamh for three hundred years
before he remembered Erin and the Fenians. Then
a great wish came upon him to see his own country
and his again, and Niamh gave him
own people
leave to go, and mounted him upon a fairy steed
for the journey. One thing alone she made him
swear not to let his feet touch earthly soil. Ossian
promised, and reached Ireland on the wings of the
wind. But, like the children of Lr at the end of
their penance, he found all changed. He asked
for Finn and the Fenians, and was told that they
were the names of people who had lived long ago,
and whose deeds were written of in old books. The
Battle of Gabhra had been fought, and St. Patrick
had come to Ireland, and made all things new. The
very forms of men had altered; they seemed dwarfs
compared with the giants of his day. Seeing three
hundred of them trying in vain to raise a marble
slab, he rode up to them in contemptuous kindness,
and lifted it with one hand. But, as he did so, the
golden saddle-girth broke with the strain, and he
touched the earth with his feet. The fairy horse
vanished, and Ossian rose from the ground, no
( B 219 ) P
longer divinely young and fair and strong, but a

blind, gray-haired, withered old man.
A number of tell how Ossian,
spirited ballads
1
stranded in his old age upon earthly soil, unable to

help himself or find his own food, is taken by St.
Patrick into his house to be converted. The saint
paints to him in the brightest colours the heaven

which may be his own if he will but repent, and
in the darkest the hell in which he tells him his
old comrades now lie in anguish. Ossian replies
to the saint s arguments, entreaties, and threats in
language which is extraordinarily frank. will He

not believe that heaven could be closed to the
Fenians if
they wished to enter it, or that God
himself would not be proud to claim friendship
with Finn. And if it be not so, what is the use
to him of eternal life where there is no hunting,
or wooing fair women, or listening to the songs
and tales of bards? No, he will go to the Fenians,
whether they sit at the feast or in the fire; and so
he dies as he had lived.
i See the Transactions

of the Ossianic Society. They are generally called the
Dialogues of Oisin and Patrick.
CHAPTER XV
THE DECLINE AND FALL QF THE GODS
In spite, however, of the wide- spread popularity

of the ballads that took the form of dialogues be
tween Ossian and Patrick, certain traditions say
that the saint succeeded in converting the hero.
Caoilt6, the other great surviving Fenian, was also
represented as having gladly exchanged his pagan
lore for the faith and salvation offered him. We
may see the same influence on foot in the later
legends concerning the Red Branch Champions. It
was the policy of the first Christianizers of Ireland

to describe the loved heroes of their still half-
heathen flocks as having handed in their submission
to the new creed. The tales about Conchobar and
Cuchulainn were amended, to prove that those very
pagan personages had been miraculously brought to
accept the gospel at the last. An entirely new story

told how the latter hero was raised from the dead
by Saint Patrick that he might bear witness of the

truth of Christianity to Laogaire the Second, King
of Ireland, which he did with such fervour and
eloquence that the sceptical monarch was con
1
vinced.
i The story, contained in the Book of the Dun Cow, is called The Phantom
Chariot. It has been translated by Mr. O Beirne Crowe, and is included in Miss
Hull s Cuchidinn Saga.
227
Daring attempts were also made to change the

Tuatha D6 Danann from pagan gods into Christian
saints, but these were by no means so profitable as
the policy pursued towards the more human-seeming
heroes. With one of them alone, was success im
mediate and brilliant. Brigit, the goddess of fire,
poetry, and the hearth, is famous to-day as Saint
Bridget, or Bride. Most popular of all the Irish
saints, she can still be easily recognized as the
daughter of the Dagda. Her Christian attributes,
almost all connected with fire, attest her pagan
origin.
1
She was born at sunrise; a house in which
she dwelt blazed into a flame which reached to
heaven; a pillar of fire rose from her head when
she took the veil; and her breath gave new life to
the dead. As with the British goddess Sul, wor
shipped at Bath, who the first century Latin writer
Solinus 2 ruled over the boiling springs,
us "
tells
and at her altar there flamed a perpetual fire which

never whitened into ashes, but hardened into a
stony mass the sacred flame on her shrine at
",
Kildare was never allowed to go out. It was ex
tinguished once, in the thirteenth century, but was

relighted, and burnt with undying glow until the
suppression of the monasteries by Henry the Eighth.
This sacred fire might not be breathed on by the
impure human breath. For nineteen nights it was
tended by her nuns, but on the twentieth night it
was left untouched, and kept itself alight miracu
lously. With so little of her essential character
1
See Elton, Origins of English History, pp. 269-271.
3
Caius Julius Solinus, known as Polyhistor, chap. xxiv.
The Decline and Fall of the Gods 229
and ritual changed, it is small wonder that the
half-pagan, half- Christian Irish gladly accepted the

new saint in the stead of the old goddess.
Doubtless a careful examination of Irish hagi-
ology would result in the discovery of many other
saints whose names and attributes might render
them suspect of previous careers as pagan gods.
But their acceptation was not sufficiently general to
do away with the need of other means of counter
acting the still living influence of the Gaelic Pan
theon. Therefore a fresh school of euhemerists
arose to prove that the gods were never even saints,
but merely worldly men who had once lived and
ruled in Erin. Learned monks worked hard to
construct a history of Ireland from the Flood down
wards. Mr. Eugene O
Curry has compiled from
the various pedigrees they elaborated, and inserted
into the books of Ballymote, Lecan, and Leinster
an amazing genealogy which shows how, not merely
the Tuatha Danann, but also the Fir Bolgs, the
De"
Fomors, the Milesians, and the races of Partholon

and Nemed were descended from Noah. Japhet,
the patriarch s son, was the father of Magog, from
whom came two lines, the first being the Milesians,
while the second branched out into all the other
1
races.
Having once worked the gods, first into universal
history, and then into the history of Ireland, it was

an easy matter to supply them with dates of birth
and death, local habitations, and places of burial.
1 It is appended to his translation of the tale of the Exilt of the Children of

Umach in Atlantis, Vol. III.
We are told with precision exactly how long Nuada,
the Dagda, Lugh, and the others reigned at Tara.
The barrows by the Boyne provided them with
comfortable tombs. Their enemies, the Fomors,
became real invaders who were beaten in real
battles. Thus it was thought to make plain prose
of their divinities.
It is only fair, however, to these early euhemerists
to say that they have their modern disciples. There
are many writers, of recognized authority upon their
subjects, who, in dealing with the history of Ireland
or the composition of the British race, claim to find
real peoples in the tribes mentioned in Gaelic myth.
Unfortunately, the only point they agree upon is

the accepted one that the Milesians" were Aryan
"
Celts. They are divided upon the question of the

Fir Bolgs in whom some see the pre- Aryan
"
",
tribes, while others, led astray by the name, regard

them as Belgic Gauls; and over the really mytho
logical they run wild.
races In the Tuatha D
Danann are variously found Gaels, Picts, Danes,
Scandinavians, Ligurians, and Finns, while the
Fomors under the suspicion of having been
rest
Iberians, Moors, Romans, Finns, Goths, or Teutons.

As for the people of Partholon and Nemed, they
have even been explained as men of the Palaeolithic
Age. This chaos of opinion was fortunately avoided
by the native annalists, who had no particular views
upon the question of race, except that everybody
came from "Spain".
Of course there were dissenters from this pre
vailing mania for euhemerization. As late as the
tenth century, a poet called Eochaid O Flynn, writing

of the Tuatha D6 Danann, at first seems to hesitate
whether to ascribe humanity or divinity to them,
and at last frankly avows their godhead. In his
1
poem, preserved in the Book of Ballymote, he
says :
Though they came to learned Erinn

"
Without buoyant, adventurous ships,

No man in creation knew
Whether they were of the earth or of the sky.
"If
they were diabolical demons,
2
They came from that woeful expulsion;
If they were of a race of tribes and nations,
If they were human, they were of the race of Beothach."
Then he enumerates them in due succession, and

ends by declaring:
I have treated of these deities in their order,
"
Though
Yet I have not adored them ".
One may surmise with probability that the

common people agreed rather with the poet than
with the monk. Pious men in monasteries might
write but mere laymen would not
what they liked,
be easily persuaded that their cherished gods had
never been anything more than men like them
selves. Probably they said little, but acted in
secret according to their inherited ideas. Let it
be granted, for the sake of peace, that Goibniu was
only a man; none the less, his name was known
to be uncommonly effective in an incantation. This
See Cusack 8 from Heaven.
i s History of Ireland, pp. 160-162. /./.
applied equally to Diancecht, and invocations to

both of them are contained in some verses which an
eighth-century Irish monk wrote on the margin of
a manuscript still preserved at St. Gall, in Switzer
land. Some prescriptions of Diancecht s have come
down to us, but it must be admitted that they
hardly differ from those current among ordinary
mediaeval physicians. Perhaps, after that unfortu
nate spilling of the herbs that grew out of Miach s
body, he had to fall back upon empirical research.
He invented a porridge for "the relief of ailments
of the body, as cold, phlegm, throat cats, and the
worms
"
presence of living things in the body, as ;
itwas compounded of hazel buds, dandelion, chick-

weed, sorrel, and oatmeal; and was to be taken
every morning and evening. He also prescribed
against the effects of witchcraft and the fourteen
diseases of the stomach.
Goibniu, in addition to his original character as
the divine smith and sorcerer, gained a third repu
tation among the Irish as a great builder and
bridge-maker. As such he is known as the Gobhan

Saer, that is, Goibniu the Architect, and marvellous
tales, current all over Ireland attest his prowess.
"
Men call d him Gobhan Saer, and many a tale

Yet lingers in the by-ways of the land
Of how he cleft the rock, or down the vale
Led the bright river, child-like, in his hand:
Of how on giant ships he spread great sail,
And many marvels else by him first plann d ",
writes a poet of modern Ireland. 1 Especially were

1
Thomas D Arcy M Gee: Poems, p. 78,
"The Gobhan Saer".
and the
"
the
"
round towers attributed to him,

Christian clerics appropriated his popularity by de
scribing him as having been the designer of their

churches. He used, according to legend, to wander
over the country, clad, like the Greek Hephaestus,
whom he resembles, in working dress, seeking com
missions and adventures. His works remain in the
cathedrals and churches of Ireland; and, with regard
to his adventures, many strange legends are still,
or were until very recently, current upon the lips
of old people in remote parts of Ireland.
Some of these are, as might have been expected,
nothing more than half-understood recollections of

the ancient mythology. In them appear as char
acters others of the old, yet not quite forgotten gods
Lugh, Manannan, and Balor names still remem
bered as those of long-past druids, heroes, and kings
of Ireland in the misty olden time.
One or two of them are worth retelling. Mr.
William Larminie, collecting folk-tales in Achill
Island, took one from the lips of an aged peasant
which tells in its confused way what might almost
be called the central incident of Gaelic mythology,
the mysterious birth of the sun-god from demoniac
parentage, and his eventual slaying of his grand

when he came to full age. 1
father
Gobhan the Architect and his son, young Go-
bhan, runs the tale, were sent for by Balor of the
Blows to build him a
palace. They built it so well
that Balor decided never to let them leave king his
dom alive, for fear they should build another one
1
Larminie: West Irish Folk-Tales, pp. 1-9.
equally good for someone else. He therefore had

all the
scaffolding removed from round the palace
while they were still on the top, with the intention
of leaving them up there to die of hunger. But,
when they discovered this, they began to destroy
the roof, so that Balor was obliged to let them come
down.
He, none the less, refused to allow them to return
to Ireland. The crafty Gobhan, however, had his
plan ready. He told Balor that the injury that had
been done to the palace roof could not be repaired
without special tools, which he had left behind him
at home. Balor declined to let either old Gobhan
or young Gobhan go back to fetch them; but he
offered to send his own son. Gobhan gave Balor s
son directions for the journey. He was to travel
until he came to a house with a stack of corn at
the door. Entering it, he would find a woman with
one hand and a child with one eye.
Balor s son found the house, and asked the woman
for the tools. She expected him; for it had been
arranged between Gobhan and his wife what should
be done, if Balor refused to let him return. She
took Balor s son to a huge chest, and told him that
the tools were at the bottom of it, so far down that
she could not reach them, and that he must get into
the chest, and pick them up himself. But, as soon
as he was safely inside, she shut the lid on him,
telling him that he would have to stay there until
his father allowed old Gobhan and young Gobhan
to come home with their pay. And she sent the
same message to Balor himself.
There was an exchange of prisoners, Balor giving

the two Gobhans their pay and a ship to take them
home, and Gobhan s wife releasing Balor s son. But,
before the two builders went, Balor asked them
whom he should now employ to repair his palace.
Old Gobhan told him that, next to himself, there
was no workman in Ireland better than one Gavid-
jeen Go.
When Gobhan got back to Ireland, he sent Gavid-
jeen Go to Balor. But he gave him a piece of
advice to accept as pay only one thing: Balor s
gray cow, which would fill twenty barrels at one
milking. Balor agreed to this, but, when he gave
the cow to Gavidjeen Go to take back with him to
Ireland, he omitted to include her by re- rope, which
was the only thing that would keep her from return
ing to her original owner.
The gray cow gave so much trouble to Gavidjeen
Go by her straying, that he was obliged to hire mili
tary champions to watch her during the day and
bring her safely home at night. The bargain made
was that Gavidjeen Go should forge the champion
a sword for his pay, but that, if he lost the cow, his
life was to be forfeited.
Atlast, a certain warrior called Cian was unlucky
enough to let the cow escape. He followed her

tracks down and right to the edge
to the sea-shore
of the waves, and there he lost them altogether. He
was tearing his hair in his perplexity, when he saw
a man rowing a coracle. The man, who was no
other than Manannan son of Lr, came in close to
the shore, and asked what was the matter.
Cian told him.
What would you give to anyone who would
"
take you to the place where the gray cow asked is?"
Manannan.
I have
replied Cian.
"
nothing to give,"
"All I ask," said Manannan, half of whatever

"is
you gain before you come back."

Cian agreed to that willingly enough, and Man
annan told him to get into the coracle. In the wink
of an eye, he had landed him in Balor s kingdom,
the realm of the cold, where they roast no meat, but
eat their food raw. Cian was not used to this diet,
so he lit himself a fire, and began to cook some food.
Balor saw the fire, and came down to it, and he was
so pleased that he appointed Cian to be his fire-
maker and cook.
Now Balor had a daughter, of whom a druid had
prophesied that she would, some day, bear a son who
would kill his grandfather. Therefore, like Acrisius,
in Greek legend, he shut her up in a tower, guarded
by women, and allowed her to see no man but him

self. One day, Cian saw Balor go to the tower. He
waited until he had come back, and then went to
explore. He had the gift of opening locked doors
and shutting them again after him. When he got
inside, he lit a fire, and this novelty so delighted
Balor s daughter that she invited him to visit her
again. After this in the Achill islander s quaint
phrase "he was ever coming there, until a child
happened to her." Balor s daughter gave the baby

to Cian to take away. She also gave him the byre-
rope which belonged to the gray cow.
CIAN FINDS BALOR S DAUGHTER
From the
Drawing by H. R. Millar
Cian was in great danger now, for Balor had

found out about the child. He led the gray cow
away with the rope to the sea-shore, and waited for
Manannan. The Son of Ler had told Cian that,
when he was any difficulty, he was to think of
in
him, and he would at once appear. Cian thought

of him now, and, in a moment, Manannan appeared
with his coracle. Cian got into the boat, with the
baby and the gray cow, just as Balor, in hot pursuit,
came down to the beach.
Balor,by his incantations, raised a great storm to
drown them; but Manannan, whose druidism was
greater, stilled it. Then Balor turned the sea into
fire, to burn them; but Manannan put it out with a
stone.
When they were safe back in Ireland, Manannan
asked Cian for his promised reward.
have gained nothing but the boy, and I cannot
"
cut him in two, so I will give him to you whole," he
replied.
"That is what I was wanting all the time," said
Manannan; "when he grows up, there will be no
champion equal to him."
So Manannan baptized the boy, calling him "the

Dul-Dauna". This name, meaning Blind-Stub "
born ",
is certainly a curious corruption of the original
loldanack 1 Master of all Knowledge". When the
"
boy had grown up, he went one day to the sea

shore. A ship came past, in which was a man.
The traditions of Donnybrook Fair are evidently
prehistoric, for the boy, without troubling to ask who

i Pronounced Ilddna.
the stranger was, took a dart "out of his pocket",
hurled it, and hit him. The man in the boat happened
to be Balor. Thus, in accordance with the prophecy,
he was slain by his grandson, who, though the folk
tale does not name him, was obviously Lugh.
Another version of the same legend, collected by
the Irish scholar O Donovan on the coast of Donegal,
opposite Balor s favourite haunt, Tory Island, is
1
interesting as completing the one just narrated. In
this folk-tale, Goibniu is called Gavida, and is made
one of three brothers, the other two being called
Mac Kineely and Mac Samthainn. They were chiefs
of Donegal, smiths and farmers, while Balor was a
robber who harassed the mainland from his strong
hold on Tory Island. The gray cow belonged to
Mac Kineely, and Balor stole it. Its owner deter
mined tobe revenged, and, knowing the prediction
concerning Balor s death at the hands of an as yet
unborn grandson, he persuaded a kindly fairy to
spirit him in female disguise to Tor Mor, where
Balor s daughter, who was called Ethnea, was kept
imprisoned. The result of this expedition was not
merely the one son necessary to fulfil the prophecy,
but three. This apparent superfluity was fortunate;
for Balor drowned two of them, the other being
picked out of the sea by the same fairy who had

been incidentally responsible for his birth, and
handed over to his father, Mac Kineely, to be
brought up. Shortly after this, Balor managed to
capure MacKineely, and, in retaliation for the wrong
done him, chopped off his head upon a large white
i It is told in Rhys s Hibbert Lectures, pp. 314-317.
stone, still known locally as the

"
Stone of Kineely".
Satisfied with this, and quite unaware that one of

his daughter s children had been saved from death,
and was now being brought up as a smith by Gavida,
Balor went on with his career of robbery, varying it
by visits to the forge to purchase arms. day, One
being there during Gavida absence, he began boast
s
ing to the young assistant of how he had compassed

Mac Kineely s death. He never finished the story,
for Lugh which was the boy s name snatched a
red-hot iron from the fire, and thrust it into Balor s
eye, and through his head.
1
Thus, in these two folk-tales, gathered in dif
ferent parts of Ireland, at different times, by
different persons, survives quite a mass of mytho
logical detail only to be found otherwise in
ancient manuscripts containing still more ancient
matter. Crystallized in them may be found the
names of six members of the old Gaelic Pantheon,
each filling the same part as of old. Goibniu has
not lost his mastery of smithcraft; Balor is still the
Fomorian king of the cold regions of the sea; his
daughter Ethniu becomes, by Cian, the mother of
the sun-god; Lugh, who still bears his old title of
loldanach, though it is
strangely corrupted into a
name meaning almost the exact opposite, is still
fosteredby Manannan, Son of the Sea, and in the
end grows up to destroy his grandfather by a blow
in the one vulnerable place, his
death-dealing eye.
Perhaps, too, we may claim to see a genuine, though
i For still other folk-tale versions of this same myth see Curtin s Hero Tales of
Ireland.
jumbled tradition, in the Fomor-like deformities of

Gobhan s wife and child, and in the story of the
gray cow and her byre-rope, which recalls that of

the Dagda black-maned heifer, Ocean.
s
The memories of the peasantry still hold many

stories of Lugh, as well as of Angus, and others of
the old gods. But, next to the Gobhan Saer, the
one whose fame is still
greatest is that ever-potent
and ever-popular figure, the great Manannan.
The last, perhaps, to receive open adoration, he is
represented by kindly tradition as having been still

content to help and watch over the people who had
rejected and ceased to worship him. Up to the
time of St. Columba, he was the special guardian
of Irishmen in foreign parts, assisting them in their
dangers and bringing them home safe. For the

peasantry, too, he caused favourable weather and
good crops. His ground while
fairy subjects tilled the
men slept. But have come to an end
this is said to
at last. Saint Columba, having broken his golden
chalice, gave it to a servant to get repaired. On
was met by a stranger, who
his way, the servant
asked him where he was going. The man told
him, and showed him the chalice. The stranger
breathed upon it, and, at once, the broken parts re
united. Then he begged him to return to his master,
give him the chalice, and tell him that Manannan

son of Ler, who had mended it, desired to know in
very truth whether he would ever attain paradise
"Alas," said the ungrateful saint, "
there is no for
giveness for a man who does such works as this!"

The servant went back with the answer, and Man-
anndn, when he heard it, broke out into indignant

lament. "Woe is me, Manannan mac Ler! for
years ve helpedI the Catholics of Ireland, but I ll
do it no more, till they re as weak as water. I ll go
1
to the gray waves in the Highlands of Scotland."
And there he remained. For, unless the charm
ing stories of Miss Fiona Macleod are mere beautiful
imaginings and nothing more, he is not unknown
even to-day among the solitary shepherds and fishers
of "the farthest Hebrides". In the Contemporary
2
Review for
October, I9O2, shetells how an old
man of four-score years would often be visited in

his shieling by a tall, beautiful stranger, with a crest
on his head, "like white canna blowing in the wind,
but with a blueness in and bright, cold, curl
it",
"a
ing flame under the soles of his feet ". The man
told him many
things, him the and prophesied to
time of his death. Generally, the stranger s hands
were hidden in the folds of the white cloak he wore,
but, once,he moved to touch the shepherd, who saw
then that his flesh was like water, with sea-weed
floating among the bones. So that Murdo Maclan
knew that he could be speaking with none other
than the Son of the Sea.
Nor is he yet quite
forgotten in his own Island of
Man, of which local tradition says he was the. first
inhabitant. He is also described as its
king, who
kept it from invasion by his magic. He would cause
mists to rise at any moment and conceal the island,
1
A Donegal story, collected by Mr. David Fitzgerald and published in the
Revue Celtique, Vol. IV, p. 177.
2
The paper is called Sea-Magic
"
and Running Water ".
( B 219 ) Q
and by the same glamour he could make one man
seem like a hundred, and little chips of wood which
he threw into the water to appear like ships of war.
It is no wonder that he held his kingdom against
all-comers, until his sway was ended, like that of

the other Gaelic gods,
by the arrival of Saint
Patrick. this, he seems to have declined
After
into a traditionary giant who used to leap from
Peel Castle to Contrary Head for exercise, or hurl
huge rocks, upon which the mark of his hand can

still be seen. It is said that he took no tribute
from his subjects, or worshippers except bundles of

green rushes, which were placed every Midsummer
Eve upon two mountain peaks, one called Warre-
field in olden days, but now South Barrule, and
the other called Man, and not now to be identified.

His grave, which is thirty yards long, is pointed
out, close to Peel Castle. The most curious legend
connected with him, however, tells us that he had
three legs, on which he used to travel at a great
pace. How this was done may be seen from the

arms of the island, on which are pictured his three
limbs, joined together, and spread out like the
1
spokes of a wheel.
An Irish tradition tells us that, when Manannan
leftIreland for Scotland, the vacant kingship of the
gods or fairies was taken by one Mac Moineanta,

to the great grief of those who had known Man
annan.
2
Perhaps this great grief led to Mac Moine-
anta s being deposed, for the present king of the
1 Moore : Folklore of the Isle of Man.
2
See an article in the Dublin University Magazine for June, 1864
The Decline and Fall of the Goas 243
Irish fairies is Finvarra, the same Fionnbharr to

whom the Dagda allotted the sidh of Meadha after
the conquest of the Tuatha D Danann by the
Milesians, and who takes a prominent part in the
Fenian stories. So great is the persistence of
tradition in Ireland that this hill ofMeadha, now
spelt Knockma, is still considered to be the abode
of him and his queen, Onagh. Numberless stories
are told about Finvarra, including, of course, that
very favourite Celtic tale of the stolen bride, and

her recapture from the fairies by the siege and
digging up of the sidh in which she was held
prisoner. Finvarra, like Mider of Bri Leith, carried

away a human Etain the wife, not of a high king,
but of an Irish lord. The modern Eochaid Airem,
having heard an invisible voice tell him where he
was to look for his lost
gathered all his
bride,
workmen and labourers and proceeded to demolish
Knockma. Every day they almost dug it up, but
every night the breach was found to have been
repaired by fairy workmen of Finvarra s. This
went on for three days, when the Irish lord thought
of the well-known device of sanctifying the work
of excavation by sprinkling the turned-up earth
with salt. Needless to say, it succeeded. Finvarra
gave back the bride, still in the trance into which
he had thrown her; and the deep cut into the
fairy hill still remains to furnish proof to the in
1
credulous.
Finvarra does not always appear, however, in
1 The
story is among those told by Lady Wilde in her Ancient Legends of
Ireland, Vol. I, pp. 77-82.
such unfriendly guise. He was popularly reputed
to have under his special care the family of the
Kirwans of Castle Racket, on the northern slope
of Knockma. Owing to his benevolent influence,
the castle cellars never went dry, nor did the
quality of the wine deteriorate. Besides the wine-
cellar, Finvarra looked after the stables, and it
was owing to the exercise that he and his fairy
followers gave the horses by night that Mr. John
Kirwan s racers were so often successful on the
Curragh. That such stories could have passed
current as fact, which they undoubtedly did, is
excellent proof of how late and how completely a
1
mythology may survive among the uncultured.
Finvarra rules to-day over a wide realm of fairy
folk. Many of these, again, have their own vassal
chieftains, forming a tribal hierarchy such as must
have existed in the Celtic days of Ireland. Fin
varra and Onagh are high king and queen, but,
under them, Cliodna 2 is tributary queen of Munster,
and rules from a sidh near Mallow in County Cork,
8
while, under her again, are Aoibhinn queen of the ,
fairies of North Munster, and Aine, queen of the
fairies of South Munster. These names form but

a single instance. A
map of fairy Ireland could
without much difficulty be drawn, showing, with
almost political exactness, the various kingdoms of
the Sidhe.
Far less easy, however, would be the task of
ascertaining the origin and lineage of these fabled
1
Dublin University Magaxine, June, 1864.
* 8 Pronounced
Pronounced Cleena. Evin,
beings. Some of them can still be traced as older

gods and goddesses. In the eastern parts of Ireland,
Badb and her sisters have become banshees who "
"
wail over deaths not necessarily found in battle.
Aynia, deemed the most powerful fairy in Ulster,

and Aine*, queen of South Munster, are perhaps
the same person, the mysterious and awful goddess
once adored as Anu, or Danu. Of the two,
it is Ain who especially seems to carry on the
traditions of the older Anu, worshipped, according
to the
"
Choice of
Names", in Munster as a goddess
of prosperity and abundance. Within living memory,

she was propitiated by a magical ritual upon every
Saint John s Eve, to ensure fertility during the
coming year. The villagers round her sidh of Cnoc
Aine (Knockainy) carried burning bunches of hay
or straw upon poles to the top of the hill, and thence
dispersed among the fields, waving these torches

over the crops and cattle. This fairy, or goddess
was held to be friendly, and, indeed, more than
friendly, to men. Whether or not she were the
mother of the gods, she is claimed as first ancestress
by half a dozen famous Irish families.
Among her children was the famous Earl Gerald,
offspring of her alliance with the fourth Earl of
Desmond, known as "The Magician". As in the
well-known story of the Swan-maidens, the magician-
earl is said to have stolen Ain6 s cloak while she
was bathing, and refused to return it unless she
became his bride. But, in the end, he lost her.
Aine had warned her husband never to show sur
prise at anything done by their son but a wonderful;
feat which he performed made the earl break this
condition, and Ain6 was obliged, by fairy law, to
leave him. But, though she had lost her husband,
she was not separated from her son, who was re
ceived into the fairy world after his death, and now
lives under the surface of Lough Gur, in County
Limerick, waiting, like the British Arthur, for the

hour to strike in which he shall lead forth his war
riors to drive the foreigners But this
from Ireland.
will not be until, by riding round the lake once in
every seventh year, he shall have worn his horse s
silver shoes as thin as a cat s ear. 1
Not only
the tribe of Danu, but heroes of the
other mythical cycles swell the fairy host to-day.
Donn, son of who was drowned before ever
Mile",
he set foot on Irish soil, lives at Bonn s House "
",
a line of sand-hills in the Dingle Peninsula of Kerry,

and, as late as the eighteenth century, we find him
invoked by a local poet, half in jest, no doubt, but
2
still, perhaps also a little in earnest. The heroes of
Ulster have no part in fairyland; but their enemy,
Medb, is credited with queenly rule among the
Sidhe, and is held by some to have been the original
of Queen Mab". Caoilt6, last of the Fenians,
"
was, in spite of his leanings towards Christianity,

enrolled among the Tuatha De Danann, but none
of his kin are known there, neither Ossian, nor
Oscar, nor even Finn himself. Yet not even to
merely historical mortals are the gates of the gods
necessarily closed. The Barry, chief of the barony
1
See Fitzgerald, Popular Tales of Ireland, in Vol. IV of the Revue Celtique.
2
Dublin University Magazine, June, 1864.
of Barrymore, said to inhabit an enchanted palace

is
in Knockthierna, one of the Nagles Hills. The not

famous O Donaghue, whose domain
less traditionally
was near Killarney, now dwells beneath the waters
of that lake, and may still be seen, it is said, upon
1
May Day.
But besides these figures, which can be traced in
mythology or history, and others who, though all

written record of them has perished, are obviously
of the same character, there are numerous beings
who suggest a different origin from that of the
Aryan-seeming They correspond to the
fairies.
elves and trolls of Scandinavian, or the silenoi and
satyrs of Greek myth. Such is the Leprechaun,

who makes shoes for the fairies, and knows where
hidden treasures are; the Gan Ceanach, or "love-
talker ",
who fills the ears of idle girls with pleasant
fancies merely mortal ideas, they should be
when, to
busy with their work the Pooka, who leads travellers

;
astray, or, taking the shape of an ass or mule,

beguiles them to mount upon his back to their
discomfiture; the Dulachan, who rides without a
head; and other friendly or malicious sprites.
Whence come they? A
possible answer suggests
itself.
Preceding the Aryans, and surviving the
Aryan conquest all over Europe, was a large non-
Aryan population, which must have had its own
gods, who would
retain their worship, be revered
by successive generations, and remain rooted to the

soil. May not these uncouth and half-developed
1 For stories of these two Norman-Irish heroes, see Crofton Croker s
Fairy
Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland,
IrishLeprechauns, Pookas, and Dulachans, together
with the Scotch Cluricanes, Brownies, and their
kin, be no "
creations of popular fancy ",

but the
dwindling figures of those darker gods of
"
the dark
Iberians"?
THE BRITISH GODS AND THEIR
STORIES
CHAPTER XVI
THE GODS OF THE BRITONS
Thedescriptions and the stories of the British

gods have hardly come down to us in so ample or
so compact a form as those of the deities of the
Gaels, as they are preserved in the Irish and Scot
tish manuscripts. They have also suffered far more
from the sophistications of the euhemerist. Only
in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi" do the
"
gods of the Britons appear anything like their

in
real character of supernatural beings, masters of
magic, and untrammelled by the limitations which

hedge in mortals. Apart from those four fragments
of mythology, and from a very few scattered refer
ences in the early Welsh poems, one must search
for them under strange disguises. Some masquerade
as kings Geoffrey of
in Monmouth s more than
apocryphal Historia Britonum. Others have re
ceived an undeserved canonization, which must be
stripped from them before they can be seen in their
true colours. Others, again, were adopted by the
Norman -French romancers, and turned into the
champions of chivalry now known as Arthur s
Knights of the Round Table. But, however dis
guised, their real nature can still be discerned. The
Gaels and the Britons were but two branches of one
261
race the Celtic. In many of the gods of the Britons
we shall recognize, with names alike and attributes
the same, the familiar features of the Gaelic Tuatha
D6 Danann.
The British gods are sometimes described as
divided into three families the "
Children of Don ",
the
"
Children of Nudd", and the "
Children of
But these three families are really only
Llyr".
two; for Nudd, or Lludd, as he is variously called,

is himself described as a son of Beli, who was the
husband of the goddess Don. There can be no

doubt that Don herself is the same divine personage
as Danu, the mother of the Tuatha De Danann,
and that Beli is the British equivalent of the Gaelic
Bil6, the universal Dis Pater who sent out the first
Gaels from Hades to take possession of Ireland.
With the other family, the "
Children of Llyr",
we
are equally on familiar ground; for the British Llyr
can be none other than the Gaelic sea-god Lr.
These two families or tribes are usually regarded as
in opposition, and their struggles seem to symbolize
in British myth that same conflict between the
powers of heaven, and life and of the sea,

light,
darkness, and death which are shadowed in Gaelic
mythology in the battles between the Tuatha D6
Danann and the Fomors.
For the children of Don were certainly gods of
the sky. Their names are writ large in heaven.
The glittering W
which we call Cassiopeia s
"
Chair was to our British ancestors Llys Don, or

"
"Don s Court"; our Northern Crown" was Caer

"
Arianrod, the "Castle of Arianrod", Don s daughter;

The Gods of the Britons 253
while the "Milky Way"

was the "Castle of Gwydion",
Don s son.
1
More than this, the greatest of her
children, the Nudd or Lludd whom some make the

head of a dynasty of his own, was the Zeus alike of
the Britons and of the Gaels. His epithet of Llaw
Ereint, that is, "of the Hand of Silver", proves
him the same personage as Nuada the "Silver-
Handed ". The legend which must have existed
to explain this peculiarity has been lost on British
ground, but it was doubtless the same as that told
of the Irish god. With it, and, no doubt, much else,
has disappeared any direct account of battles fought
by him as sky-god against Fomor-like enemies.
But, under the faint disguise of a king of Britain,
an ancient Welsh tale 2 records how he put an end
"
to three supernatural plagues which oppressed "
his country. In addition to this, we find him under

his name of Nudd described in a Welsh Triad as
one of "the three generous heroes of the Isle of
Britain ",
while another makes him the owner of
twenty-one thousand milch cows an expression
which must, to the primitive mind, have implied
inexhaustible Both help us to the con wealth.
ception of a god of heaven and battle, triumphant,

and therefore rich and liberal. 3
More
tangible evidence is, however, not lacking
to prove the wide-spread nature of his worship. A
temple dedicated to him in Roman times under the
name of Nodens, or Nudens, has been discovered at
1
Lady Guest s Mabinogion, a note to Math, the Son of Mathonwy.
3 The Story of Lludd and Llcvelys. See chap, xxiv The Decline and Fall of
"
the Gods ".

3 Rh
ys Hibbert Lectures, p. 128.
.
254 Mythology of the British fslands
Lydney, on the banks of the Severn. The god is

pictured on a plaque of bronze as a youthful deity,
haloed like the sun, and driving a four-horsed
chariot Flying spirits, typifying the winds, accom
pany him; while his power over the sea is symbol
ized by attendant Tritons. 1 This was in the west of
Britain, while, in the east, there is

good reason to
believe that he had a shrine overlooking the Thames.
Tradition declares that St. Paul s Cathedral occu
pies the site of an ancient pagan temple; while the
spot on which stands was called, we know from
it
Geoffrey of Monmouth, Parth Lludd" by the

"
2
Britons, and "
Ludes Geat"
by the Saxons.
Great, however, as he probably was, Lludd, 01
Nudd occupies less space in Welsh story, as we
have it now, than his son. Gwyn ap Nudd has
outlived in tradition almost all his supernatural kin.
Professor Rhys is tempted to see in him the British
3
equivalent of the Gaelic Finn mac Cumhail. The
name of both alike means "white"; both are sons
of the heaven-god ;
both are famed as hunters.
Gwyn, however, is more than that; for his game is
man. In the early Welsh poems, he is a god of

battle and of the dead, and, as such, fills the part of
a psychopompos, conducting the slain into Hades,
and there ruling over them. In later, semi-
Christianized story he is described as Gwyn, son
"
of Nudd, whom God has placed over the brood of

devils in Annwn, lest they should destroy the pre-
1 See a monograph by the Right Hon. Charles Bathurst : Roman Antiquities in

Lydney Park, Gloucestershire.
2
See chap, xxiv The Decline and Fall of the Gods
"
".
8 Hibbtrt Lectures^ pp. 178, 179.

1
sent race Later again, as paganism still further
".
degenerated, he came to be considered as king of

the Tylwyth Teg, the Welsh fairies, 2 and his name
as such has hardly yet died out of his last haunt, the
romantic vale of Neath. He is the wild huntsman
of Wales and the Westof England, and it is his
pack which is sometimes heard at chase in waste

places by night.
In his earliest guise, as a god of war and death,
he is the subject of a poem in dialogue contained in
3
the Black Book of Caermarthen. Obscure, like
most of the ancient Welsh poems, 4 it is yet a
spirited production, and may be quoted here as a
favourable specimen of the poetry of the early
Cymri. In it we shall see mirrored perhaps the
clearest figure of the British Pantheon, the
"
mighty
hunter", not of deer, but of men s souls, riding his
demon horse, and cheering on his demon hound to
the fearful chase. He knows when and where all
the great warriors fell, for he gathered their souls
upon the field of battle, and now rules over them in

6
Hades, or upon some misty mountain- top
"
". It
describes a mythical prince, named Gwyddneu
Garanhir, known to Welsh legend as the ruler of
a lost country now covered by the waters of Car
digan Bay, asking protection of the god, who
J So translated
by Lady Guest. Professor Rhys, however, renders it, whom "in
God has put the instinct of the demons of Annwn Arthurian Legend, p. 341.
".
3
Lady Guest s Mabinogion. Note to Kulhwch and Olwen".
"
3 Black Book of
Caermarthen, poem xxxni. Vol. I, p. 293, of Skene s Four
Ancient Books.
4
I have taken the
liberty of omitting a few lines whose connection with theii
context is not very apparent.
8
Gwyn was said to specially frequent the summits of hills.
accords it, and then relates the story of his ex
ploits :
Gwyddneu.
A bull of conflict was he, active in dispersing an arrayed
army,
The ruler of hosts, indisposed to anger,
Blameless and pure his conduct in protecting life.
Gwyn.
Against a hero stout was his advance,

The ruler of hosts, disposer of wrath,
There will be protection for thee since thou askest it
Gwyddneu.
For thou hast given me protection
How warmly wert thou welcomed!
The hero of hosts, from what region thou comest ?
Gwyn.
I come from battle and conflict
With a shield in my hand;

Broken is the helmet by the pushing of spears.
Gwyddneu.
I will address thee, exalted man,
With his shield in distress.
Brave man, what is thy descent?
Gwyn,
Round-hoofed is my horse, the torment of battle,
Fairy am I called, Gwyn the son of Nudd, 1
The lover of Creurdilad, the daughter of Lludd.
1 This line is Professor Rhys s. Skene translates it: "Whilst I am called Gwyn
the son of Nudd ".
Gwyddneu.
Since thou, Gwyn, an upright
it is
man,
From thee there is no
concealing:
I am Gwyddneu Garanhir.
Gwyn.
Hasten to my ridge, the Tawe abode;
Not the nearest Tawe name I to thee,
But that Tawe which is the farthest. 1
Polished is
my ring, golden my saddle and bright:
To my sadness
I saw a conflict before Caer Vandwy. 2
Before Caer Vandwy a host I saw,

Shields were shattered and ribs
broken;
Renowned and splendid was he who made the assault
Gwyddneu.
Gwyn, son of Nudd, the hope of armies,
Quicker would legions fall before the hoofs
Of thy horse than broken rushes to the
ground
Gwyn.
Handsome my dog, and round-bodied,
And truly the best of dogs;
Dormarth 8 was he, which belonged to
Maelgwyn.
Gwyddneu.
Dormarth with the ruddy nose! what a
gazer
Thou art upon me because I notice
Thy wanderings on Gwibir Vynyd. 4
i I have here preferred Rhys s
rendering: Arthurian Legend, p. 364.
8
A name for Hades, of unknown
meaning.
3
Dormarth means "
Death s Door Arthurian Legend, pp.

4
".
Rhys :
Rhys has it :
"Dormarth, red-nosed, ground-grazing

On him we perceived the speed
Of thy wandering on Cloud Mount."
Arthurian Legend, p. 156.

( B 219 ,
Gwyn.
I have been in the place where was killed Gwendolen,
The son of Ceidaw, the pillar of songs,
When the ravens screamed over blood.
I have been in the place where Bran was killed,

The son of Iweridd, of far extending fame,
When the ravens of the battle-field screamed.
I have been where Llacheu was slain,

The son of Arthur, extolled in songs,
When the ravens screamed over blood.
Ihave been where Meurig was killed,

The son of Carreian, of honourable fame,
When the ravens screamed over flesh.
I have been where Gwallawg was killed,
The son of Goholeth, the accomplished,
The resister of Lloegyr, the son of Lleynawg.
I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain,

From the east to the north:
I am the escort of the grave. 1
I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain,

From the east to the south:
I am alive, they in death!
A line in this poem allows us to see Gwyn in
another and less sinister role.

"
The lover of
Creurdilad, the daughter of Lludd," he calls himself;
and an episode in the mythical romance of Kul- "
hwch and Olwen", preserved in the Red Book of

Hergest, gives the details of his courtship. Gwyn
had as rival a deity called Gwyrthur ap Greidawl,
1
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 383. Skene translates: "I am alive, they in their
graves I"
1
that is
"
Victor, son of Scorcher". These two

waged perpetual war for Creurdilad, or Creudy-
lad, each her from the other, until
in turn stealing
the matter was referred to Arthur, who decided that
Creudylad should be sent back to her father, and

that Gwyn and Gwyrthur should fight for her "
every first of May, from henceforth until the day

of doom, and that whichever of them should then
be conqueror should have the maiden What ".
satisfaction this would be to the survivor of what

might be somewhat flippantly described as, in two
senses, the longest engagement on record, is not

very clear; but its
mythological interpretation ap
pears fairly obvious. In Gwyn, god of death and
the underworld, and in the solar deity, Gwyrthur,
we may see the powers of darkness and sunshine,
of winter and summer, in contest, 2 each alternately
winning and losing a bride who would seem to
represent the spring with its grain and flowers.
Creudylad, whom the story of Kulhwch and "
Olwen" calls "the most splendid maiden in the

three islands of the mighty and in the three islands
adjacent is, in fact, the British Persephone.

", As
the daughter of Lludd, she child of the shining
is
sky. But a different tradition must have made

her a daughter of Llyr, the sea-god; for her name
as such passed, through Geoffrey of Monmouth,
to Shakespeare, in whose hands she became that
pathetic figure, Cordelia in

"
King Lear". It may

not be altogether unworthy of notice, though per
haps it is only a coincidence, that in some myths
a
i
Rhys: Hibbert Ltctures, p. 561. Rhys: Hibbert Lectures, pp. 561-563.
the Greek Persephon6 is made a daughter of Zeus
1
and in others of Poseidon.
Turning from the sky-god and his son, we find
others of Don s children to have been the exponents
of those arts of which early races held to havelife
been taught directly by the gods to men. Don

herself had a brother, Math, son of a mysterious
Mathonwy, and recognizable as a benevolent ruler

of the underworld akin to Beli, or perhaps that god
himself under another title, for the name Math,
2
which means money, treasure
"
recalls that
coin, ",
of Plouton, the Greek god of Hades, in his guise

of possessor and giver of metals. It was a belief
common to the Aryan races that wisdom, as well as

wealth, came originally from the underworld; and
we find Math represented, in the Mabinogi bearing
hisname, as handing on his magical lore to his
nephew and pupil Gwydion, who, there is good
reason to believe, was the same divine personage
whom the Teutonic tribes worshipped as
"
Woden "
and Odin Thus equipped, Gwydion son of

"
".
Don became the druid of the gods, the master "
of illusion and phantasy", and, not only that, but
i
Dyer Studies of the Gods in Greece, p. 48.
:
Gwyn, son of Nudd, had a brother, Edeyrn, of whom so little has come down to
us that he finds his most suitable place in a foot-note. Unmentioned in the earliest
Welsh legends, he first appears as a kn.ght of Arthur s court in the Red Book stories
of Kulhwch and Olwen", the "Dream of Rhonabwy", and "Geraint, the Son of
"
Erbin". He accompanied Arthur on his expedition to Rome, and is said also to have
slain "three most atrocious giants" at Brentenol (Brent Knoll), near Glastonbury.
His name occurs in a catalogue of Welsh saints, where he is described as a bard,

and the chapel of Bodedyrn, near Holyhead, still stands to his honour. Modern
readers will know him from Tennyson s Idyll of "Geraint and Enid", which
follows very closely the Welsh romance of "Geraint, the Son of Erbin".
2
Rhys who calls him Cambrian Pluto": Lectures on Welsh Philology\
"a
p. 414.
the teacher of all that is useful and good, the friend

and helper of mankind, and the perpetual fighter
against niggardly underworld powers for the good
gifts which they refused to allow out of their keep
ing. Shoulder to shoulder with him in this "holy

war of culture against ignorance, and light against
"
darkness, stood his brothers Amaethon, god of agri

culture, and Govannan, a god of smithcraft identical
with the Gaelic Giobniu. He had also a sister
called Arianrod, or
"
Silver Circle ", who, as is com

mon mythologies, was not only his sister, but
in
also his wife. So Zeus wedded Here"; and, indeed,

it is difficult to
say where otherwise the partners of
gods are to come from. Of this connection two
sons were born at one birth Dylan and Lieu, who
are considered as representing the twin powers of
darkness and light. With darkness the sea was
inseparably connected by the Celts, and, as soon as
the dark twin was born and named, he plunged
headlong into his native element. "And imme

diately when he was in the sea," says the Mabinogi
of Math, son of Mathonwy, "he took its nature,
and swam as well as the best fish that was therein.
And for that reason was he called Dylan, the Son
of the Wave. Beneath him no wave ever broke."
He was killed with a spear at last by his uncle,
Govannan, and, according to the bard Taliesin, the
waves of Britain, Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of
Man wept for him. 1 Beautiful legends grew up
around his death. The clamour of the waves dash-
1
Book of Taliesin, XLIII. The Death-song of Dylan, Son of the Wave, Vol. I,
p. 288 of Skene.
ing upon the beach the expression of their longing

is
to avenge their son. The sound of the sea rushing

up the mouth of the River Conway is still known as
"
Dylan s death-groan "*. A small promontory on

the Carnarvonshire side of the Menai Straits, called
Pwynt Maen Tylen, or Pwynt Maen Dulan, pre

serves his name. 2
The other child of Gwydion and Arianrod grew
up to sun-god, Lieu Llaw
become the British
Gyffes, the exact counterpart of the Gaelic Lugh

Lamh-fada, Light the Long-handed".
"
Like all
solar growth was rapid.
deities, hisWhen he
was a year old, he seemed to be two years; at
the age of two, he travelled by himself; and
when he was four years old, he was as tall as
a boy of eight, and was his father s constant com
panion.
One day, Gwydion took him to the castle of
Arianrod not her castle in the sky, but her abode
on earth, the still - remembered site of which is
marked by a patch of rocks in the Menai Straits,
accessible without a boat only during the lowest
spring and autumn tides. Arianrod had disowned

her son, and did not recognize him when she saw
him with Gwydion. She asked who he was, and
was much displeased when told. She demanded to
know his name, and, when Gwydion replied that he
"
had as yet received none, she "
laid a destiny upon

him, after the fashion of the Celts, that he should be
without a name until she chose to bestow one on
him herself.
1
Rhys: Hibbert Lectures, p. 387. "Rhys: Celtic Folklore, p. 210.
To be without a name was a very serious thing

to the ancient Britons, who seem to have held the
primitive theory that the name and the soul are the
same. So Gwydion by what
cast about to think
craft he might extort from Arianrod some remark
from which he could name their son. The next day,
he went down to the sea-shore with the boy, both of
them disguised as cordwainers. He made a boat
out of sea-weed by magic, and some beautifully-
coloured leather out of some dry sticks and sedges.
Then they sailed the boat to the port of Arianrod s
castle, and, anchoring it where it could be seen,
began ostentatiously to stitch away at the leather.
Naturally, they were soon noticed, and Arianrod
sent someone out to see who they were and what
they were doing. When she found that they were

shoemakers, she remembered that she wanted some
shoes. Gwydion, though he had her measure, pur
posely made them, first too large, and then too
small. This brought Arianrod herself down to the
boat to be fitted.
While Gwydion was measuring Arianrod s foot

a wren came and stood upon the deck.
for the shoes,
The boy took his bow and arrow, and hit the wren
in the leg a favourite shot of Celtic
"
crack"
archers, at any rate in romance. The goddess was

pleased to be amiable and complimentary.
"
Truly,"
said she, "the lion aimed at it with a steady hand."

It is from such incidents that primitive people take
their names, all the world over. The boy had got
his. is no thanks to you," said Gwydion to
"It
Arianrod,
"
but now he has a name. And a good

name it is. He be called Llew Llaw Gyffes 1
shall ."
This name of the sun-god is a good example of

how obsolete the ancient pagan tradition had be
come before it was
put into writing. The old word
Lieu, meaning "light", had passed out of use, and
the scribe substituted for a name that was unintelli
gible to him one which he knew, namely Llew,

like it
meaning
"
lion ". The word

Gyffes seems also to
have suffered change, and to have meant originally
2
not "steady",
but "long"
.
At any
rate, Arianrod was defeated in her design
to keep her son nameless. Neither did she even
get her shoes; for, as soon as he had gained his
object, Gwydion allowed the boat to change back
into sea-weed, and the leather
to return to sedge and
sticks. So, in her anger, she put a fresh destiny on
the boy, that he should not take arms till she herself
gave them him.

Gwydion, however, took Lieu to Dinas Dinllev
his castle, which still stands at the edge of the
Menai Straits, and brought him up as a warrior.
As soon as he thought him old enough to have
arms, he took him with him again to Caer Arianrod.
This time, they were disguised as bards. Arianrod
received them gladly, heard Gwydion s songs and
tales, feasted them, and prepared a room for them
to sleep in.
The next morning, Gwydion got up very early,

and prepared his most powerful incantations. By
his druidical arts he made it seem as if the whole
i.e. The Lion with the Steady Hand.

1
*
See Rhys Hibbert Lectures, note to p. 237.
:
country rang with the shouts and trumpets of an

army, and he put a glamour over everyone, so that
they saw the bay with ships.
filled Arianrod came
to him in terror, asking what could be done to
protect the castle. Give us arms," he replied,

"
"and we do the best we can." So Arianrod s

will
maidens armed Gwydion, while Arianrod herself

put arms on Lieu. By the time she had finished, all
the noises had ceased, and the ships had vanished.
"Let us take our arms off said Gwydion;
again,"
"we shall not need them now." "But the army

is all round the castle!" cried Arianrod. "There
was no army," answered Gwydion; was only an

"it
illusion of mine to cause you to break your prophecy

and give our son arms. And now he has got them,
without thanks to you." "Then I will lay a worse
destiny on him," cried the infuriated goddess. "He
shall never have a wife of the people of this earth."

"He shall have a wife in spite of you," said
Gwydion.
So Gwydion went to Math, his uncle and tutor in
magic, and between them they made a woman out

of flowers by charms and illusion. They took the
"
blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom,

and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and pro
duced from them a maiden, the fairest and most
graceful that man ever saw."
They called her Blo-
deuwedd (Flower-face), and gave her to Lieu as his
wife. And they gave Lieu a palace called Mur y
Castell, near Bala Lake.
All went well until, one day, Gronw Pebyr, one
of the gods of darkness, came by, hunting, and
killed the stag at nightfall near Lleu s castle. The
sun-god was away upon a visit to Math, but Blodeu-
wedd asked the stranger to take shelter with her
That night they fell in love with one another, and
conspired together how Lieu might be put away.
When Lieu came back from Math s court, Blodeu-
wedd, like a Celtic Dalilah, wormed out of him the
secret of how his life was preserved. He told her
that he could only die in one way; he could not be
killed either inside or outside a house, either on
horseback or on foot, a spear that had
but that if
been a year in the making, and which was never

worked upon except during the sacrifice on Sunday,
were to be cast at him as he stood beneath a roof of
thatch, afterhaving just bathed, with one foot upon
the edge of the bath and the other upon a buck
goat s back, it would cause his death. Blodeuwedd

piously thanked Heaven that he was so well pro
tected, and sent a messenger to her paramour, telling
him what she had learned. Gronw set to work on
the spear; and in a year it was ready. When she
knew this, Blodeuwedd asked Lieu to show her
exactly how it was he could be killed.
Lieu agreed; and Blodeuwedd prepared the bath
under the thatched roof, and tethered the goat by it.
Lieu bathed, and then stood with one foot upon the
edge of the bath, and the other upon the goat s back.
At moment, Gronw, from an ambush, flung the
this
spear, and hit Lieu, who, with a terrible cry, changed

into an eagle, and flew away. He never came back;
and Gronw took possession of both his wife and his
palace.
BLODEUWEDD S INVITATION TO GRONW PEBYR
But Gwydion everywhere for his

set out to search
son. At last, one day, he came to a house in North
Wales where the man was in great anxiety about
his sow;soon as the sty was opened, every
for as
morning, she rushed out, and did not return again

till late in the
evening. Gwydion offered to follow
her, and, at dawn, the man took him to the sty, and
opened the door. The sow leaped
forth, and ran,
and Gwydion ran after her. He tracked her to
a brook between Snowdon and the sea, still called
Nant y Llew, and saw her feeding underneath an
oak. Upon the top of the tree there was an eagle,
and, every time it shook itself, there
lumps fell off it
of putrid meat, which the sow ate greedily. Gwydion

suspected that the eagle must be Lieu. So he sang
this verse:
"
Oak that grows between the two banks ;
Darkened is the sky and hill!
Shall I not tell him by his wounds,

That this is Lieu?"
The eagle, on hearing this, came half-way down the

tree. So Gwydion sang:
"
Oak that grows in upland ground,

Is itnot wetted by the rain? Has it not been drenched
By nine score tempests?
It bears in its branches Lieu Llaw Gyffes."
The eagle came slowly down until it was on the

lowest branch. Gwydion sang:
"
Oak that grows beneath the steep ;
Stately and majestic is its aspect!

Shall I not speak it?
That Lieu will come to my lap?"
Then the eagle came down, and sat on Gwydion s
knee. Gwydion with his magic wand, and
struck it
it became Lieu again, wasted to skin and bone by

the poison on the spear.
Gwydion took him to Math to be healed, and left

him there, while he went to Mur y Castell, where
Blodeuwedd was. When she heard that he was
coming, she fled. But Gwydion overtook her, and
changed her into an owl, the bird that hates the
day. A still older form of this probably extremely
ancient of the sun-god
myth the savage and repul
sive details of which speak of a hoary antiquity
makes the chase of Blodeuwedd by Gwydion to have
taken place in the sky, the stars scattered over the
1
Milky Way being the traces of it. As for her
accomplice, Lieu would accept no satisfaction short
of Gronw s submitting to stand exactly where Lieu
had stood, to be shot at in his turn. To this he was
2
obliged to agree; and Lieu killed him.
There are two other sons of Beli and Don of
whom so little is recorded that it would hardly be
worth while mentioning them, were it not for the
wild poetry of the legend connected with them.
The tale, put into writing at a time when all the
gods were being transfigured into simple mortals,

tells us that they were two kings of Britain, brothers.
One they were walking together.

starlight night
Nynniaw to Peibaw, "what a fine,
said
"
See,"
wide-spreading field I have." Where is asked "
it?"
1
:
2
Retold from the Mabinogi of Math, Son of Mathonwy, in Lady Guest s Mabin-
ogion.
Peibaw. replied Nynniaw; "the whole
"There,"
stretch of the sky, as far as the eye reaches." Look "
then," returned Peibaw, "what a number of cattle

I have
grazing on your field." "Where are they?"
asked Nynniaw. All the stars that you can see," "
every one of them of fiery-coloured

"
replied Peibaw,
gold, with the moon for a shepherd over them."
"They
shall not feed on my field," cried Nynniaw.
"
They shall," exclaimed Peibaw.

They
"
shall not,"
cried said Peibaw. "They

"
Nynniaw, They shall,"
shall not," Nynniaw answered; and so they went

on, from contradiction to quarrel, and from private
quarrel to civil war, until the armies of both of them
were destroyed, and the two authors of the evil were
turned by God into oxen for their sins. 1
Last of the children of Don, we find a goddess
called Penardun, of whom little is known except
that she was married to the sea-god Llyr. This
incident is curious, as forming a parallel to the
Gaelic story which tells of intermarriage between the
Tuatha D6 Danann and the Fomors. 2 Brigit, the
Dagda s daughter, was married to Bress, son of
Elathan, while Cian, the son of Diancecht, wedded
Ethniu, the daughter of Balor. So, in this kindred
mythology, a slender tie of relationship binds the
gods of the sky to the gods of the sea.

The name Llyr is
supposed, like its Irish equiva
3
lent Ler, to have meant "the Sea". The British
sea-god is undoubtedly the same as the Gaelic; in-
The lolo Manuscripts collected by Edward Williams, the bard, at about the
1
:
beginning of the nineteenth century The Tale of Rhitta Gawr.

2 See
Chapter VII" The Rise of the Sun-God".
3
Rhys: Studies in the Arthurian Legend, p. 130.
deed, the two facts that he is described in Welsh
literature as
Llyr Llediath, that is, Llyr of the
"
Foreign Dialect", and is

given a wife called Iweridd
1
(Ireland) suggest that he may have been borrowed
,
by the Britons from the Gaels later than any myth

ology common to both. As a British god, he was
the far-off original of Shakespeare s
"
King Lear".
The chief city of his worship is still called after him,
Leicester, that is, Llyr-cestre, in still earlier days,
Caer Llyr.
Llyr, we have noticed, married two wives, Pen-
ardun and Iweridd. By the daughter of D6n he
had a son called Manawyddan, who is identical
with the Gaelic Mananndn mac Lir.
2
We know
less of his character and attributes than we do of the
Irish we find him equally a ruler in that
god; but
Hades or Elysium which the Celtic mind ever con
nected with the sea. Like all the inhabitants, of
that other world, he is at once a master of magic
and of the useful arts, which he taught willingly to
his friends. To his enemies, however, he could
show a different side of his character. A triad tells
us that
"
The achievement of Manawyddan the Wise,

After lamentation and fiery wrath,
Was the constructing of the bone-fortress of Oeth and
3
Anoeth",
which is described as a prison made, in the shape of

1
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 130.
3
The old Irish tract called Coir Anmann (the Choice of Names) says: "Man-
annan mac Lir . . . the Britons and the men of Erin deemed that he was the god
of the sea".
3 lolo
MSS., stanza 18 of The Stanzas of the Achievements, composed by the
Azure Bard of the Chair.
a bee-hive, entirely of human bones mortared to

gether, and divided into innumerable cells, forming a
kind of labyrinth. In this ghastly place he immured
those whom he found trespassing in Hades; and
among his captives was no less a person than the
famous Arthur. 1
bore two children to Llyr: a daughter
"
Ireland"
called Branwen and a son called Brin. The little

we know of Branwen of the
"
Fair Bosom shows

"
her as a goddess of love child, like the Greek

Aphrodite, of the sea. Brdn, on the other hand,
is, even more clearly than Manawyddan, a dark
deity of Hades. He is represented as of colossal
size, so huge, in fact, that no house or ship was big
enough
2
delighted in battle and
to hold him. He
carnage, like the hoodie-crow or raven from which
he probably took his name, 8 but he was also the
especial patron of bards, minstrels, and musicians,
and we find him in one of the poems ascribed to
Taliesin claiming to be himself a bard, a harper,
a player on the crowth, and seven - score other
musicians all at once. 4 His son was, called Cara- :
dawc Strong-armed, who, as the British myth

the.
ology crumbled, became confounded with the his

torical Caratacus, known popularly as Caractacus
"
".
Both Bran and Manawyddan were especially con

nected with the Swansea peninsula. The bone-
fortress of Oeth and Anoeth was placed by tradition in
1
See note to chap, xxn "
The Treasures of Britain ".
8
Mabinogi of Branwen, Daughter of Llyr.
3
:
4
Book of Taliesin, poem XLVIII, in Skene s Four Ancient Books of Wales, Vol. I.
p. 297.
Gower. 1 That Bran was equally at home there may
be proved from the Morte Darthur, in which store
house of forgotten and misunderstood mythology
2
Bran of Gower survives as "
King Brandegore".
Such identification of a mere mortal country with
the other world seems strange enough to us, but to
our Celtic ancestors it was a quite natural thought.
All islands and peninsulas, which, viewed from an
opposite coast, probably seemed to them islands
were deemed to be pre-eminently homes of the dark
Powers of Hades. Difficult of access, protected by
the turbulent and dangerous sea, sometimes rendered
quite invisible by fogs and mists and, at other times,

looming up ghostlily on the horizon, often held by
the remnant of a hostile lower race, they gained a
mystery and a sanctity from the law of the human

mind which has always held the unknown to be the
terrible. The Cornish Britons, gazing from the
shore, saw Gower and Lundy, and deemed them
outposts of the over-sea Other World. To the
Britons of Wales, Ireland was. no human realm, a
view reciprocated by the Gaels, who saw Hades
in Britain, while the Isle of Man was a little Hades
common to them both. Nor even was the sea

always necessary to sunder the world of ghosts
from that of shadow-casting men". Glastonbury
"
Tor, surrounded by almost impassable swamps, was

one of the especial haunts of Gwyn ap Nudd. The
Britons of the north held that beyond the Roman
1
The Verses of the Graves of the Warriors, in the Black Book of Caermarthen.
See also Rhys: Arthurian Legend^ p. 347.
2
Rhys Studies in the Arthurian Legend, p. 160.
:
wall and the vast Caledonian wood lived ghosts

and not men. Even the Roman province of De-
metia called by the Welsh Dyfed, and correspond
ing, roughly, to the modern County of Pembroke
shire was, as a last stronghold of the aborigines,
identified with the mythic underworld.
As Dyfed was ruled by a local tribe of
such,
gods, whose greatest figures were Pwyll, Head "
of Annwn (the Welsh name for Hades), with his

"
wife Rhiannon, and their son Pryderi. These

beings are described as hostile to the children of
D6n, but friendly to the race of Llyr. After
Pwyll death or disappearance, his widow Rhiannon
s
becomes the wife of Manawyddan. 1 In a poem

of Taliesin s we find Manawyddan and Pryderi joint-
rulers of Hades, and warders of that magic cauldron
2
of inspiration which the gods of light attempted to
steal or capture, and which became famous after
wards as the Holy Grail Another of their
"
".
treasures were the Three Birds of Rhiannon "
",
which, we are told in an ancient book, could sing

the dead to life and the living into the sleep of
death. Fortunately they sang seldom. There "
are three things," says a Welsh triad, which are "
not often heard: the song of the birds of Rhiannon,

a song of wisdom from the mouth of a Saxon, and
an invitation to a feast from a miser."
Nor is the list of British gods complete witlv

out mention of Arthur, though most readers will
be surprised to find him in such company. The
1
Mabinogi of Manawyddan, Son of Llyr.
2 Book of Taliesin, poem xiv, Vol. I, p. 276, of Skene.
( B 219 ) g
genius of Tennyson, who drew his materials mostly

from the Norman- French romances, has stereotyped
the popular conception of Arthur as a king of early
Britain who fought for his fatherland and the Chris
tian faith against invading Saxons. Possibly there
may, indeed, have been a powerful British chieftain
bearing that typically Celtic name, which is found in
Irish legend as Artur, one of the sons of Nemed who
fought against the Fomors, and on the Continent

as Artaius, a Gaulish deity whom the Romans identi
fied with Mercury, and who seems
have been to
1
a patron of agriculture. But the original Arthur
stands upon the same ground as Cuchulainn and
Finn. His deeds mythical, because super
>are
human. His companions can be shown to have

been divine. Some we know were worshipped in
Gaul. Others are children of D6n, of Llyr, and
of Pwyll, dynasties of older gods to whose head
Arthur seems to have risen, as his cult waxed and
theirs waned. Stripped of their godhead, and
strangely transformed, they fill the pages of ro
mance as Knights of the Table Round.
These were the native gods of Britain.
deities
Many others are, however, mentioned upon inscrip

tions found in our island, but these were almost
all exotic and imported. Imperial Rome brought
men of diverse races among her legions, and these
men brought their gods. Scattered over Britain,
but especially in the north, near the Wall, we find
evidence that deities of many nations from Ger
many to Africa, and from Gaul to Persia were
Rhys: Studies in the Arthurian Legend, 48 and note.
1
p.
1
sporadically worshipped. Most of these foreign
gods were Roman, but a temple at Eboracum (now
York) was dedicated to Serapis, and Mithras, the
Persian sun-god, was also adored there; while at
Corbridge, in Northumberland (the ancient Cor-
spitium), there have been found altars to the Tyrian
Hercules and to Astarte. The war-god was also
"
invoked under many strange names as Cocidius "
by a colony of Dacians in Cumberland as Toutates, ;
Camulus, Coritiacus, Belatucador, Alator, Loucetius,

Condates, and Rigisamos by men of different coun
tries. A goddess of war was worshipped at Bath
under the name of Nemetona. The hot springs
of the same town were under the patronage of a
by the Romans with
divinity called Sul, identified
Minerva, and she was helped by a god of medicine
described on a dedicatory tablet as Sol Apollo "
Anicetus ". Few of these

"
strange gods", however,

seem have taken hold of the imagination of the
to
native Britons. Their worshippers did not prose
lytize, and their general influence was probably
about equal to that of an Evangelical Church in
a Turkish town. The sole exceptions to this rule
are where the foreign gods are Gaulish; but in
several instances it can be proved that they were
not so much of Roman, as of original Celtic
importation. The warlike heaven - god Camulus

appears in Gaelic heroic myth as Cumhal, the
and in British mythical history as
father of Finn,
Coel, a duke of Caer Coelvin (known earlier as
i See a paper in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1851 "The Romans in
Britain ".
Camulodunum, and now as Colchester), who seized
the crown of Britain, and spent his short reign
in a series of battles. 1 The name of the sun -
god Maponos is found alike upon altars in Gaul
and Britain, and in Welsh literature as Mabon, a
follower of Arthur; while another Gaulish sun-god,
Belinus, who had a splendid temple at Bajocassos
(the modern Bayeux), though not mentioned in the
earliest British mythology, as its scattered records
have come down to us, must have been con
nected with Bran, for we find in Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth s
"
History
"
King Belinus as brother of

2
"
King Brennius ",

and in the Morte Darthur
"
Balin
"
as brother of
"
Balan ".
3
A second-century
Greek writer gives an account of a god of eloquence
worshipped in Gaul under the name of Ogmios, and
represented as equipped like Heracles, a description
which exactly corresponds to the conception of the
Gaelic Ogma, at once patron of literature and writ
ing and professional strong man of the Tuatha D6
Danann. Nemetona, the war-goddess worshipped
at Bath, was probably the same as Nemon, one of
Nuada s Valkyr -wives, while a broken inscription
to athubodva, which probably stood, when intact,
for Cathubodva, may well have been addressed to
the Gaulish equivalent of Badb Catha, the War- "
fury Lugh, or Lieu, was also widely known on

".
the Continent as Lugus. Three important towns
i It is said that the

"
Old King Cole

"
of the popular ballad, who "
was a merry
old soul ",
represents the last faint tradition of the Celtic god.
3
Geoffrey of Monmouth, Book III, chap. I.
* Morte Darthur, Book I, chap. xvi.

Laon, Leyden, and Lyons were allanciently called

after him Lugu-dunum (Lugus town), and at the
last and greatest of these a festival was still held
in Roman times upon the sun-god s day the first
of August which corresponded to the Lugnassad

(Lugh commemoration) held in ancient Ireland.
s
Brigit, the Gaelic Minerva, is also found in Britain

as Brigantia, tutelary goddess of the Brigantes, a
Northern tribe, and in Eastern France as Brigindo,
to whom Iccavos, son of Oppianos, made a dedica
1
tory offering of which there is still record.
Other, less striking agreements between the myth-,
ical names of the Insular and Continental
divine
Celts might be cited. These recorded should, how
ever, prove sufficiently that Gaul, Gael, and Briton
shared in a common heritage of mythological names
and ideas, which they separately developed into
three superficially different, but essentially similar
cults.
gods, and their Gaelic and British

1 For full account of Gaulish see
affinities,
Rhys: Hibbert Lectures, I and II "The Gaulish Pantheon".

CHAPTER XVII
THE ADVENTURES OF THE GODS OF HADES
with the family of Pwyll, deities connected

It is
with the south-west corner of Wales, called by the

Romans Demetia, and by the Britons Dyfed, and,
roughly speaking, identical with the modern county

of Pembrokeshire, that the earliest consecutive
accounts of the British gods begin. The first of
the Four Branches of the Mabinogi tell us how
Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed gained the right to be
"
",
called Pen Annwn, the Head of Hades "
Indeed, ".
it almost seems as if it had been deliberately written

to explain how same person could be at once a
the
mere mortal prince, however legendary, and a ruler
in the mystic Other World, and so to reconcile two
1
conflicting traditions. But to an earlier age than
that in which the legend was put into a literary
shape, such forced reconciliation would not have

been needed; for the two legends would not have
been considered to conflict. When Pwyll, head of
Annwn, was a mythic person whose tradition was
still alive, the unexplored, rugged, and savage
country of Dyfed, populated by the aboriginal
Iberians whom the Celt had driven into such remote
districts, appeared to those who dwelt upon the
i
Rhys. Studies in the Arthurian Legend, p. 282.
878
The Adventures of the Gods of Hades 279
eastern side of its
dividing river, the Tawe, at least a
dependency of Annwn, if not that weird realm itself.
But, as men grew

bolder, the frontier was crossed,
and Dyfed entered and traversed, and found to be
not so unlike other countries. Its inhabitants, if
not of Celtic race, were yet of flesh and blood So
that, though the province still continued to bear to a
late date the names of the Land of Illusion and " "
the Realm of Glamour

"
it was no
longer deemed ",*
to be Hades itself. That fitful and

shadowy country
had folded its tents, and departed over or under seas.
The story of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed", 2 tells us
"
how there was war in Annwn between its two kings

or between two, perhaps, of its chieftains.
many
Arawn ("Silver-Tongue") and Havgan Summer- ("
White")
each coveted the dominions of the other.
In the continual contests between them, Arawn was
worsted, and in despair he visited the upper earth to
seek for a mortal ally.
At time Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, held his
this
court at Narberth. He had, however, left his
capital upon a hunting expedition to Glyn Cuch,
known to-day as a valley upon the borders of the
two counties of Pembroke and Carmarthen. Like
so many kings of European and Oriental romance,
when an adventure is at hand, he became separated
from his party, and was, in modern parlance, "thrown
out". He could, however, still hear the music of
his hounds, and was listening to them, when he also
1
It is constantly so-called by the fourteenth-century Welsh poet, Dafydd ab
Gwilym, so much admired by George Borrow.
This chapter is retold from Lady Guest s translation of the Mabinogi of Pwyll.
Prince of Dyfed.
distinguished the cry of another pack coming towards

him. As he watched and listened, a stag came into
view; and the strange hounds pulled it down almost
at his feet. At
Pwyll hardly looked at the
first
stag, he was so taken up with gazing at the hounds,

for of all the hounds that he had seen in the world,
"
he had never seen any that were like unto these.

For their hair was of a brilliant shining white, and
their ears were red; and as the whiteness of their
bodies shone, so did the redness of their ears glisten."
They were, indeed, though Pwyll does not seem to
have known it,Hades breed the snow-
of the true
white, red-eared hounds we meet in Gaelic legends,
and which are still said to be sometimes heard and
seen scouring the hills of Wales by night. Seeing
no rider with the hounds, Pwyll drove them away
from the dead stag, and called up his own pack to it.
While he was doing this, a man "
upon a large,
light-gray steed, with a hunting-horn round his neck,
and clad in garments of gray woollen in the fashion
appeared, and rated Pwyll for
"
of a hunting garb
his unsportsmanlike conduct. Greater discourtesy," "
I never saw than

your driving away my
"
said he,
dogs after they had killed the stag, and calling your
own to it. And though I
may not be revenged
upon you swear that I will do you more

for this, I
damage than the value of a hundred stags."

Pwyll expressed his contrition, and, asking the
new-comer s name and rank, offered to atone for his
fault. The stranger told his name Arawn, a king
of Annwn and said that Pwyll could gain his
forgiveness only in one way, by going to Annwn
instead of him, and fighting for him with Havgan.

Pwyll agreed to do this, and the King of Hades put
his own semblance upon the mortal prince, so that
not a person in Annwn not even Arawn s own wife
would know that he was not that king. He led
him by a secret path into Annwn, and left him
before his castle, charging him to return to the place
where they had first met, at the end of a year from
that day. On the other hand, Arawn took on
Pwyll s shape, and went to Narberth.
No one in Annwn suspected Pwyll of being anyone
else than their king. He spent the year in ruling
the realm, in hunting, minstrelsy, and feasting.
Both by day and night, he had the company of
Arawn s wife, the most beautiful woman he had ever
yet seen, but he refrained from taking advantage of
the trust placed in him. At last the day came when
he was to meet Havgan in single combat. One
blow settled it; for Pwyll, Havgan s destined con
queror, thrust his antagonist an arm s and a spear s
length over the crupper of his horse, breaking his
shield and armour, and mortally wounding him.
Havgan was carried away to die, and Pwyll, in the

guise of Arawn, received the submission of the dead
king s subjects, and annexed his realm. Then he
went back to Glyn Cuch, to keep his tryst with
Arawn.
They retook their own shapes, and each returned
to his own kingdom. Pwyll learned that Dyfed had
never been ruled so well, or been so prosperous, as
during the year just passed. As for the King of
Hades, he found his enemy gone, and his domains
extended. And when he caressed his wife, she
asked him why he did so now, after the lapse of a
whole year. So he told her the truth, and they both
agreed that they had indeed got a true friend in
Pwyll.
After this, the kings of Annwn and Dyfed made
their friendship strong between them. From that
time forward, says the story, Pwyll was no longer
called Prince of Dyfed, but Pen Annwn, "the Head
of Hades ".
The second mythological incident in the Mabinogi

of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, tells how the Head of
Hades won his wife, Rhiannon, thought by Professor
Rhys have been a goddess either of the dawn or
to
of the moon. 1 There was a mound outside Pwyll s
palace at Narberth which had a magical quality.
To anyone who sat upon it there happened one of
two things: either he received wounds and blows,
or else he saw a wonder. One day, it occurred to
Pwyll that he would like to try the experience of the
mound. So he went and sat upon it.
No unseen blows assailed Pwyll, but he had not
been sitting long upon the mound before he saw,
coming towards him, lady on a pure- white horse
"a
of large size, with a garment of shining gold around

her riding very quietly.
",
He sent a man on foot
to ask her who she was, but, though she seemed
to be moving so slowly, the man could not come up
to her. He failed utterly to overtake her, and she
passed on out of sight.
The next day, Pwyll went again to the mound
1
Rhys : Hibbert Lectures, p. 678.
The lady appeared, and, this time, Pwyll sent a

horseman. At first, the horseman only ambled along
at about the same pace at which the lady seemed to
be going; then, failing to get near her, he urged his
horse into a gallop. But, whether he rode slow or
fast, he could come no closer to the lady than be
fore, although she seemed to the eyes of those who
watched to have been going only at a foot s pace.
The day after that, Pwyll determined to accost

the lady himself. She came same gentle
at the
walk, and Pwyll at first rode easily, and then at
his horse s topmost speed, but with the same result,
or lack of it. At last, in despair, he called to the
mysterious damsel to stop.
"
I will stop gladly,"
said she, would have been better for your

"and it
horse if you had asked me before." She told him

that her name was Rhiannon, daughter of Heveydd
the Ancient. The nobles of her realm had deter
mined to give her in marriage against her will, so
she had come to seek out Pwyll, who was the man
of her choice. Pwyll was delighted to hear this, for
he thought that she was the most beautiful lady
he had ever seen. Before they parted, they had
plighted troth, and Pwyll had promised to appear
on that day twelvemonth at the palace of her father,
Heveydd. Then she vanished, and Pwyll returned
to Narberth.
Atthe appointed time, Pwyll went to visit He
veydd the Ancient, with a hundred followers. He
was received with much welcome, and the dispo
sition of the feast put under his command, as the
Celts seem to have done to especially honoured
guests. As
they sat at meat, with Pwyll between
Rhiannon and her father, a tall auburn-haired youth
came into the hall, greeted Pwyll, and asked a boon
of him.
"
Whatever boon you may ask of me,"
my
"
said Pwyll thoughtlessly, if it is in power,

you shall have it." Then the suitor threw off all
disguise, called the guests to witness Pwyll s pro

mise, and claimed Rhiannon as his bride. PwyK
was dumb. Be silent as long as you"
will," said
the masterful Rhiannon; "never did a man make
worse use of his wits than you have done."
"
Lady," replied the amazed Pwyll, "
I knew not
who he was."
"
He is the man
they to whom
would have given me against my will," she an
swered, "Gwawl, the son of Clud. You must
bestow me upon him now, lest shame befall you."
"
Never will I do that," said Pwyll.

"
Bestow
me upon she insisted, "and I will cause
him,"
that I shall never be So Pwyll promised his."
Gwawl that he would make a feast that day year,

at which he would resign Rhiannon to him.
The next year, the feast was made, and Rhiannon
sat by the side of her unwelcome bridegroom. But
Pwyll was waiting outside the palace, with a hundred
men in ambush. When the banquet was at its
height, he came into the hall, dressed in coarse,
ragged garments, shod with clumsy old shoes, and
?
carrying a leather bag. But the bag was a magic

one, which Rhiannon had given to her lover, with
directions as to its use. Its quality was that, how
ever much was put into it, it could never be filled.

crave a boon," he said to Gwawl.
"
I What is "
it?" Gwawl a poor man, and all
replied.
"
I am
I ask is to have this
bag filled with meat." Gwawl
granted what he said was request within reason", "a
and ordered his followers to fill the bag. But the

more they put into it, the more room in it there
seemed to be. Gwawl was astonished, and asked
why this was. Pwyll replied that it was a bag that
could never be filled until someone possessed of
lands and riches should tread the food down with
both his feet.
"
Do this for the man," said Rhian-

non to Gwawl. "Gladly
I will," replied he, and
put both his feet into the bag. But no sooner
had he done so than Pwyll slipped the bag over
Gwawl s head, and tied it up at the mouth. He
blew his horn, and all his followers came in. What "
have you got in the bag?" asked each one in turn.

"
A badger," replied Pwyll. Then each, as he

received Pwyll s answer, kicked the bag, or hit it
with a stick. "Then," says the story, "was the
game of Badger in the Bag first played."
Gwawl, however, fared suspect that better than we

the badger usually did; for Heveydd the Ancient
interceded for him. Pwyll willingly released him, on
condition that he promised to give up all claim to
Rhiannon, and renounced all
projects of revenge.
Gwawl consented, and gave sureties, and went away
to his own country to have his bruises healed.
This country of Gwawl s was, no doubt, the sky;
for he was evidently a sun-god. His name bewrays
1
him; for the meaning of "Gwawl" is
"light".
It
1
Rhys : Hibbert Lectures, p. 123 and note. Clftd was probably the goddess of
the River Clyde. See Rhys: Arthiirian Legend^ p. 294.
was one of the hours of victory for the dark powers,
such as were celebrated in the Celtic calendar by
the Feast of Samhain, or Summer End.
There was no hindrance now to the marriage of
Pwyll and Rhiannon. She became his bride, and
returned with him to Dyfed.
For three years, they were without an heir, and
the nobles of Dyfed became discontented. They
petitioned Pwyll to take another wife instead of
Rhiannon. He asked for a year s delay. This
was granted, and, before the end of the year, a son
was born. But, on the night of his birth, the six
women set to keep watch over Rhiannon all fell
asleep at once; and when they woke up, the boy
had vanished. Fearful lest their lives should be
forfeited for their neglect, they agreed to swear
that Rhiannon had eaten her child. They killed
a litter of puppies, and smeared some of the blood
on Rhiannon s face and hands, and put some of
the bones by her side. Then they awoke her with
a great outcry, and accused her. She swore that
she knew nothing of the death of her son, but the
women persisted that they had seen her devour
him, and had been unable to prevent it. The druids
of that day were not sufficiently practical anatomists
to be able to tell the bones of a child from those of
a dog, so they condemned Rhiannon upon the evi
dence of the women. But, even now, Pwyll would
not put her away; so she was assigned a penance.
For seven years, she was to sit by a horse-block
outside the gate, and offer to carry visitors into
the palace upon her back. But it rarely hap-
"
pened," says the Mabinogi, "that

any would permit
her to do so."
Exactly what had become of Rhiannon s child

seems to have been a mystery even to the writer
of the Mabinogi. It was, at any rate, in some way
connected with the equally mysterious disappearance

on every night of the first of May Beltaine, the
Celtic sun-festival of the colts foaled by a beau
tiful mare belonging to Teirnyon Twryv Vliant,
one of Pwyll Every May-day night, the
s vassals.
mare foaled, but no one knew what became of the

colt. Teirnyon decided to find out. He caused
the mare to be taken into a house, and there he
watched it, fully armed. Early in the night, the colt
was born. Then there was a great
and an noise,
arm with claws came through the window, and
gripped the colt s mane. Teirnyon hacked at the
arm with his sword, and cut it off. Then he heard
wailing, and opened the door, and found a baby in
swaddling clothes, wrapped in a satin mantle. He
took it up and brought it to his wife, and they
decided to adopt it. They called the boy Gwri
Walk Euryn, that is "Gwri of the Golden Hair".
The older the boy grew, the more it seemed to
Teirnyon that he became like Pwyll. Then he

remembered that he had found him upon the very
night that Rhiannon lost her child. So he con
sulted with his wife, and they both agreed that
the baby they had so mysteriously found must be
the same that Rhiannon had so. mysteriously
lost. And they decided that it would not be
right for them to keep the son of another, while
so good a lady as Rhiannon was being punished
wrongfully.
So, the very next day, Teirnyon set out for Nar-
berth, taking the boy with him. They found Rhi
annon by the gate, but they would
sitting, as usual,
not allow her to carry them into the palace on
her back. Pwyll welcomed them; and that evening,
as they sat at supper, Teirnyon told his hosts the
story from beginning to end. And he presented

her son to Rhiannon.
As soon
as everyone in the palace saw the boy,
they admitted that he must be Pwyll s son. So

they adopted him with delight; and Pendaran Dy-
fed, the head druid of the kingdom, gave him a
new name. him He
Pryderi called
meaning
" 1
",
trouble
"
from the first word that his mother had

",
uttered when he was restored to her. For she

had said: Trouble is, indeed, at an end for me,
"
if this be true ".
1
Pronounced Pridairy,
CHAPTER XVIII
THE WOOING OF BRANWEN AND THE
BEHEADING OF BRAN 1
In the second of the Four Branches", Pryderi,

"
come to man s estate, and married to a wife called

Kicva, appears as a guest or vassal at the court of
a greater god of Hades than himself Bran, the son
of the sea-god Llyr. The children of Llyr Bran,
with his sister Branwen of the
"
Fair Bosom" and

his half-brother Manawyddan, as well as two sons
of Manawyddan s mother, Penardun, by an earlier
marriage, were holding court at Twr Branwen,
"
Branwen s Tower",they now called Harlech. As

sat on a
looking over the sea,
cliff,they saw thirteen
ships coming from Ireland. The fleet sailed close

under the land, and Bran sent messengers to ask
who they were, and why they had come. It was
replied that they were the vessels of Matholwch,
King of Ireland, and that he had come to ask Bran
for his sister Branwen in marriage. Bran consented,
and they fixed upon Aberffraw, in Anglesey, as the
place at which to hold the wedding feast. Matholwch
and his fleet went there by sea, and Bran and his
host by land. When they arrived, and met, they
set up pavilions; for "no house could ever hold the
1
Retold from Lady Guest s translation of the Mabinogi vlBranwer,, the Daughter
of Llyr.
( B 219 ) 289 T
blessed Bran". And there Branwen became the
1
King of Ireland s bride.
These were not long, however, allowed
relations
to be friendly. Of the two other sons of Llyr s wife,
Penardun, the mother of Manawyddan, one was
called Nissyen, and the other, Evnissyen. Nissyen
was a lover of peace, and would always cause his "
family to be friends when their wrath was at the

highest",
but Evnissyen would cause strife between
"
his two brothers when they were most at peace".

Now Evnissyen was enraged because his consent
had not been asked to Branwen s marriage. Out of
spite at this, he cut off the lips, ears, eyebrows, and
tails of all Matholwch s horses.
When King of Ireland found this out, he was
the
very indignant at the insult. But Bran sent an

embassy to him twice, explaining that it had not
been done by his consent or with his knowledge.
He appeased Matholwch by giving him a sound
horse in place of every one that Evnissyen had
mutilated, as well as a staff of silver as large and tall
as Matholwch himself, and a plate of gold as broad
as Matholwch s face. To these gifts he also added a
magic cauldron brought from Ireland. Its property

was that any slain man who was put into it was
brought to life again, except that he lost the use of
speech. The King of Ireland accepted this recom
pense for the insult done him, renewed his friendship
with the children of Llyr, and sailed away with
Branwen to Ireland.
1
Rhys Lectures on Welsh Philology compares Matholwch with Math, and the
Story, generally, with the Greek myth of Persephone".
Branwen and Bran 291
Before a year was over, Branwen bore a son.

They called him Gwern, and put him out to be
foster- nursedamong the best men of Ireland. But,
during the second year, news came to Ireland of the
insult that Matholwch had received in Britain. The
King of Ireland s foster-brothers and near relations
insisted that he should revenge himself upon Bran-
wen. So
the queen was compelled to serve in the
kitchen, and, every day, the butcher gave her a box
upon the ear. That this should not become known
to Bran, all traffic was forbidden between Ireland
and Britain. This went on for three years.
But, in the meantime, Branwen had reared a

tame starling, and she taught it to speak, and tied
a letter of complaint to the root of its wing, and sent
it off to Britain. At last it found Bran, whom its
mistress had described and settled upon his

to it,
shoulder, ruffling its

wings. This exposed the letter,
and Bran read it. He sent messengers to one hun
dred and forty-four countries, to raise an army to go
to Ireland. Leaving his son Caradawc, with seven
others, in charge of Britain, he started himself
wading through the sea, while his men went by
ship.
No one in Ireland knew that they were coming
until the royal swineherds, tending their pigs near
the sea-shore, beheld a marvel. They saw a forest
on the surface of the sea a place where certainly
no forest had been before and, near it, a mountain
with a lofty ridge on its top, and a lake on each side
of the ridge. Both the forest and the mountain were
swiftly moving towards Ireland. They informed

Matholwch, who could not understand it, and sent
messengers to ask Bran wen what she thought it
might be. men of the Island of the
"
It is the
1
Mighty said she, who are coming here because
,"
"
they have heard of my ill-treatment. The forest

that is seen on the sea is made of the masts of ships.
The mountain is my brother Bran, wading into shoal
water; the lofty ridge ishis nose, and the two lakes,
one on each side of it, are his eyes."
The men of Ireland were terrified. They fled
beyond the Shannon, and broke downthe bridge

over it. But Bran lay down across the river,
and his army walked over him to the opposite
side.
Matholwch now sent messengers suing for peace.

He offered to resign the throne of Ireland to Gwern,
Branwen s son and Bran s nephew.
"
Shall I not
have the kingdom myself?"
said Bran, and would
not hear of anything else. So the counsellors of
Matholwch advised him to conciliate Bran by build
ing him a house so large that it would be the first
house that had ever held him, and, in it, to hand

over the kingdom to his will. Bran consented to
accept this, and the vast house was built.
It concealed treachery. Upon each side of the
hundred house was hung a bag, and in
pillars of the
the bag was an armed man, who was to cut himself
out at a given signal. But Evnissyen came into the
house, and seeing the bags there, suspected the
plot.
"
What is in this bag?"

he said to one of the
Irish, as he came up to the first one.
"
Meal,"
1
A bardii name for Britain
Branwen and Brdn 293
replied the Irishman. Then Evnissyen kneaded

the bag in his hands, as though it really contained
meal, until he had killed the man inside; and he
treated all of them same way.
in turn in the
A little later, the two hosts met in the house.
The men of Ireland came in on one side, and the
men of Britain on the other, and met at the hearth
in the middle, and sat down. The Irish court did
homage to Bran, and they crowned Gwern, Bran-
wen s son, King of Ireland in place of Matholwch.
When the ceremonies were over, the boy went from
one to another of his uncles, to make acquaintance
with them. Bran fondled and caressed him, and so
did Manawyddan, and Nissyen. But when he came
to Evnissyen, the wicked son of Penardun seized
the child by the feet, and dropped him head first
into the great fire.
When Branwen saw her son killed, she tried to

leap into the flames after him, but Bran held her
back. Then every man armed himself, and such a
tumult was never heard in one house before. Day
after day they fought; but the Irish had the advan
tage, for they had only to plunge their dead men

into the magic cauldron to bring them back to life.
When Evnissyen knew this, he saw a way of aton
ing for the misfortunes his evil nature had brought
upon Britain. He disguised himself as an Irishman,
and lay upon the floor as if dead, until they put him
into the cauldron. Then he stretched himself, and,
with one desperate effort, burst both the cauldron
and his own heart.
Thus things were made equal again, and in the
next battle the men of Britain killed all the Irish.
But of themselves there were only seven left un
hurt Pryderi; Manawyddan Gluneu, the son of ;
1
Taran Taliesin the Bard; Ynawc; Grudyen, the
;
son of Muryel; and Heilyn, the son of Gwynn the

Ancient.
Bran himself was wounded in the foot with a poi
soned dart, and was in agony. So he ordered his
seven surviving followers to cut off his head, and to
2
take it to the White Mount in London and bury ,
it there, with the face towards France. He pro

phesied how they would perform the journey. At
Harlech they would be feasting seven years, the
birds of Rhiannon singing to them all the time,
and Bran s own head conversing with them as
agreeably as when it was on his body. Then they
would be fourscore years at G wales 8
All this .
while, Bran s head would remain uncorrupted, and

would talk so pleasantly that they would forget the
flight of time. But, at the destined hour, someone
would open a door which looked towards Cornwall,
and, after that, they could stay no longer, but must
hurry to London to bury the head.
So the seven beheaded Bran, and set off, taking
Branwen also with them. They landed at the
mouth of the River Alaw, Anglesey. Branwen
in
first looked back towards Ireland, and then forward
towards Britain. "
Alas/ she cried, "that I was
This personage may have been the same as the Gaulish god Taranis. Mention,
1
too, ismade in an ancient Irish glossary of Etirun, an idol of the Britons

"
".
2
This spot, called by a twelfth-century Welsh poet "The White Eminence of
London, a place of splendid fame", was probably the hill on which the Tower of
London now stands. s The island of
Gresholm, off the coast of Pembrokeshire.
ever born! two islands have been destroyed because
of me." Her heart broke with sorrow, and she
died. An old Welsh poem says, with a touch of
real pathos:
"
Softened were the voices in the brakes

Of the wondering birds
On seeing the fair body.
Will there not be relating again
Of that which befel the paragon
At the stream of Amlwch?"
1
They made her a four-sided grave," says the

"
Mabinogi, "and buried her upon the banks of the

Alaw." The traditionary spot has always borne the
name of Ynys Branwen, and, curiously enough, an
urn was found there, in 1813, full of ashes and half-
burnt bones, which certain enthusiastic local anti
quaries saw
"
every reason to suppose were those

"
of the fair British Aphrodite herself. 2

The seven went on towards Harlech, and, as they
journeyed, they met men and women who gave
them the latest news. Caswallawn, a son of Beli,
the husband of D6n, had destroyed the ministers
left behind by Bran to take care of Britain. He
had made himself invisible by the help of a magic
veil, and thus had killed all of them except Penda-
ran Dyfed, foster-father of Pryderi, who had escaped
into the woods, and Caradawc son of Bran, whose
heart had broken from grief. Thus he had made
himself king of the whole island in place of
1
The Gododin of Aneurin, as translated by T. Stephens. Branwen is there
called the lady Bradwen ".
3
See note to Branwen, the Daughter of Llyr in Lady Guest s Mabinogion.
Manawyddan, its rightful heir now that Bran was

dead.
However, the destiny was upon the seven that
they should go on with their leader s head. They
went to Harlech and feasted for seven years, the
three birds of Rhiannon singing them songs com
pared with which all other songs seemed un-

melodious. Then they spent fourscore years in the
Isle of G wales, eating and drinking, and listening to
the pleasant conversation of Bran s head. The
Noble Head
"
"
Entertaining of the
this eighty
years feast was called. Bran s head, indeed, is

almost more notable in British mythology than Bran
before he was decapitated. Taliesin and the other
bards invoke it
repeatedly as Urddawl Ben (the
"
Venerable Head")
and Uther Ben (the Wonder "
ful Head ").
But all pleasure came to an end when Heilyn, the

son of Gwynn, opened the forbidden door, like
Bluebeard s wife, know if that was true which
"to
was said concerning it ". As soon as they looked

towards Cornwall, the glamour that had kept them
merry for eighty-seven years failed, and left them as
grieved about the death of their lord as though it
had happened that very day. They could not rest

for sorrow, but went at once to London, and laid
the now dumb and corrupting head in its grave
on Tower Hill, with its face turned towards France,
to watch that no foe came from foreign lands to
Britain. There it reposed until, ages afterwards,
Arthur, in his pride of heart, dug it
up, "as he
thought it beneath his dignity to hold the island
otherwise than by valour ".

Disaster, in the shape
of
the godless hosts
"
Of heathen swarming o er the Northern sea",

1
came of this disinterment; and therefore it is called,

in a triad, one of the "
Three Wicked Uncoverings

of Britain ".
1
Tennvson : Idvlls of the Kin? "
Guinevere *,
CHAPTER XIX
THE WAR OF ENCHANTMENTS 1
Manawyddan was now the sole survivor of the

family of Llyr. He was homeless and landless.
But Pryderi offered to give him a realm in Dyfed,
and his mother, Rhiannon, for a wife. The lady,
her son explained, was still not uncomely, and her
conversation was pleasing. Manawyddan seems
to have found her Rhiannon was
attractive, while
not less taken with the son of Llyr. They were
wedded, and so great became the friendship of
Pryderi and Kicva, Manawyddan and Rhiannon,
that the four were seldom apart.
One day, after holding a feast at Narberth, they
went up to the same magic mound where Rhiannon
had first met Pwyll. As they sat there, thunder
pealed, and immediately a thick mist sprang up, so
that not one of them could see the other. When
it cleared,
they found themselves alone in an un
inhabited country. Except for their own castle, the
land was desert and untilled, without sign of dwell
ing, man, or beast. One touch of some unknown
magic had utterly changed the face of Dyfed from
a rich realm to a wilderness.
Manawyddan and Pryderi, Rhiannon and Kicva
1 Retold from Lady Guest s translation of the Mabinogi of Manawyddan, the
Son of Llyr.
The War of Enchantments 299
traversed the country on all sides, but found nothing
except desolation and wild beasts. For two years

they lived in the open upon game and honey.
During the third year, they grew weary of this
1
wild life, and decided to go into Lloegyr and sup ,
port themselves by some handicraft. Manawyddan

could make saddles, and he made them so well that
soon no one Hereford, where they had settled,
in
would buy from any saddler but himself. This

aroused the enmity of all the other saddlers, and
they conspired to kill the strangers. So the four
went to another city.
Here they made and soon no one would
shields,
purchase a shield it had been made by

unless
Manawyddan and Pryderi. The shield -makers

became jealous, and again a move had to be made.
But they fared no better at the next town, where
they practised the craft of cordwainers, Manawyddan
shaping the shoes and Pryderi stitching them. So
they went back to Dyfed again, and occupied them
selves in hunting.
One day, the hounds of Manawyddan and Pryderi
roused a white wild boar. They chased it till they
came to a castle at a place where both the hunts
men were certain that no castle had been before.
Into this castle went the boar, and the hounds
after it. For some time, Manawyddan and Pryderi
waited in vain for their return. Pryderi then pro
posed that he should go into the castle, and see what
had become of them. Manawyddan tried to dis
suade him, declaring that whoever their enemy was

1
Saxon Britain England.
who had Dyfed waste had also caused the
laid
appearance of this castle. But Pryderi insisted

upon entering.
In the castle, he found neither the boar nor his
hounds, nor any trace of man or beast. There was
nothing but a fountain in the centre of the castle
and, on the brink of the fountain, a beautiful
floor,
golden bowl fastened to a marble slab by chains.

Pryderi was so pleased with the beauty of the
bowl that he put out his hands and took hold of it.
Whereupon his hands stuck to the bowl, so that he
could not move from where he stood.
Manawyddan waited for him till the evening, and
then returned to the palace, and told Rhiannon.
She, more daring than her husband, rebuked him
for cowardice, and went straight to the magic
castle. In the court she found Pryderi, his hands
still
glued to the bowl and his feet to the slab.
She tried to free him, but became fixed, herself, and,
with a clap of thunder and a fall of mist, the castle
vanished with two prisoners.
its
Manawyddan was now left alone with Kicva,

Pryderi s wife. He calmed her fears, and assured
her of his protection. But they had lost their dogs,
and could not hunt any more, so they set out to
gether to Lloegyr, to practise again Manawyddan s
old trade of cordwainer. A
second time, the envious
cordwainers conspired to kill them, so they were
obliged to return to Dyfed.
But Manawyddan took back a burden of wheat
with him to Narberth, and sowed three crofts, all of
which sprang up abundantly.
When harvest time came, he went to look at his

first croft, and found it ripe. I will
reap this to
"
morrow," he said. But in the morning he found

nothing but the bare straw. Every ear had been
taken away.
So he went to the next croft, which was also ripe.
But, when he came to cut it, he found it had been
stripped like the first. Then he knew that whoever
had wasted Dyfed, and carried off Rhiannon and
Pryderi, was also at work upon his wheat.
The third croft was also ripe, and over this one
he determined to keep watch. In the evening he
armed himself and waited. At midnight he heard
a great tumult, and, looking out, saw a host of mice
coming. Each mouse bit off an ear of wheat and
ran off with it. He rushed among them, but could
only catch one, which was more sluggish than the
rest. This one he put into his glove, and took it
back, and showed it to Kicva.
"To-morrow I will hang it,"
he said.
"
It is not
a fit
thing for a man of your dignity to hang a
she replied.
mouse,"
"
Nevertheless will I do so,"
said he. Do so then," said Kicva.

"
The next morning,

Manawyddan went to the
magic mound, and set up two forks on it, to make a
gallows. He had just finished, when a man dressed
like a poor scholar came towards him, and greeted
him.
"
What are you doing, Lord?" he said.

I am
going to hang a replied Manaw
"
thief,"
yddan.
"What sort of a thief? I see an animal like a
3<D2 Mythology of the British Islands
mouse your hand, but a man of rank like yours
in
should not touch so mean a creature. Let it go
free."
"
I
caught it
robbing me," replied Manawyddan,
"and it shall die a thief s death."
"
I do not care to see a man like you doing such

a said the scholar. give you a pound
"
thing,"
I will
to let it
go."
"I will not let it go," replied Manawyddan, "nor
will I sell it."
"As
you will, Lord. It is nothing to me," re
turned the scholar. And he went away.
Manawyddan laid a cross-bar along the forks.
As he did so, another man came by, a priest riding
on a horse. He asked Manawyddan what he was
doing, and was told. "My lord,"
he said, "such a
reptile is worth nothing to buy, but rather than see
you degrade yourself by touching it, I will give you
three pounds to let it go."
I will take no money for

"
it," replied Manaw

yddan. "It shall be hanged."
"
Let it be hanged,"
said the priest, and went his
way.
Manawyddan put the noose round the mouse s
neck, and was just going to draw it

up, when he saw
a bishop coming, with his whole retinue.
"Thy blessing, Lord Bishop,"
he said.
"
Heaven s
blessing upon you," said the bishop.
"What are you doing?"
"
I am hanging a thief," replied Manawyddan.

"This mouse has robbed me."
"
Since I
happen to have come at its doom, I
will ransom it,"
said the bishop.
"
Here are seven

pounds. Take them, and let it go."
"
I will not let it go," replied Manawyddan.

give you twenty-four pounds of ready
"
I will
money if
you will let it go," said the bishop.
"
I would not, for as much again," replied

Manawyddan.
not free said the bishop,
"
If you will it for that,"
horses and their baggage to

"
I will give you all my

let it
go."
"
I will not," replied Manawyddan.

"
Then name your own price,"

said the bishop.
"That offer I
replied Manawyddan.
accept,"
"
My price is that Rhiannon and Pryderi be set

free."
"They
shall be set free," replied the bishop.
not the mouse said Manaw
"
Still I will let go,"
yddan.
"What more do you ask?" exclaimed the bishop.
"
That the charm be removed from Dyfed,"
replied Manawyddan.
"It shall be removed," promised the bishop.
"
So set the mouse free."
"
I will not," said Manawyddan, "till I know who

the mouse is."
"She is my wife," replied the bishop, "and I am

called Llwyd, the son of Kilcoed, and I cast the
charm over Dyfed, and upon Rhiannon and Pryderi,
to avenge Gwawl son of Clud for the game of
badger in the bag which was played on him by

*
Pwyll, Head of Annwn. It was my household that
came in the guise of mice and took away your corn

But since my wife has been caught, I will restore
Rhiannon and Pryderi and take the charm off Dyfed
if
you will let her go."
not her
"
I will let go,"

said Manawyddan, "until
you have promised that there shall be no charm put

upon Dyfed again."
"
I will
promise that also," replied Llwyd. So "
let her go."
her
"
I will not let go,"

said Manawyddan,
"
unless
you swear to take no revenge for this hereafter."
"You have done
wisely to claim that," replied
Llwyd. Much trouble would else have come
"
upon your head because of this. Now I swear it.

So set my wife free."
"I will not," said Manawyddan, "until I see

Rhiannon and Pryderi.
Then he saw them coming towards him; and they
greeted one another.
"Now set my wife free," said the bishop.
Manawyddan. So he
"
I will, gladly," replied

released the mouse, and Llwyd struck her with a
wand, and turned her into a young woman, the "
fairest ever seen ".
And when Manawyddan looked round him, he

saw Dyfed tilled and cultivated again, as it had
formerly been.
The powers of light had, this time, the victory.
Littleby little, they increased their mastery over the
dominion of darkness, until we find the survivors
of the families of Llyr and Pwyll mere vassals of
Arthur.
CHAPTER XX
THE VICTORIES OF LIGHT OVER DARKNESS
The powers of light were, however, by no means

inariably successful in their struggles with the
povers of darkness. Even Gwydion son of Don

had to serve his apprenticeship to misfortune. As
sailing Caer Sidi Hades 1 under one of its many
titles, he was caught by Pwyll and Pryderi, and
endured a long imprisonment. 2 The sufferings he
underwent made him a bard an ancient Celtic idea
which one can still see surviving in the popular
tradition that whoever dares to spend a night alone
either upon the chair of the Giant Idris (the summit
of Cader Idris, in Merionethshire), or under the
haunted Black Stone of Arddu, upon the Llanberis
side of Snowdon, will in the morning be found
either inspired or mad. 3 he escaped we are How
not told; but the episode does not seem to have
quenched his ardour against the natural enemies

of his kind.
Helped by his brother, Amaethon, god of agri

culture, and his son, Lieu, he fought the Battle of
Godeu, or the Trees an exploit which
"
",
is not the
least curious of Celtic myths. It isknown also as
the Battle of Achren, or Ochren, a name for Hades
1 Or the Celtic Elysium, mythical country beneath the waves of the sea".
"a
2 See the Spoiling of Annwn, quoted in chap. XXI "The Mythological Com
3
ing of Arthur ".
Rhys Hibbert Lectures, pp. 250-251.
:
( B 219 ) 305 V
of unknown meaning, but appearing again in the
remarkable Welsh poem which describes the "Spoil
ing of Annwn
by Arthur. The King of Achren
"
was Arawn; and he was helped by Bran, who

apparently had not then made his fatal journey to
Ireland. The war was made to secure three boons
for man the dog, the deer, and the lapwing, all of
them creatures for some reason sacred to the gods
of the nether world.
Gwydion was this time not alone, as he appa
rently was when he made his first unfortunate recon
naissance of Hades. Besides his brother and his
son, he had an army which he raised for the pur
pose. For a leader of Gwydion s magical attain
ments there was no need of standing troops. He
could call battalions into being with a charm, and
dismiss them when they were no longer needed.
The name of the battle shows what he did on this
occasion; and the bard Taliesin adds his testimony:
"
I have been in the battle of Godeu, with Lieu and

Gwydion,
They changed the forms of the elementary trees and
sedges".
1
poem devoted
In a to it he describes in detail
what happened. The trees and grasses, he tells us,
hurried to the fight: the alders led the van, but the
willows and the quickens came late, and the birch,
though courageous, took long in arraying himself;
i Book I have followed Skene s
of Taliesin VIII, Vol. I, p. 276, of Skene.
translation, with the especial exception of the curious line referring to the bean, so
translated in D. W. Nash s Taliesin. If a correct rendering of the Welsh original,
it offers an interesting parallel to certain superstitions of the Greeks concerning
this vegetable.
The Victories of Light over Darkness 307
the elm stood firm in the centre of the battle,
and would not yield a foot; heaven and earth

trembled before the advance of the oak-tree, that
stout door-keeper against an enemy; the heroic
holly and the hawthorn defended themselves with

their spikes; the heather kept off the enemy on
every side, and the broom was well to the front,

but the fern was plundered, and the furze did not
do well; the stout, lofty pine, the intruding pear-
tree,the gloomy ash, the bashful chestnut-tree, the
prosperous beech, the long -enduring poplar, the

scarce plum-tree, the shelter -seeking privet and
woodbine, the wild, foreign laburnum; "the bean,
"
bearing shade an army of phantoms

in its rose ;
bush, raspberry, ivy, cherry-tree, and medlar all
took their parts.

In the ranks of Hades there were equally strange
fighters. We
are told of a hundred-headed beast,
carrying a formidable battalion under the root of its

tongue and another in the back of its head; there
was a gaping black toad with a hundred claws; and
a crested snake of many colours, within whose flesh
a hundred souls were tormented for their sins in
fact, it would need a Dor6 or a Dante to do justice
to this weird battle between the arrayed magics of
heaven and hell.
It was magic that decided its fate. There was
a fighter in the ranks of Hades who could not be
overcome unless his antagonist guessed his name
i
peculiarity of the terrene gods, remarks Professor
1
Rhys, which has been preserved in our popular
1
Rhys : Hibbert Lectures, note to p. 245.
fairy tales. Gwydion guessed the name, and sang

these two verses:
Sure-hoofed my steed impelled by the spur

"
is ;
The high sprigs of alder are on thy shield ;
Bran art thou called, of the glittering branches!
Sure-hoofed my steed in the day of battle

"
is :
The high sprigs of alder are on thy hand :
Br&n ... by the branch thou bearest

Has Amaethon the Good prevailed!" 1
Thus the power of the dark gods was broken,

and the sons of Don retained for the use of men
the deer, the dog, and the lapwing, stolen from that
underworld, whence all good gifts came.
It was always to obtain some practical benefit
that the gods of light fought against the gods of

darkness. The last and greatest of Gwydion s raids
2
upon Hades was undertaken to procure pork!
Gwydion had heard that there had come to Dyfed
some strange beasts, such as had never been seen
before. They were called or "swine", and
"pigs"
Arawn, King of Annwn, had sent them as a gift to
Pryderi son of Pwyll. They were small animals,

and their flesh was said to be better than the flesh
of oxen. He thought it would be a good thing to
get them, either by force or fraud, from the dark
powers. Math son of Mathonwy, who ruled the
children of Don from Olympus of Caer Dathyl
his
3
,
gave his consent, and Gwydion set off, with eleven

1
Lady Guest s translation in her notes to Kulhwch and Olwen.
2
The following episode is retold from Lady Guest s translation
of the Mabin-
ogi ofM&th, Son of Mathonwy.
3 Now called Fen It is on the summit of a hill half-way between Llan-
y Gaer.
rwst and Conway, and about a mile from the station of Llanbedr.
The Victories of Light over Darkness 309
1
others, to Pryderi s palace .
disguised them
They
selves as bards, so as to be received by Pryderi,
and Gwydion, who was "
the best teller of tales in

the world", entertained the Prince of Dyfed and
his court more than they had ever been entertained
by any story-teller before. Then he asked Pryderi
to grant him a boon the animals which had come
from Annwn. But Pryderi had pledged his word
to Arawn that he would neither sell nor give away
any of the new creatures until they had increased

to double their number, and he told the disguised
Gwydion so.
"
Lord," said Gwydion,

"
I can set you free from

your promise. Neither give me the swine at once,
nor yet refuse them to me altogether, and to-morrow
I will show you how."
He went to the lodging Pryderi had assigned him,

and began to work his charms and illusions. Out
of fungus he made twelve gilded shields, and twelve
horses with gold harness, and twelve black grey
hounds with white breasts, each wearing a golden
collar and leash. And these he showed to Pryderi.
"Lord," said he,
"
there is a release from the

word you spoke last evening concerning the swine
that you may neither give them nor sell them.
You may exchange them for something which is
better. I will give you these twelve horses with
their gold harness, and these twelve greyhounds

with their gold collars and leashes, and these twelve
gilded shields for them."
1
Said to have been at Rhuddlan Teivi, which is, perhaps, Glan Teivy, near
Cardigan Bridge.
Pryderi took counsel with his men, and agreed

to the bargain. So Gwydion and his followers
took the swine and went away with them, hurrying
as fast as they could, for Gwydion knew that the
illusion would not last longer than a day. The
memory of their journey was long kept up; every
place where they rested between Dyfed and Caer
Dathyl remembered by a name connecting it with
is
pigs. There is a Mochdrev Swine s Town in

(" ")
each of the three counties of Cardiganshire, Mont

gomeryshire, and Denbighshire, and a Castell y
Moch ("Swine
s Castle")
near Mochnant ("Swine
s
Brook which runs through part of the two latter

"),
counties. They shut up the pigs in safety, and

then assembled all Math s army; for the horses and
hounds and shields had returned to fungus, and
Pryderi, who guessed Gwydion s part in it, was
coming northward in hot haste.
There were two battles one at Maenor Penardd,
near Conway, and the other at Maenor Alun, now
called Coed Helen, near Caernarvon. Beaten in
both, Pryderi fell back upon Nant Call, about nine
miles from Caernarvon. Here he was again de
feated with great slaughter, and sent hostages,
asking for peace and a safe retreat.

This was granted by Math; but, none the less,
the army of the sons of Don insisted on following
the retreating host, and harassing it. So Pryderi
sent a complaint to Math, demanding that, if there
must be war, Gwydion, who had caused all the
still
trouble, should fight with him in single combat.

Gwydion agreed, and the champions of light and
GWYDION CONQUERS PRYDERI
From the
Draiving by E. Wallcousim
The Victories of Light over Darkness 31 1
darkness met face to face. But Pryderi was the

waning power, and he fell before the strength and
magic of Gwydion. And at Maen Tyriawc, above"
Melenryd, was he buried, and there is his grave",

says the Mabinogi, though the ancient Welsh poem,
called the Verses of the Graves of the Warriors" 1
"
assigns him a different resting-place. 2

This decisive victory over Hades and its kings
was the end of the struggle, until it was renewed,
with still more complete success, by one
greater than
Gwydion the invincible Arthur.
1
Poem XIX in the Black Book of Carmarthen, Vol. I, p. 309, of Skenc.
8 "
In Aber Gwenoli is the grave of Pryderi,

Where the waves beat against the land."
CHAPTER XXI
THE MYTHOLOGICAL "
COMING OF ARTHUR"
The "
Coming of Arthur", his sudden rise into
prominence, one of the many problems of the

is
Celtic mythology. He is not mentioned in any

of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, which deal
with the races of British gods equivalent to the
Gaelic Tuatha D6 Danann. The earliest references
to him in Welsh literature seem to treat him as
merely a warrior-chieftain, no better, if no worse,

than several others, such as Geraint, a tributary
"
prince of Devon ",

immortalized both by the bards 1
and by Tennyson. Then, following upon this, we
find him lifted to the extraordinary position of a
king of gods, to whom the old divine families of

Don, of Llyr, and of Pwyll pay unquestioned
homage. Triads tell us that Lludd the Zeus of
the older Pantheon was one of Arthur s Three "
Chief War-Knights ",

and Arawn, King of Hades,
one of his Three Chief Counselling
"
Knights".
In
the story called the Dream of Rhonabwy in the "
",
Red Book of Herges t, he is shown as a leader to

whom are subject those we know to have been of
i A
poem in praise of Geraint, "the brave man from the region of Dyvnaint
(Devon) the enemy of tyranny and oppression
. . . is contained in both the ",
Black Book of Caermarthen and the Red Book of Hergest. "When Geraint was
born, open were the gates of heaven", begins its last verse. It is translated in
Vol. I of Skene, p. 267.

812
Coming of A rthur
"
The Mythological 4
313
divine race sons of Nudd, of Llyr, of Bran, of
Govannan, and of Arianrod. In another Red "
Book tale, that of Kulhwch and Olwen even

"
"
",
greater gods are his vassals.Amaethon son of

Don, ploughs for him, and Govannan son of Don,
rids the iron, while two other sons of Beli, Nynniaw
and Peibaw, turned into oxen on account of their
"
sins toil at the yoke, that a mountain may be

",
cleared and tilled and the harvest reaped in one day.

He assembles his champions to seek the treasures "
"
of Britain and Manawyddan son of Llyr, Gwyn

;
son of Nudd, and Pryderi son of Pwyll rally round

him at his call.
The most probable, and only adequate explana

tion, is given by Professor Rhys, who considers
that the fames of two separate Arthurs have been
accidentally confused, to the exceeding renown of
a composite, half-real, half-mythical personage into
whom the two blended. 1 One of these was a divine
Arthur, a god more or less widely worshipped in
the Celtic world the same, no doubt, whom an
ex voto inscription found in south-eastern France
calls Mercurius Artaius? The other was a human
Arthur, who held among the Britons the post which,
under Roman domination, had been called Comes
Britannia. of Britain" was the
This "Count
supreme military authority; he had a roving com

mission to defend the country against foreign in
vasion; and under his orders were two slightly
subordinate officers, the Dux Britanniarum (Duke
of the Bri tains), who had charge of the northern
1 8
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 8. Rhys: Hibbtrt Lectures, pp. 40-41.
wall, and the Comes Littoris Saxonici (Count of
the Saxon Shore), who guarded the south-eastern
coasts. The* Britons, after the departure of the
Romans, long kept intact the organization their
conquerors had built up; and it seems reasonable
to believe that this post of leader in war was the

same which early Welsh literature describes as that
of a given to Arthur alone among
"
emperor ",
title
the British heroes.

1
The fame of Arthur the
Emperor blended with that of Arthur the God,
so that it became conterminous with the area over
which we have traced Brythonic settlement in Great
2
Britain. Hence the many disputes, ably, if un-
"
profitably, conducted, over "
Arthurian localities
and the sites of such cities as Camelot, and of
Arthur s twelve great battles. Historical elements
doubtless coloured the tales of Arthur and his com
panions, but they are none the less as essentially
mythic as those told of their Gaelic analogues
the Red Branch Heroes of Ulster and the Fenians.
Of those two cycles, it is with the latter that the
Arthurian legend shows most affinity. 3 Arthur s
position as supreme war-leader of Britain curiously
parallels that of Finn s as general of a native Irish
"
His
militia". Round Table" of warriors also
"
reminds one of Finn s Fenians sworn to adventure.

Both alike battle with human and superhuman foes.

1
2 It is worthy of remark that the fame of Arthur is widely spread

"
he is claimed ;
alike as a prince in Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Cumberland, and the Lowlands of

Scotland; that is to say, his fame is conterminous with the Brythonic race, and
does not extend to the Gaels". Chambers s Encyclopaedia.
3 For Arthurian and Fenian
parallels sec Campbell s Popular Tales of the West
Highlands.
The Mythological Coming of A rthur
"
*
315
Both alike harry Europe, even to the walls of Rome.
The love-story of Arthur, his wife Gwynhwyvar
(Guinevere), and his nephew Medrawt (Mordred),
resembles in several ways that of Finn, his wife
Grainne, and his nephew Diarmait. In the stories
of the last battles of Arthur and of the Fenians, the
essence of the kindred myth still subsists, though
the actual exponents of it slightly differ.At the
fight of Camlan, it was Arthur and Medrawt them
selves who fought the final duel. But in the last
stand of the Fenians at Gabhra, the original prota
gonists have given place to their descendants and
representatives. Finn and Cormac were
Both
already dead. Oscar, Finn s grandson, and
It is
Cairbr6, Cormac s son, who fight and slay each

other. And again, just as Arthur was thought by
many not to have really died, but to have passed
to "the island valley of Avilion so a Scottish
",
legend tells us how, ages after the Fenians, a

man, landing by chance upon a mysterious western
island, met and spoke with Finn mac Coul. Even
the alternative legend, which makes Arthur and
his warriors wait under the earth in a magic sleep
for the return of their triumph, is also told of the
Fenians.
But these though they illustrate Arthur s
parallels,
pre-eminence, do not show his real place among
the gods. To determine this, we must examine the
ranks of the older dynasties carefully, to see
any if
are missing whose new-comer may

attributes this
have inherited. We find Lludd and Gwyn, Arawn,
Pryderi, and Manawyddan side by side with him
under their own names. Among the children of
Don are Amaethon and Govannan. But here the
list
stops, with a notable omission. There is no
mention, in later myth, of Gwydion. That greatest
of the sons of Don has fallen out, and vanished
without a sign.
Singularly enough, too, the same stories that were
once told of Gwydion are now attached to the
name of Arthur. So that we may assume, with
Professor Rhys, that Arthur, the prominent god of
a new Pantheon, has taken the place of Gwydion
in the old.
1
A
comparison of Gwydion-myths and
Arthur-myths shows an almost exact correspondence
in everything but name.
Like Gwydion, Arthur is the exponent of culture
and of arts. Therefore we see him carrying on the
same war against the underworld for wealth and
wisdom that Gwydion and the sons of Don waged
against the sons of Llyr, the Sea, and of Pwyll, the
Head of Hades.
Like Gwydion, too, Arthur suffered early reverses.
He failed, indeed, even where his prototype had
succeeded. Gwydion, we know from the Mabinogi
of Math, successfully stole Pryderi s pigs, but Arthur
was utterly baffled in his attempt to capture the
swine of a similar prince of the underworld, called
March son of Meirchion. 2 Also as with Gwydion,
his earliest reconnaissance of Hades was disastrous,
i See chap. I of Rhys s Arthurian Legend" Arthur, Historical and Mythical".

8 A triad in the translated by Skene. It was Trystan who was
Hengwrt MS. 536,
watching the swine for his uncle, while the swineherd went with a message to
Essylt (Iseult), "and Arthur desired one pig by deceit or by theft, and could not
get it"
The Mythological Coming of A rthur" 317
and led to his capture and imprisonment. Manaw-
yddan son of Llyr, confined him in the mysterious
and gruesome bone-fortress of Oeth and Anoeth,
and there he languished for three days and three
nights before a rescuer came
person of Goreu, in the
his cousin.
1
But, he in
triumphed. A
the end,
Welsh poem, ascribed to the bard Taliesin, relates,
under the title The Spoiling of Annwn 2 an ex
"
",
pedition of Arthur and his followers into the very

heart of that country, from which he appears to
have returned (for the verses are somewhat obscure)
with the loss of almost all his men, but in possession
of the object of his quest the magic cauldron of
inspiration and poetry.

Taliesin tells the story as an eye-witness. He
may well have done so; for it was his boast that
from the creation of the world he had allowed him
self tomiss no event of importance. He was in
3
Heaven, he tells us, when Lucifer fell, and in the
Court of D6n before Gwydion was born; he had
been among the constellations both with Mary
Magdalene and with the pagan goddess Arianrod;
he carried a banner before Alexander, and was chief
director of the building of theTower of Babel; he
saw the fall of Troy and the founding of Rome; he
was with Noah in the Ark, and he witnessed the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; and he was
present both at the Manger of Bethlehem and at

the Cross of Calvary. But, unfortunately, Taliesin,
1 See note to chap, xxn "The Treasures of Britain".
2
Book of Taliesin, poem xxx, Skene, Vol. I, p. 256.
3 In a
probably very ancient poem embedded in the sixteenth-century Welsh
romance called Taliesin, included by Lady Guest in her Mabinogion.
as a credible personage, rests under exactly the same
disabilities as Arthur himself. It is not denied by
scholars that there was a real Taliesin, a sixth-

century bard to whom were attributed, and who
may have actually composed, some of the poems in

the Book of Taliesin. 1 But there was also another
Taliesin, as a mythical poet of the British
whom,
Celts, Professor Rhys is inclined to equate with the
Gaelic Ossian. 2 The traditions of the two mingled,
endowing the historic Taliesin with the god-like attri
butes of his predecessor, and clothing the mythical
Taliesin with some of the actuality of his successor. 3
It is
regrettable that our bard did not at times
sing a little less incoherently, for his poem contains
the fullest description that has come down to us of
the other world as the Britons conceived it.
Appa
rently the numerous names, and someall different
now untranslatable, refer to the same place, and
they must be collated to form a right idea of what
Annwn was like. With the exception of an obviously
spurious last verse, here omitted, the poem is mag
nificently pagan, and quite a storehouse of British
4
mythology .
1 The existence of a sixth -century bard of this name, a contemporary of the

"
heroic stage of British resistance to the Germanic invaders, is well attested. A

number of poems are found in mediaeval Welsh MSS. chief among them the so-
,
called Book of Taliesin^ ascribed to this sixth-century poet. Some of these are
almost as old as any remains of Welsh poetry, and may go back to the early tenth
or the ninth century; others are productions of the eleventh, twelfth, and even
thirteenth centuries." Nutt: Notes to his (1902) edition of Lady Guest ?
Mabinogion.
2
:
8 There can be little doubt but that the sixth-century bard succeeded to the
form and attributes of a far older, a prehistoric, a mythic singer." Nutt Notej
:
to Mabinogion.
4 I have been
obliged to collate four different translators to obtain an acceptable
version of what Mr. T. Stephens, in his Literature of the Kymri, calls "one of the
The Mythological Coming of A rthur"
*
319
will praise the Sovereign, supreme Lord of the land,
"
Who hath extended his dominion over the shore of the

world.
Stout was the prison of Gweir 1 in Caer Sidi, ,
Through the spite of Pwyll and Pryderi :
No one before him went into it.
The heavy blue chain firmly held the youth,

And before the spoils of Annwn woefully he sang,
And thenceforth till doom he shall remain a bard.
2
Thrice enough to fill
Prydwen we went into it;
Except seven, none returned from Caer Sidi 3 .
"
Am I not a candidate for fame, to be heard in song
In Caer Pedryvan 4 four times revolving?

,
The first word from the cauldron, when was it spoken?

By the breath of nine maidens it was gently warmed.
Is it not the cauldron of the chief of Annwn? What is
its fashion?
A rim of pearls is round its edge.
It will not cook the food of a coward or one forsworn.
A sword flashing bright will be raised to him,
And left inthe hand of Lleminawg.
And before the door of the gate of Uffern 5 the lamp was
burning.
When we went with Arthur a splendid labour!
6
Except seven, none returned from Caer Vedwyd .
"
Am I not a candidate for fame, to be heard in

song
In Caer Pedryvan, in the Isle of the Strong Door,
Where twilight and pitchy darkness meet together,
And bright wine is the drink of the host?
Thrice enough to Prydwen we went on the sea.
fill
Except seven, none returned from Caer Rigor 7 .
least intelligible of the

mythological poems". My authorities have been Skene,
Stephens, Nash, and Rhys. A form of the name Gwydion.
2
The name of Arthur s ship. 3
Revolving Castle.
4 6
Four-cornered Castle. The Cold Place.
tf
Castle of Revelry. *
Kingly Castle.
"
I will not allow much praise to the leaders of literature.

J
Beyond Caer Wydyr "they saw not the prowess of
Arthur;
Three-score hundreds stood on the walls;
It was hard to converse with their watchman.
Thrice enough to fill Prydwen we went with Arthur;

2
Except seven, none returned from Caer Golud .
I will not allow much praise to the spiritless.

"
They know not on what day, or who caused it,

Or in what hour of the serene day Cwy was born,
Or who caused that he should not go to the dales of
Devwy.
They know not the brindled ox with the broad head
band,
Whose yoke is seven-score handbreadths.
When we went with Arthur, of mournful memory,
3
Except seven, none returned from Caer Vandwy .
I will not allow much praise to those of drooping courage,

"
They know not on what day the chief arose,

Nor in what hour of the serene day the owner was born,
Nor what animal they keep, with its head of silver.
When we went with Arthur, of anxious striving,
4
Except seven, none returned from Caer Ochren ".
Many of the allusions of this poem will perhaps

never be explained. We know no better than the
"leaders the vainglorious Tali-
of literature" whom
esin taunted with their ignorance and lack of spirit
in what hour Cwy was born, or even who he was,
much less who prevented him from going to the
dales of Devwy, wherever they may have been.
We are in the dark as much as they were with
1 s
Glass Castle. Castle of Riches.
3 unknown. See chap, xvi "The Gods of the Britons".
Meaning is
*
Meaning is unknown. See chap, xx "
The Victories of Light over Darkness".

*
321
regard to the significance of the brindled ox with

the broad head-band, and of the other animal with
1
the silver head. But the earlier portion of the
poem is, fortunately, clearer, gives glimpses and it
of a grandeur of savage imagination. The strong-

doored, foursquare fortress of glass, manned by its
dumb, ghostly sentinels, spun round in never-ceasing
revolution, so that few could find its entrance; it
was pitch-dark save for the twilight made by the
lamp burning before its circling gate; feasting went
on there, and revelry, and in its centre, choicest of
its many riches, was the pearl-rimmed cauldron of
poetry and inspiration, kept bubbling by the breaths

of nine British pythonesses, so that it might give
forth its oracles. To this scanty information we
may add a few lines, also by Taliesin, and contained
in a poem called A Song Concerning "
the Sons
of Llyr ab Brochwel Powys ":
"
Perfect is my chair in Caer Sidi :
Plague and age hurt not him who s 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

2
Sweeter than white wine the drink in it."
Little however, added by it to our knowledge.

is,
It reminds us that Annwn was surrounded by the

sea "the
heavy blue which held Gweir so
chain"
firmly; it informs us that the "bright wine" which
i Unless they should be "the yellow and the brindled bull" mentioned in the
story of Kulhwch and Olwen.
a Book of Taliesin, poem xiv. The translation is by Rhys Arthurian Legend. :
p. 301 .
(B219) X
was "the drink of the host" was kept in a well; it
adds to the revelry the singing of the three organs;

it makes a
point that its inhabitants were freed from
age and death; and, last of all, it shows us, as we
might have expected, the ubiquitous Taliesin as a
privileged resident of this delightful region. We
have two clues as to where the country may have
been situated. Lundy Island, off the coast of
Devonshire, was anciently called Ynys Wair, the
Island of Gweir", or Gwydion. The Welsh trans
"
lation of the Seint Greal, an Anglo-Norman romance
embodying much of the old mythology, locates its

Turning Castle" evidently the same as Caer Sidi
"
in the district around and comprising Puffin Island

1
off the coast of Anglesey. But these are slender
threads by which to tether to firm ground a realm of
the imagination.
With Gwydion, too, have disappeared the whole
of the characters connected with him in that portion
of the Mabinogi of Math, Son of Mathonwy, which

recounts the myth of the birth of the sun-god.
Neither Math himself, nor Lieu Llaw Gyffes, nor
Dylan, nor their mother, Arianrod, play any more
part they have vanished as completely as Gwydion.
;
But the essence of the myth of which they were the

figures remains intact. Gwydion was the father by
his sister Arianrod, wife of a waning heaven-god
called (Space), of twin sons, Lieu, a god
Nwyvre
of light, and Dylan, a god of darkness and we find ;
this same story woven into the very innermost tex

2
ture of the legend of Arthur. The new Arianrod,
1 3
Rhys: Arthurian Legend^ p. 325. Rhys: ibid., chap. I.
The Mythological Coming of A rthur 323
though called "Morgawse" by Sir Thomas Malory

1
,
and Anna" by Geoffrey of Monmouth 2 is known

"
3
to earlier Welsh myth as "Gwyar"
. She was the
sister ofArthur and the wife of the sky-god, Lludd,
and her name, which means "shed blood" or "gore",
reminds us of the relationship of the Morrfgu, the

war-goddess of the Gaels, to the heaven-god Nuada
4
.
The new Lieu Llaw Gyffes is called Gwalchmei, that

5
is, the
"
Falcon of May" ,
and the new Dylan is
Medrawt, at once Arthur s son and Gwalchmei s

6
brother, and the bitterest enemy of both .
Besides these "
old friends with new faces", Arthur

brings with him into prominence a fresh Pantheon,
most of whom also replace the older gods of the
heavens and earth and the regions under the earth.
The Zeus of Arthur s cycle is called Myrddin, who
passed into the Norman- French romances as Mer "
lin". All the myths told of him bear witness to his
high estate. The first name of Britain, before it

was inhabited, was, we learn from a triad, Clas
Myrddin, that
Myrddin s Enclosure". He is
is,
"
7
given a wife whose attributes recall those of the

consorts of Nuada and Lludd. She is described as
the only daughter of Coel the British name of the
Gaulish Camitlus, a god of war and the sky and
was called Elen Lwyddawg, that is,
"
Elen, Leader
of Hosts". Her memory
preserved in Wales is still
in connection with ancient roadways; such names
1
Malory s Morte Darthur, Book II, chap. II.
2
Historia Britonum, Book VIII, chap. XX.
3 *
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 169. Rhys: ibid., p 169.
3
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 13. Rhys: ibid., pp. 19-23.
7
as Ffordd Elen Sam Elen
("
Elen s Road")
and
("Elen
seem to show that the paths
s Causeway")
on which armies marched were ascribed or dedicated

to her.
1
As Myrddin s wife, she is credited with
having founded the town of Carmarthen (Caer

Myrddin), as well as the highest fortress in Arvon",
"
which must have been the site near Beddgelert still

Dinas Emrys, the Town of
called
"
Emrys", one of
2
Myrddin s epithets or names.
Professor Rhys is inclined to credit Myrddin, or,
Zeus under whatever name, with
rather, the British
having been the god especially worshipped at Stone-

8
henge. Certainly this impressive temple, ever
unroofed and open to the sun and wind and rain of
heaven, would seem peculiarly appropriate to a
British supreme god of light and sky. Neither are
we quite without documentary evidence which will
allow us to connect it with him. Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth 4 ,
whose usually conceal
historical fictions
mythological facts, relates that the stones which com

pose it were erected by Merlin. Before that, they
had stood in Ireland, upon a hill which Geoffrey
calls
"
Mount Killaraus", and which can be identified
as the same spot known to Irish legend as the

"
Hill
of Uisnech", and, still earlier, connected with Balor.
According to British tradition, the primeval giants
who colonized Ireland had brought them from
first
their original home on "the farthest coast of Africa",
1
exposition of the mythological meaning of the Red Book romance
2
See Rhys s
of the Dream of Maxen Wledig, in his Hibbert Lectures, pp. 160-175.

3 Hibbert Lectures, pp. 192-195.
Rhys :
Historia Britonum, Book VIII, chaps. IX-XII.

"
325
on account of their miraculous virtues for any water ;
in which they were bathed became a sovereign
remedy either for sickness or for wounds. By the

order of Aurelius, a half-real, half-mythical king of
Britain, Merlin brought them thence to England,
to be set up on Salisbury Plain as a monument to
the British chieftains treacherously slain by Hengist
and his Saxons. With this scrap of native informa
tion about Stonehenge we may compare the only
other piece we have the account of the classic
Diodorus, who
a temple of Apollo. 1
called At
it
first, these two statements seem to conflict. But it

is far from unlikely that the earlier Celtic settlers in
Britain made little or no religious distinction between
sky and sun. The sun-god, as a separate personage,
seems to have been the conception of a comparatively
late age. Celtic mythology allows us to be present,
as it were, at the births both of the Gaelic Lugh
Lamhfada and the British Lieu Llaw Gyffes.
Even the well-known story of Myrddin s, or Mer
lin s final
imprisonment in a tomb of airy enchant
ment tour withouten walles, or withoute eny
"a
"
closure reads marvellously like a myth of the sun

"
with all his glories round

fires and travelling
2
him Encircled, shielded,
". and made splendid by
his atmosphere of living light, the Lord of Heaven
moves slowly towards the west, to disappear at last
into the sea (as one local version of the myth
puts
it),
or on to a far-off island (as another says), or into
a dark forest (the choice of a third).
3
When the
1 See chap. IV and Rhys : Hibbert Lectures, p. 194.

2
Rhys: Hibbert Lectures, pp. 158, 159. *Ibid., p. 155.
myth became finally fixed, it was Bardsey Island, off

the extreme westernmost point of Caernarvonshire,
that was selected as his last abode. Into it he
went with nine attendant bards, taking with him
the
"
Thirteen Treasures of Britain ",

thenceforth
lost to men. Bardsey Island no doubt derives its
name from this story; and what is probably an
allusion to it is found in a first-century Greek writer
called Plutarch, who
grammarian called describes a
Demetrius as having visited Britain, and brought
home an account of his travels. He mentioned
several uninhabited and sacred islands off our coasts
which he said were named after gods and heroes,
but there was one especially in which Cronos was
imprisoned with his attendant deities, and Briareus
for sleep was
keeping watch over him as he slept;
"
1
the bond forged for him". Doubtless this disin
herited deity, whom the Greek, after his fashion, called
"
was the British heaven- and sun-god,

Cronos",
after he had descended into the prison of the west.
Among other new-comers is Kai, who, as Sir

Kay the Seneschal, fills so large a part in the later
romances. Purged of his worst offences, and re
duced a surly butler to Arthur, he is but a

to
shadow of the earlier Kai who murdered Arthur s
son Llacheu 2 ,
and can only be acquitted, through
the obscurity of the poem that relates the incident,
of having also carried off, or having tried to carry
off, Arthur s wife, Gwynhwyvar.
8
He is thought
1
Plutarch : De Defectu Oraculorum.
2 The Seint by Rhys: Arthurian Legend, pp. 61-62.
Greal, quoted
"
*
327
1
to have been a personification of upon the fire,
strength of a description given of him in the mythi

cal romance of Kulhwch and Olwen
"
Very ".
"
subtle", it says, "was Kai. When it pleased him

he could render himself as tall as the highest tree
in the forest. And he had another peculiarity so
great was the heat of his nature, that, when it
rained hardest, whatever he carried remained dry
for a handbreadth above and a handbreadth below
his hand; and when his companions were coldest,
it was to them as fuel with which to light their
fire." .
Another personage who owes prominence in his
the Arthurian story to his importance in Celtic
myth was March son of Meirchion, whose swine

Arthur attempted to steal, as Gwydion had done
those of Pryderi. In the romances, he has become
the cowardly and treacherous Mark, king, accord
ing to some stories, of Cornwall, but according to

others, of the whole of Britain, and known to all as
the husband of the Fair Isoult, and the uncle of
Sir Tristrem. But as a deformed deity of the
2
underworld he can be found in Gaelic as well as in
British myth. He cannot be considered as origi
nally different from More, a king of the Fomors at
the time when from their Glass Castle they so
oppressed the Children of Nemed.
fatally
8
The
Fomors were distinguished by their animal features,
and March had the same peculiarity.
4
When Sir
i Elton: Origins of English History, p. 269.

3 3
Rhys: Arthrtrian Legend, p. 12. Ibid., p. 70.
4 The name March means horse ".
Thomas Malory how, to please Arthur and
relates
Sir Launcelot, Sir Dinadan made a song about
Mark, which was the worst lay that ever harper
"
sang with harp or any other instruments he does V

not tell us wherein the
sting of the lampoon lay. It
no doubt reminded King Mark of the unpleasant

fact that he had not like his Phrygian counterpart,
ass s but horse s ears. He was, in fact, a Celtic
Midas, a distinction which he shared with one of
the mythical kings of early Ireland. 2
Neither can we pass over Urien, a deity of the
3
underworld akin to, or perhaps the same as, Bran.
Like that son of Llyr, he was at once a god of
battle and of minstrelsy; 4 he was adored by the
bards as their patron; 5 his badge was the raven
6
(bran, in Welsh); while, to make his identification
complete, there is au extant poem which tells how

Urien, wounded, ordered his own head to be cut off
by his attendants. 7 His wife was Modron, 8 known
as the mother of Mabon, the sun -god to whom
inscriptions Maponos. Another of the
exist as
children of Urien and Modron is Owain, which was
9
perhaps only another name for Mabon. Taliesin
10
calls him chief of the glittering west", and he is
"
as certainly a sun-god as his father Urien, "lord of

11
the evening", was a ruler of the dark underworld.
2
i Morte Darthur. Book X, chap. xxvu. Called Labraid Longsech.
3 Arthurian Legend. See chap. XI "
Urien and his Congeners

Rhys : ".
4 5 6
Ibid. t p. 256.
Ibid., p. 260. Ibid., p. 261.
7 Red Book of Hergest, XII. Rhys: Arthurian Legend, pp. 253-256.
8 9
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 247. Ibid.
10 The
Death-song of Owain. Taliesin, XLIV, Skene, Vol. I, p. 366.
11
Book of Taliesin, xxxn. Skene, however, translates the word rendered
"evening" by Rhys as "cultivated plain".
The Mytholog ical Coming of A rthur" 3 29
by reason of the pre-eminence of Arthur that

It is
we find gathered round him so many gods, all

probably various tribal personifications of the same
few mythological ideas. The Celts, both of the
Gaelic and the British branches, were split up into
numerous petty tribes, each with its own local
deitiesembodying the same essential conceptions
under different names. There was the god of the
underworld, gigantic in figure, patron alike of
warrior and minstrel, teacher of the arts of elo
quence and literature, and owner of boundless
wealth, whom some
of the British tribes worshipped
as Bran, others as Urien, others as Pwyll, or March,
or Math, or Arawn, or Ogyrvran. There was the
lord of an elysium Hades in its aspect of a para
dise of the departed rather than of the primeval
subterranean realm where all things originated
whom the Britons of Wales called Gwyn, or Gwyn-
was; the of Cornwall, Melwas; and the
Britons
Britons of Somerset, Avallon, or Avallach. Under
this last title, his realm is called Ynys Avallon,
"
Avallon s Island ", or, as we know the word,

Avilion. was said be the Land of Summer",
"
It to in
which, in the earliest myth, signified Hades; and it

was only in later days that the mystic Isle of
Avilion became fixed to earth as Glastonbury, and
1
the Elysian "Land of Summer" as Somerset.
There was a mighty ruler of heaven, a "god of
battles worshipped on high places, in whose hands
",
was "the stern arbitrament of war"; some knew

him as Lludd, others as Myrddin, or as Emrys.
1
Rhys : Arthurian Legend, p. 345.
There was a gentler man, to help deity, friendly to
whom he fought or cajoled the powers of the under
world; Gwydion he was called, and Arthur. Last,
perhaps, to be imagined in concrete shape, there
was a long-armed, sharp-speared sun-god who aided
the culture-god in his work, and was known as Lieu,
or Gwalchmei, or Mabon, or Owain, or Peredur,
and no doubt by many another name; and with him
is
usually found a brother representing not light,
but darkness. This expression of a single idea by
different names may be also observed in Gaelic
myth, though not quite so clearly. In the hurtling
of clan against clan, many such divinities perished
altogether out of memory, or survived only as names,
to make
up, in Ireland, the vast, shadowy population
claiming to be Tuatha De* Danann, and, in Britain,
the long list of Arthur s followers. Others gods
of stronger communities would increase their fame
as their worshippers increased their territory, until,
as happened in Greece, the chief deities of many
tribes came together to form a national Pantheon.
We have already tried to explain the Coming "
"
of Arthur historically. Mythologically, he came,

as, according to Celtic ideas, all things came origi
nally, from the underworld. His father is called

1
Uther Pendragon. But Uther Pendragon is (for
"
the word "
dragon is not part of the name, but
a title signifying war-leader Uther Ben, that is,

"
")
2
Bran, under his name of the Wonderful Head",
"
so that, in spite of the legend which describes
1
Both by Malory and Geoffrey of Monmouth.
3
Rhys : A rthurian Legend, p. 256.
The Mythological Coming of A rthur"
<
33 1
Arthur as having disinterred Bran s head on Tower

Hill, where it watched against invasion, because he
thought beneath his dignity to keep Britain in

it
any other way than by valour, we must recognize

1
the King of Hades as his father. This being so, it

would only be natural that he should take a wife
from the same eternal country, and we need not
be surprised to find in Gwynhwyvar s father, Ogyr-
vran, a personage corresponding in all respects to
the Celtic conception of the ruler of the underworld.
He was of gigantic size; 2 he was the owner of a
cauldron out of which three Muses had been born; 3
and he was the patron of the bards, 4 who deemed
him to have been the originator of their art. More
than this, his very name, analysed into its original
ocur vran, means the evil bran, or raven, the bird
of death. 6
But Welsh Arthur with three
tradition credits
wives, each of them called Gwynhwyvar. This

peculiar arrangement is probably due to the Celtic
love of triads and one may compare them with the
;
three E tains who

pass through the mythico-heroic
story of Eochaid Airem, Etain, and Mider. Of
these three Gwynhwyvars, 6 besides the Gwynhwy
daughter of Ogyrvran, one was the daughter of

var,
Gwyrd Gwent, of whom we know nothing but the

name, and the other of Gwyrthur ap Greidawl,
1
See chap, xvin The Wooing of Branwen and the Beheading of Bran
"
".
2
He is called Ogyrvran the Giant. 3
4
Rhys Hibbert Lectures, pp. 268-269.
:
5
Rhys Lectures on Welsh Philology, p. 306. But the derivation is only tenta
:
tive, and an interesting alternative one is given, which equates him with the Persian
Ahriman.
6 The
enumeration of Arthur s three Gwynhwyvars forms one of the Welsh triads.
the same "
Victor son of Scorcher" with whom

Gwyn son of Nudd, fought, in earlier myth, per
petual battle for the
possession of Creudylad,
daughter of the sky-god Lludd. This same eternal
strife between the powers of light and darkness for
the possession of a symbolical damsel is waged
again in the Arthurian cycle; but it is no longer for

Creudylad that Gwyn contends, but for Gwynhwy-
var, and no longer with Gwyrthur, but with Arthur.
It would seem to have been a Cornish form of
the myth; for the dark god is called Melwas "
",
and not "
Gwynwas or Gwyn his name in

",
"
",
1
Welsh. Melwas lay in ambush for a whole year,
and finally succeeded in carrying off Gwynhwyvar
to his palace in Avilion. But Arthur pursued, and
besieged that stronghold, just as Eochaid Airem
had, in the Gaelic version of the universal story,
2
mined and sapped at Mider s sidh of Bri Leith.
Mythology, as well as history, repeats itself; and
Melwas was obliged to restore Gwynhwyvar to her
rightful lord.
It is not Melwas, however, that in the best-
known versions of the story contends with Arthur
for the love of Gwynhwyvar. The most wide
spread early tradition makes Arthur s rival his
nephew Medrawt. Here Professor Rhys traces
a striking parallel between the British legend of
Arthur, Gwynhwyvar, and Medrawt, and the Gaelic
story of Airem, Etain, and Mider.
3
The two myths
are practically counterparts; for the names of all
1
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 342. See chap. XI "
The Gods in Exile".
3 and
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, chap. II "Arthur Airem".
"
(
333
the three pairs agree in their essential meaning.
the
" "
"Airem", like Arthur", signifies Plough

man ",
the divine institutor of agriculture;
"
Etain ",
the a
"
"Shining One", is
fit
parallel to Gwynhwy-
var", the "White Apparition"; while "Mider" and
Medrawt both come from the same
"
root, a word
"
either literally, or else metaphori

"
meaning to hit ",
cally, with the mind, in the sense of coming to a

decision. To attempt to explain this myth is to
raise the vexed question of the meaning of myth
ology. Is it day and dark that strive for dawn, or
summer and winter for the lovely spring, or does it
shadow forth the rescue of the grain that makes
man s life from the devouring underworld by the
farmer s wit? When this can be finally resolved, a
multitude of Celtic myths will be explained. Every
where arise the same combatants for the stolen
bride; one has the attributes of light, the other is
a champion of darkness.
Even in Sir Thomas Malory s version of the
Arthurian story, taken by him from French ro
mances far removed from the original tradition,
we find the myth subsisting. Medrawt s original
place as queen had been
the lover of Arthur s
taken in the romances by Sir Launcelot, who, if he
was not some now undiscoverable Celtic god, 1 must
have been an invention of the Norman adapters.
But the story which makes Medrawt Arthur s rival
1
In the mysterious Lancelot, not found in Arthurian story before the Norman
adaptations of it, Professor Rhys is inclined to see a British sun-god, or solar hero.
A number of interesting comparisons are drawn between him and the Peredur and
Owain of the later "Mabinogion" tales, as well as with the Gaelic Cuchulainn.
See Studies in the Arthurian legend.
has been preserved in the account of how Sir
Mordred would have wedded Guinevere by force,
as part of the rebellion which he made against his
1
king and uncle. This
myth long strife was Celtic
before became part of the pseudo-history of early
it
Britain. The triads 2 tell us how Arthur and Me-

drawt raided each other s courts during the owner s
absence. Medrawt went to Kelli Wic, in Cornwall,
ate and drank everything he could find there, and
Queen Gwynhwyvar, in revenge for which

insulted
Arthur went to Medrawt s court and killed man
and Their struggle only ended with the
beast.
Battle of Camlan
and that mythical combat, which
;
chroniclers have striven to make historical, is full

of legendary detail. Tradition tells how Arthur
and his antagonist shared their forces three times
during the fight, which caused it to be known as

one of the Three Frivolous Battles of Britain
"
",
the idea of doing so being one of Britain s Three

"
Criminal Resolutions Four alone survived the

".
fray: one, because he was so ugly that all shrank

from him, believing him to be a devil; another,
whom no one touched because he was so beautiful
that they took him for an angel; a third, whose
great strength no one could resist; and Arthur

himself, who, after revenging the death of Gwalch-
mei upon Medrawt, went to the island of Avilion
to heal him of his grievous wounds.
And thence from the Elysium of the Celts
1
Morte Darthur, Book XXI, chap. I.
8
The fullest list of translated triads is contained in the appendix to Probeit s
Ancient Laws of Cambria, 1823. Many are also given as an appendix in Skene s
Four A ncient Books of Wales,
The Mythological Coming of A rthur 335
popular belief has always been that he will some

day return. But just as the gods of the Gaels are
said to dwell sometimes in the "
Land of the
Living beyond the western wave, and sometimes

",
in the palace of a hollow hill, so Arthur is some

times thought to be in Avilion, and sometimes to
be sitting with his champions in a charmed sleep
in some secret place, waiting for the
trumpet to
be blown that shall call him forth to reconquer
Britain. The legend is found in the Eildon Hills;
in the Snowdon district; at Cadbury, in Somerset,
the best authenticated Camelot; in the Vale of
Neath, South Wales; as well as in other places.
in
He slumbers, but he has not died. The ancient
Welsh poem called The Verses of the Graves of
"
the Warriors" 1 enumerates the last resting-places

of most of the British gods and demi-gods. The "
grave of Gwydion is in the marsh of Dinlleu the ",
grave of Lieu Llaw Gyffes is under the protection

"
of the sea with which he was familiar", and where "
the wave makes a sullen sound is the grave of

Dylan"; we know
the graves of Pryderi, of Gwalch-
mei, of March, of Mabon, even of the great Beli,
but
Not wise the thought a grave for Arthur 2
"
".
1
Black Book of Cae rmarthen XIX, Vol. I, pp. 309-318 in Skene.
3
This is Professor Rhys s translation of the Welsh line, no doubt more strictly
correct than the famous rendering: Unknown is the grave of Arthur".
"
CHAPTER XXII
THE TREASURES OF BRITAIN
It is in keeping with the mythological character

of Arthur that the early Welsh tales recorded of
him are of a different nature from those which swell
the pseudo-histories of Nennius 1 and of Geoffrey
of Monmouth. We
hear nothing of that subjuga
tion of the countries of Western Europe which fills
so large a part in the two books of the Historia

Britonum which Geoffrey has devoted to him. 2
Conqueror he is, but his conquests are not in any
land knownto geographers. It is against Hades,
and not against Rome, that he achieves his highest
triumphs. This is the true history of King Arthur,

and we may read more fragments and snatches of
it in two
prose-tales preserved in the Red Book of
Hergest. Both these tales date, in the actual form
in which they have come down to us, from the
twelfth century. But, in each of them, the writer
seems be stretching out his hands to gather in
to
the dying traditions of a very remote past.
When a Welsh man-at-arms named Rhonabwy
lay down, one night, to sleep upon a yellow calf-skin,
the only furniture in a noisome hut, in which he had
taken shelter, that was comparatively free from
vermin, he had the vision which is related in the tale
1
"History of the Britons ", 50.
8
Geoffrey of Monmouth. Books IX and X, and chaps. I and n of XI.
The Treasures of Britain 337
called
"
The Dream of Rhonabwy ".

l
He thought
that he was companions towards
travelling with his
the Severn, when they heard a rushing noise behind
them, and, looking back, saw a gigantic rider upon
a monstrous horse. So terrible was the horseman s
appearance that they all started to run from him.
But their running was of no avail, for every time
the horse drew in its breath, it sucked them back to
its very chest, only, however, to fling them forward
as it breathed out again. In despair they fell down
and besought their pursuer s mercy. granted He
it, asked their names, and told them, in return, his
own. He
was known as Iddawc the Agitator of
Britain for it was he who, in his love of war, had
;
purposely precipitated the Battle of Camlan. Arthur

had sent him to reason with Medrawt; but though
Arthur had charged him with the fairest sayings
he could think of, Iddawc translated them into the
harshest he could devise. But he had done seven
years penance, and had been forgiven, and was
now riding to Arthur s camp. Thither he insisted
upon taking Rhonabwy and his companions.
Arthur s army was encamped for a mile around
the ford of Rhyd y Groes, upon both sides of the
road and on a small flat island in the middle of the
;
river was the Emperor himself, in converse with

Bedwini the Bishop and Gwarthegyd, the son of
Kaw. Like Ossian, when he came back to Ireland
after his three hundred years sojourn in the Land "
2
of Promise Arthur marvelled at the puny size of
",
1
Translated by Lady Guest in her Mabinogion.
a
See chap, xiv Finn and the Fenians
"
".
(B219) Y
the people whom Iddawc had brought for him to
look at. And where, Iddawc, didst thou find
"
these little men?"

"
I found them, Lord, up yonder

on the road." Then the Emperor smiled.
"
Lord,"
said Iddawc,
"
wherefore dost thou laugh?"

"
Idd
awc,"replied Arthur, laugh not; but it pitieth "I
me that men of such stature as these should have

this island in their keeping, after the men that
guarded it of yore." Then he turned away, and

Iddawc told Rhonabwy and his companions to keep
silent, and they would see what they would see.
The scope of such a book as this allows no space
to describe the persons and equipments of the
warriors who came
riding down with their com
panies to join Arthur, as he made his great march
to fight the Battle of Badon, thought by some to
be historical, and located at Bath. The reader who
turns to the tale itself will see what Rhonabwy saw.
Many of Arthur s warriors he will know by name:

Caradawc the Strong-armed, who is here called a
son, not of Bran, but of Llyr; March son of Meir-
chion, the underworld king; Kai, described as the
horseman
"
fairest in all Arthur s court Gwalchmei, ;
the son of Gwyar and of Arthur himself; Mabon,

the son of Modron; Trystan son of Tallwch, the
lover of "The Fair Isoult"; Goreu, Arthur s cousin
and his rescuer from Manawyddan s bone-prison;
these, and many more, will pass before him, as they
passed before Rhonabwy during the three days and

three nights that he slept and dreamed upon the
calf-skin.
This story of the "Dream of Rhonabwy", elaborate
as it is in all its details, is yet, in substance, little
more than a catalogue. The intention of its un

known author seems to have been to draw a series
of pictures of what he considered to be the principal
among Arthur s followers. The other story that

of and Olwen" also takes this catalogue
"Kulhwch
form, but the matters enumerated are of a different

kind. It is not so much a record of men as of
things. Not the heroes of Britain, but the treasures

of Britain are its subject. One might compare it
with the Gaelic story of the adventures of the three
sons of Tuirenn. 1
The "
were famous
Thirteen Treasures of Britain"
in early legend. They belonged to gods and heroes,

and were current in our island till the end of the
divine age, when Merlin, fading out of the world,
took them with him into his airy tomb, never to be
2
seen by mortal eyes again. According to tradition,
they consisted of a sword, a basket, a drinking-horn,
a chariot, a halter, a knife, a cauldron, a whetstone,
a garment, a pan, a platter, a chess-board, and a
mantle, all possessed of not less marvellous qualities
than the apples, the pig-skin, the spear, the horses
and chariot, hound-whelp, and the
the pigs, the
cooking-spit which the sons of Tuirenn obtained

3
for Lugh. It is these same legendary treasures
that reappear, no doubt, in the story of "
Kulhwch
and Olwen The number
".
tallies, for there are
thirteen of them. Some are certainly, and others
Chap. Vin
1
"The Gaelic Argonauts".
2
The list will be found, translated from an old Welsh MS., in the notes to
Kulhwch and Olwen, in Lady Guest s Mabinogion,
3
Chap, vin "The Gaelic Argonauts".
probably, identical with those of the other tradition.

That there should be discrepancies need cause no
surprise, for it is not unlikely that there were several
different versions of their legend. Everyone had
heard of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain. Many,
no doubt, disputed as to what they were. Others
might ask whence they came. The story of
"Kulhwch and Olwen was composed to tell them.
"
They were won by Arthur and his mighty men.

1
Kulhwch is the hero of the story and Olwen is
its heroine, but only, as it were, by courtesy. The
pair provide a love-interest which, as in the tales of
all kept in the background. The
primitive people, is
woman, in such romances, takes the place of the

"
gold and gems in a modern treasure-hunt story; "
she is won by overcoming external obstacles, and

not by any difficulty in obtaining her own consent.
In this romance 2 Kulhwch was the son of a king
,
who widow with a grown-up

afterwards married a
daughter, whom stepmother urged Kulhwch to
his
marry. On his modestly replying that he was not

yet of an age to wed, she laid the destiny on him
that he should never have a wife at all, unless he
could win Olwen, the daughter of a terrible father
3
Hawthorn, Chief of Giants".
"
called
The
"
"
Chief of Giants was as hostile to suitors

as he was monstrous in shape; and no wonder! for
he knew that on his daughter s marriage his own
life would come to an end. Both in this peculiarity
1 Pronounced Keelhookh,
2The following pages sketch out the main incidents of the story as translated
by Lady Guest in her Mabinogion.
3 In
Welsh, Yspaddaden Penkawr.
and in the description of his ponderous eyebrows,

which fell so heavily over his eyes that he could not
see until they had been lifted up with forks, he re
minds one of the Fomor, Balor. Of his daughter,
on the other hand, the Welsh tale gives a descrip
tion as beautiful as
was, herself. More
Olwen "
yellow was her head than the flower of the broom,

and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave,
and fairer were her hands and her fingers than the
blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray
of the meadow-fountain. The eye of the trained
hawk, the glance of the three mewed falcon was
-
not brighter than hers. Her bosom was more

snowy than the breast of the white swan, her
cheek was redder than the reddest roses. Whoso
beheld her was filled with her love. Four white
trefoils sprung up wherever she trod. And there
1
fore was she called Olwen."
Kulhwch had no need to see her to fall in love

with her. He blushed at her very name, and asked
his father how he could obtain her in marriage.
His father reminded him that he was Arthur s
cousin, and advised him to claim Olwen from him
as a boon.
So Kulhwch pricked forth upon a steed with
"
head dappled grey, of four winters old, firm of limb,

with shell-formed hoofs, having a bridle of linked
gold on his head, and upon him a saddle of costly
gold. And in the youth s hand were two spears
of silver, sharp, well -tempered, headed with steel,
1
I.e. She of the White Track. The beauty of Olwen was proverbial in mediaeval
Welsh poetry.
three length, of an edge to wound the wind,
ells in
and cause blood to flow, and swifter than the fall of

the dewdrop from the blade of reed-grass upon the
earth when the dew of June is at the heaviest. A
gold-hilted sword was upon his thigh, the blade of
which was of gold, bearing a cross of inlaid gold of
the hue of the lightning of heaven; his war-horn
was of ivory. Before him were two brindled white-
breasted greyhounds, having strong collars of rubies
about their necks, reaching from the shoulder to the
ear. And the one that was on the left side bounded
across to the right side, and the one on the right to
the left, and like two sea-swallows sported around
him. And his courser cast up four sods with his
four hoofs, like four swallows in the air, about his
head, now above, now below. About him was a
four-cornered cloth of purple, and an apple of gold
was and every one of the apples was
at each corner,
of the value of an hundred kine. And there was
precious gold of the value of three hundred kine
upon his shoes, and upon his stirrups, from his knee
to the tip of his toe. Andthe blade of grass bent
not beneath him, so light was his courser s tread as
he journeyed towards the gate of Arthur s palace."
Nor did this bold suitor stand greatly upon cere
mony. He arrived after the portal of the palace

had been closed for the night, and, contrary to all
precedent, sent to Arthur demanding instant entry.
Although, too, it was the custom for visitors to dis
mount at the horse-block at the gate, he did not do
so, but rode his charger into the hall. After greet
ings had passed between him and Arthur, and he
had announced name, he demanded Olwen for
his
his bride at the hands of the Emperor and his
warriors.
Neither Arthur nor any of his court had ever
heard of Olwen. However, he promised his cousin
either to find her for him, or to prove that there
was no such person. He ordered his most skilful
warriors to accompany Kulhwch; Kai, with his
companion Bedwyr, the swiftest of men Kynddelig, ;
who was as good a guide in a strange country as

in his own ; Gwrhyr, who knew all the languages of
men, as well as of all other creatures; Gwalchmei,
who never left an adventure unachieved; and Menw,
who could render himself and his companions in
visible at will.
They travelled until they came to a castle on an
open plain. Feeding on the plain was a countless

herd of sheep, and, on a mound close by, a monstrous
shepherd with a monstrous dog. Menw cast a spell
over the dog, and they approached the shepherd.
He was called Custennin, a brother of Hawthorn,
while his wife was a sister of Kulhwch s own mother.
The evil chief of giants had reduced his brother to
servitude, and murdered all his twenty -four sons
save one, who was kept hidden in a stone chest.
Therefore he welcomed Kulhwch and the embassy
from Arthur, and promised to help them secretly,
the more readily since Kai offered to take the one
surviving son under his protection. Custennin s wife

procured Kulhwch a secret meeting with Olwen,
and the damsel did not altogether discourage her
wooer s suit.
The party started for Hawthorn s castle. With
out raising any alarm, they slew the nine porters
and the nine watch-dogs, and came unhindered into
the hall. greeted the ponderous giant, and
They
announced the reason of their coming. Where "
pages and my servants?" he said. Raise "
are my
up the forks beneath my two eyebrows which have
fallen over my eyes, so that I may see the fashion
of my son-in-law." He
glared at them, and told
them to come again upon the next day.
They turned to go, and, as they did so, Hawthorn
seized a poisoned dart, and threw it after them.
But Bedwyr caught it, and cast it back, wounding
the giant s knee. They left him grumbling, slept
at the house of Custennin, and returned, the next
morning.
Again they demanded Olwen from her father,
threatening him with death if he refused. Her "
four great-grandmothers, and her four great-grand-

it is needful
"
sires are yet replied Hawthorn;

alive,"
that I take counsel of them." So they turned away,

and, as they went, he flung a second dart, which
Menw caught, and hurled back, piercing the giant s
body.
Thenext time they came, Hawthorn warned them
not to shoot at him again, unless they desired death.
Then he ordered eyebrows to be lifted up, and,
his
as soon as he could see, he flung a poisoned dart
straight at Kulhwch. But the suitor himself caught

it, and flung it back, so that it pierced Hawthorn s
eyeball and came out through the back of his head.

Here again we are reminded of the myth of Lugh
and Balor. Hawthorn, however, was not killed,
though he was very much discomforted. A cursed "
ungentle son-in-law, truly!" he complained. "As
long as I remain alive, my eyesight will be the

worse. I Whenever
go against the wind, my eyes
willwater; and perad venture my head will burn,
and I shall have a giddiness every new moon.
Cursed be the fire in which it was forged! Like
the bite of a mad dog is the stroke of this poisoned
iron."
was now the turn of Kulhwch and his party to

It
warn the giant that there must be no more dart-

throwing. He appeared, indeed, more amenable to
reason, and allowed himself to be placed opposite
to Kulhwch, in a chair, to discuss the amount of his
daughter s bride-price.
Its terms, as he gradually unfolded them, were

terrific. The blood-fine paid for Cian to Lugh
seems, indeed, a trifle beside it. To obtain grain,
for food and liquor at his daughter s wedding, a
vast which he showed to Kulhwch must be
hill
rooted up, levelled, ploughed, sown, and harvested

in one day. No one could do this except Amaethon
son of Don, the divine husbandman, and Govannan
son of Don, the divine smith, and they must have the
service of three pairs of magic oxen. He must also
have returned to him the same nine bushels of flax
which he had sown in his youth, and which had
never come up for only out of this very flax should
;
be made the white wimple for Olwen s head. For

mead, too, he must have honey "nine times sweeter
than the honey of the virgin swarm".
Then followed the enumeration of the thirteen
treasures to be paid to him as dowry. Such a list
of wedding presents was surely never known! No
pot could hold such honey as he demanded but the
magic vessel of Llwyr, the son of Llwyryon. There
would not be enough food for all the wedding-guests,
unless he had the basket of Gwyddneu Garanhir,
from which all the men in the world could be fed,
thrice nine at a time. No cauldron could cook the
meat, except that of Diwrnach the Gael. The mystic
drinking-horn of Gwlgawd Gododin must be there,
to give them drink. The harp of Teirtu, which, like
the Dagda s, played of itself, must make music for
them. The giant father-in-law s hair could only be
shorn with one instrument the tusk of White-tooth,
King of the Boars, and not even by that unless it

was plucked alive out of its owner s mouth. Also,
before the hair could be cut, it must be spread out,
and this could not be done until it had been first
softened with the blood of the perfectly black sor
ceress, daughter of the perfectly white sorceress, from
the Source of the Stream of Sorrow, on the borders
ofhell. Nor could the sorceress s blood be kept
warm enough unless it was placed in the bottles of
Gwyddolwyn Gorr, which preserved the heat of any
liquor put into them, though it was carried from the
east of the world to the west. Another set of bottles
he must also have keep milk for his guests in
to
those bottles of Rhinnon Rhin Barnawd in which no
drink ever turned sour. For himself, he required
the sword of Gwrnach the Giant, which that per
sonage would never allow out of his own keeping,

because was destined that he himself should fall
it
by it. Last of all, he must be given the comb, the

razor, and the scissors which lay between the ears
of Twrch Trwyth, a king changed into the most
terrible of wild boars.
It is the chase of this boar which gives the story
of "Kulhwch and Olwen" its alternative title "The
Twrch The
was one worthy of gods
Trwyth". task
and demi-gods. Its contemplation might well have
appalled Kulhwch, who, however, was not so easily
frightened. To every fresh demand, every new
obstacle put in his way, he gave the same answer:
will be easy for
"It me to compass
this, although
thou mayest think that not be easy
it will ".
Whether it was easy or not will be seen from the

conditions under which alone the hunt could be
brought to a successful end. No ordinary hounds

or huntsmen would avail. The
chief of the pack
must be Drudwyn, the whelp of Greid the son of
Eri, led in the one leash that would hold him,
fastened, by the one chain strong enough, to the
one would contain his neck. No hunts
collar that
man could hunt with this dog except Mabon son
of Modron; and he had, ages before, been taken
from between his mother and the wall when he was
three nights old, and it was not known where he
was, or even whether he were living or dead. There
was only one steed that could carry Mabon, namely
Gwynn Mygdwn, the horse of Gweddw. Two other
marvellous hounds, the cubs of Gast Rhymhi, must
also be obtained; they must be held in the only
leash they would not break, for it would be made
out of the beard of the giant Dissull, plucked from
him while he was still alive. Even with this, no
huntsman could lead them except Kynedyr Wyllt,
who was himself nine times more wild than the
wildest beast upon the mountains. All Arthur s
mighty men must come even Gwyn son of

to help,
Nudd, upon his black horse; and how could he be

spared from his terrible duty of restraining the
devils in hell from breaking loose and destroying
the world?
Here is material for romance indeed! But, un
happily, we shall never know the full story of how
all these magic treasures were obtained, all these
magic hounds captured and compelled to hunt, all

these magic huntsmen brought to help. The story
which Mr. Nutt 1 considers to be, saving the finest "
tales of the Arabian Nights the greatest romantic ,
fairy tale the world has ever known" is not, as we

have it now, complete. It reads fully enough; but,
on casting backwards and forwards, between the list
of feats to be performed and the body of the tale
which is supposed to relate them all, we find many
of them wanting. The host of Arthur", we are
"
dispersed themselves into parties of one and

"
told,
two", each party intent upon some separate quest.
The adventures of some of them have come down,
but those of others have not. We are told how
Kai slew Gwrnach the Giant with his own sword;
how Gwyrthur son of Greidawl, Gwyn s rival for
the love of Creudylad, saved an anthill from fire,
and how the grateful ants searched for and found
1
In his notes to his edition of Lady Guest s Mabinogion. Published 1902.
The Treasiires of Britain 349
the very flax-seeds sown by Hawthorn in his youth;

how Arthur s host surrounded and took Cast
Rhymhi s cubs, and how Kai and Bedwyr overcame
Dissull, and plucked out his beard with wooden
tweezers, to make a leash for them. We learn how
Arthur went to Ireland, and brought back the caul
dron of Diwrnach the Gael, full of Irish money; how
White-tusk the Boar-king was chased and killed;
and how Arthur condescended to slay the perfectly
black sorceress with his own hand. That others of
the treasures were acquired is hinted rather than
said. Most important of all (for so much depended
on him), we find out where the stolen Mabon was,
and learn how he was rescued.
So many ages had elapsed since Mabon had dis
appeared that there seemed little hope of ever find
ing news of him. Nevertheless Gwrhyr, who spoke
the languages of all creatures, went to enquire of that
ancient bird, the Ousel of Cilgwri. But the Ousel,
though in her time she had pecked a smith s anvil
down to the size of a nut, was yet too young to have
heard of Mabon. She sent Gwrhyr to a creature
formed before her, the Stag of Redynvre. But
though the Stag had lived to see an oak-sapling
slowly be a tree with a thousand branches,
grow to
and as slowly decay again till it was a withered
stump, he had never heard of Mabon.
Therefore he sent him on to a creature still older
than himself Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd.
the The
wood she had been thrice rooted up, and
lived in
had thrice re-sown itself, and yet, in all that immense
time, she had never heard of Mabon. There was
but one who might have, she told Gwrhyr, and he
was the Eagle of Gwern Abwy.
Here, at last, they struck Mabon s trail. The "
Eagle said: I have been here for a great space of

time, and when I first came hither there was a rock
here, from the top of which I pecked at the stars
every evening; and now it is not so much as a span

high. From that day to this I have been here, and
I have never heard of the man for whom you inquire,
except once when I went in search of food as far as

Llyn Llyw. And when I came there, I struck my
talons into a salmon, thinking he would serve me as
food for a long time. But he drew me into the
deep, and I was scarcely able to escape from him.
After that I went with my whole kindred to attack
him, and to try to destroy him, but he sent messen
gers, and made peace with me; and came and be
sought me to take fifty fish spears out of his back.
Unless he know something of him whom you seek,
I cannot tell who may. However, I will guide you
"
to the place where he is.
happened that the Salmon did know. With

It
every tide he went up the Severn as far as the walls

of Gloucester, and there, he said, he had found such
wrong as he had never found anywhere else. So he

took Kai and Gwrhyr upon his shoulders and carried
them to the wall of the prison where a captive was
heard lamenting. This was Mabon son of Modron,
who was suffering such imprisonment as not even
Lludd of the Silver Hand or Greid, the son of Eri, 1
1 So But a triad quoted by Lady Guest in her notes gives the
says the text.
Three Paramount Prisoners of Britain differently. The three supreme prisoners
"
"
the other two of the Three Paramount Prisoners

"
of Britain", had endured before him. But it came to

an end now; for Kai sent to Arthur, and he and his
warriors stormed Gloucester, and brought Mabon
away.
All was at last ready for the final achievement
the hunting of Twrch Trwyth, who was now, with
his seven young pigs, in Ireland. Before he was
roused, was thought wise to send the wizard
it
Menw to find out by ocular inspection whether the

comb, the scissors, and the razor were still between
his ears. Menw took the form of a bird, and settled
upon the Boar s head. He saw the coveted trea
sures, and tried to take one of them, but Twrch
Trwyth shook himself so violently that some of the

venom from his bristles spurted over Menw, who
was never quite well again from that day.
Then the hunt was up, the men surrounded him,
and the dogs were loosed at him from every side.
On the first day, the Irish attacked him. On the
second day, Arthur s household encountered him and
were worsted. Then Arthur himself fought with
him for nine days and nine nights without even
killing one of the little pigs.
A truce was now so that Gwrhyr, who
called,
spoke all
languages, might go and parley with him.
Gwrhyr begged him to give up in peace the comb,
the scissors, and the razor, which were all that
of the Island of Britain, Llyr Llediath in the prison of Euroswydd Wledig, and
Madoc, or Mabon, and Gweir, son of Gweiryoth and one more exalted than the
;
three,and that was Arthur, who was for three nights in the Castle of Oeth and
Anoeth, and three nights in the prison of Wen Pendragon, and three nights in the
dark prison under the stone. And one youth released him from these three prisons
;
that youth was Goreu the son of Custennin, his cousin."

Arthur wanted. But the Boar Trwyth, indignant
of having been so annoyed, would not. On the
contrary, he promised to go on the morrow into
Arthur s country, and do all the harm he could
there.
So Twrch Trwyth with seven pigs crossed
his
the sea into Wales, and Arthur followed with his
warriors in the ship "
Prydwen ". Here the story

becomes wonderfully realistic and circumstantial.
We are told of every place they passed through on
the long chase through South Wales, and can trace
the course of the hunt over the map. know of 1
We
every check the huntsmen had, and what happened
every time the boars turned to bay. The casualty-
"
of Arthur s men is completely given; and we

list"
can also follow the shrinking of Twrch Trwyth s

herd, as his little pigs fell one by one. None were
left Trwyth himself by the time the Severn
but
estuary was reached, at the mouth of the Wye.
Here the hunt came up with him, and drove him
into the water, and in this unfamiliar element he
was outmatched. Osla Big -Knife 2 Manawyddan ,
son of Llyr, Kacmwri, the servant of Arthur, and

Gwyngelli caught him by his four feet and plunged
his head under water, while the two chief huntsmen,
Mabon son of Modron, and Kyledyr Willt, came,
one on each side of him, and took the scissors and
the razor. Before they could get the comb, how-
1
See Rhys: Celtic Folklore, chap, x "
Place-name Stories".
2 The "big was,

knife" we are told in the story, short broad dagger.
"a
When Arthur and his hosts came before a torrent, they would seek for a narrow
place where they might pass the water, and would lay the sheathed dagger across
the torrent, and it would form a bridge sufficient for the armies of the three islands
of Britain, and of the three islands adjacent, with their spoil."
THE TREASURES OF BRITAIN
From the
Drawing by E. Walhousim
ever, he shook himself free, and struck out for

Cornwall, leaving Osla and Kacmwri half-drowned
in the Severn.
And all this trouble, we
was mere playare told,
compared with the trouble they had with him in

Cornwall before they could get the comb. But, at
last, they secured it, and drove the boar out over
the deep sea. He passed out of sight, with two
of the magic hounds in pursuit of him, and none
of them have ever been heard of since.
The
sight of these treasures, paraded before
Hawthorn, chief of giants, was, of course, his death-
warrant. All who wished him ill came to gloat
over his downfall. But they should have been put
to shame by the giant, whose end had, at least, a
certain dignity. "My daughter", he said to Kulhwch,
is yours, but you need not thank me for it, but
"
Arthur, who has accomplished all this. By my free

will you should never have had her, for with her I
lose my life."
Thereupon they cut off his head, and put it upon

a pole; and that night the undutiful Olwen became
Kulhwch s bride.
(BMf)
CHAPTER XXIII
THE GODS AS KING ARTHUR S KNIGHTS
It is not, however, by such fragments of legend

that Arthur is best known to English readers. Not
Arthur the god, but Arthur the blameless king "
",
who founded the Table Round, from which he sent

to ride abroad redressing human
"
forth his knights
wrongs V isthe figure which the name conjures up.

Nor is it even from Sir Thomas Malory s Morte
Darthur that this conception comes to most of us, but
from Tennyson s Idylls of the King. But Tennyson
has so modernized the ancient tradition that it retains
little of the old Arthur but the name. He tells us
himself that his poem had but very slight relation
to
..." that gray king, whose name, a ghost,
Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain-peak,
And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still ;
or him
2
Of Geoffrey s book, or him of Malleor s . . .
"
but that he merely used the legend to give a sub

stantial form to his ideal figure of the perfect
English gentleman a title to which the original

Arthur could scarcely have laid claim. Still less
does there remain in it the least trace of anything
that could suggest mythology.
As much as this, however, might be said of
1
Tennyson s Idylls of the King; Guinevere.
2
Ibid. To the Queen.
854
The Gods as King Arthur s Knights 355
Malory s book. We may be fairly certain that the

good Sir Thomas had no idea that the personages
of whom he wrote had ever been anything different
from the Christian knights which they had become
French romances from which he compiled
in the late
his own
fifteenth-century work. The old gods had
been, from time to time, very completely euhemer-
ized. The characters of the Four Branches of the "
"
Mabinogi are still

recognizable as divine beings.
In the later Welsh stories, however, their divinity
merely hangs about them in shreds and tatters, and
the first Norman adapters of these stories made
them more
still
definitely human. By the time
Malory came to build up his Morte Darthur from
the foreign romances, they had altered so much that
the shapes and deeds of gods could only be recog
nized under their mediaeval knightly disguises by
those who had known them in their ancient forms.
We have chosen Malory s Morte Darthur, as
almost the sole representative of Arthurian literature
later than the Welsh poems and prose stories, for
three reasons. Firstly, because it is the English
Arthurian romance par excellence from which all later
English authors, including Tennyson, have drawn

their material.Secondly, because the mass of foreign
literature dealing with the subject of Arthur is in
itself a life-study, and could not by any possibility
be compressed within the limits of a chapter.
Thirdly, because
Malory s fine judgment caused
him choose the best and most typical foreign
to
tales to weave into his own romance; and hence
it is that we find most of our old British
gods both
those of the earlier cycle and those of the system
connected with Arthur striding disguised through
his pages.
Curiously enough, Sir Edward Strachey, in his

Globe" edition of Caxton s Morte
preface to the
"
Darthur, uses almost the same image to describe

Malory s prose-poem that Matthew Arnold handled
with such effect, in his Study of Celtic Literature,
to point out the real nature of the
Mabinogion.
"
Malory",
he says, "has a great, rambling,
built
mediaeval castle, the walls of which enclose rude
and even ruinous work of earlier times." How
rude and how ruinous these relics were Malory
doubtless had not the least idea, for he has com
pletely jumbled the ancient mythology. Not only

do gods of the older and newer order appear to
gether, but the same deities, under very often only
slightly varying names, come up again and again
as totally different characters.
Take, for example, the ancient deity of death and
Hades. As King Brandegore, or Brandegoris (Bran
of Gower), he brings five thousand mounted men to
1
oppose King Arthur; but, as Sir Brandel, or Bran-
diles (Bran of G wales 2
),
he is a valiant Knight of
the Round Table, who
Arthur s dies fighting in
3
service. Again, under his name of Uther Pen-
4
dragon (Uther Ben), he is Arthur s father; though
as King Ban of Benwyk (the "Square Enclosure",
doubtless the same as Taliesin s Caer Pedryvan and
1 Morte Darthur, Book I, chap. x.

2 Gresholm Island, the scene of "The Entertaining of the Noble Head".
4
Morte Darthur, Book XX, chap. vin. Ibid., Book I, chap. HI.
8
Malory s CarboneK), he is a foreign monarch, who is

Arthur s ally. 1 Yet again, as the father of Guinevere,
Ogyrvran has become Leodegrance.
2
As King
Uriens, or Urience, of Gore (Gower), he marries one
of Arthur s sisters, 8 fights against him, but finally
tenders his submission, and is enrolled among his
4
knights. Urien may also be identified in the Morte
Darthur as King Rience, or Ryons, of North Wales, 6
and as King Nentres of Garloth; 6 while, to crown
the varied disguises of this Proteus of British gods,
he appears in an isolated episode as Balan, who fights
with his brother Balin until they kill one another. 7
One may generally tell the divinities of the under
world these romances by their connection, not
in
with the settled and civilized parts of England, but

with the wild and remote north and west, and the
still wilder and remoter islands.
Just as Bran and
Urien are kings of Gower, so Arawn, under the
corruptions of his name into Anguish and An-
"
" "
guissance", is made King of Scotland or Ireland,

both countries having been probably confounded,
same land of the Scotti, or Gaels. 8 Pwyll,
as the
Head of Annwn, we likewise discover under two
disguises. As Pelles,
"
King of the Foreign Coun

9
try"
and Keeper of the Holy Grail, he is a person
age of great mythological significance, albeit the
real nature of him and his
surroundings has been
overlaid with a Christian veneer as foreign to the
1
Morte Darthur, Book 2
I, chap. VIII. Ibid. ,
Book I, chap. xvi.
* Book I, chap. n.
Ibid., Ibid., Book IV, chap. IV.
6 Book I, chap. xxiv.
Ibid., Ibid., Book I, chap. II.
7
Ibid., Book II, chap. xvm.
Ibid., Book V, chap, n; Book VIII, chap. IV; Book XIX chap. XT,
9 Book XI, chap. n.
Ibid.,
original of Pelles as his own kingdom was to

Arthur s knights. The Chief of Hades figures as
1
a "cousin
nigh unto Joseph of Arimathie", who,
"
while he might ride supported much Christendom,

and holy church". 2 He is represented as the father
of Elayne (Elen 3 ), whom he gives in marriage to
Sir Launcelot, bestowing upon the couple a residence
4
Castle Bliant the name of which, there is
"
called ",
good evidence to show, is connected with that of

Pwyll s vassal called Teirnyon Twryf Vliant in the
first of the Mabinogi. 6 Under his other name of
"Sir Pelleas" -the hero of Tennyson s Idyll of
Pelleas and Ettarre the primitive myth of Pwyll
is touched at a different point. After his un
fortunate love-passage with Ettarre (or Ettard, as
Malory calls her), Pelleas is represented as marry

6
ing Nimue, whose original name, which was Rhi-
annon, reached this form, as well as that of
"Vivien", through a series of miscopyings of suc
cessive scribes. 7
With Pelles, or Pelleas, is associated a King
Pellean, or Pellam, his son, and, equally with him,
the Keeper of the Grail, who can be no other than
8
Pryderi. Like that deity in the Mabinogi of Math,
he is defeated by one of the gods of light. The
dealer of Arthur, as
the blow, however, is not
successor to Gwydion, but Balin, the Gallo-British
9
sun-god Belinus.
2
i
Morte Darthur, Book XI, chap. n. Ibid.,Book XVII, chap. v.
3 * Book XII, chap. v.
Ibid., Book XI, chap. n. Ibid.,
6 Morte Darthur, Book IV, chap. XXIII.
7
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 284 and note.
subject is treated at length by Professor Rhys in his Arthurian Legend
f The
chap, xii "Pwyll and Pelles". Morte Darthur, Book II, chap. xv.
fl
The Gods as King Arthurs Knights 359
Another dark deity, Gwyn son of Nudd, we dis

cover under all of his three titles. Called variously
"Sir Gwinas",
1
"Sir
Guynas
2
and "Sir Gwen- ",
8
Welsh Gwynwas
"
baus by Malory, the (or Gwyn)

is
altogether on Arthur s side. The Cornish Mel-
was, split into two different knights, divides his
4 5
allegiance. As Sir Melias, or Meleaus, de Lile
("of
the Knight of the Round
Isle"),
he is a
Table, though, on the quarrel between Arthur and
Launcelot, he sides with the knight against the
king. But as Sir Meliagraunce, or Meliagaunce,
it is he who, as in the older myth, captures Queen
Guinevere and carries her off to his castle. 6 Under

his Somerset name of Avallon, or Avallach, he is
connected with the episode of the Grail. King
Evelake 7 is a Saracen ruler who was converted by
Joseph of Arimathea, and brought by him to Britain.
In his convert s enthusiasm, he attempted the quest
8
of the holy vessel, but was not allowed to succeed.
As a consolation, however, it was divinely promised
him that he should not die until he had seen a
knight of his blood in the ninth degree who should
achieve it. This was done by Sir Percivale, King
Evelake being then three hundred years old. 9
Turning from deities of darkness to deities of
light, we find the sky-god figuring largely in the
Morte Darthur. The Lludd of the earlier myth
10
ology is Malory s King Loth, or Lot, of Orkney,
2
1
Morte Darthur, Book I, chap. XII. Ibid., Book I, chap. XV.
3 * Book XIII, chap. XH.
Hid., Book I, chap. ix. Ibid.,
6 6 Book XIX, chap. II.
Ibid.,Book XIX, chap. xi. Ibid.,
1 Book XIII, chap. X. 8 Book XIV, chap. IV.
Ibid., Ibid.,
10
9 Morte Darthur, Book XIV, chap. IV. Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. n.
through an intrigue with whose wife Arthur be

comes the father of Sir Mordred. Lot s wife was
the mother also of Sir Gawain, whose birth Malory
does not, however, attribute to Arthur, though such
must have been the original form of the myth. 1 Sir
Gawain, of the Arthurian legend, is the Gwalchmei
of theWelsh stories, the successor of the still earlier

Lieu Llaw Gyffes, just as Sir Mordred the Welsh
Medrawt corresponds to Lleu s brother Dylan.
As Sir Mordred retains the dark character of
2
Medrawt, so Sir Gawain, even in Malory, shows
the attributes of a solar deity. are told that We
his strength increased gradually from dawn till high
noon, and then as gradually decreased again a piece

of pagan symbolism which forms a good example of
the appositeness of Sir Edward Strachey s figure;
for it stands out of the mediaeval narrative like an
ancient brick in some more modern building.
The Zeus of the later cycle, Emrys or Myrddin,
appears in the Morte Darthur under both his names.

The word and King
"
Emrys becomes Bors

" "
",
Bors of Gaul is made a brother of King Ban of

3
Benwyck Bran of the Square Enclosure,
that is,
the ubiquitous underworld god. Myrddin we meet

under no such disguise. The ever-popular Merlin
stillretains intact the attributes of the sky-god.
He remains above, and apart from all the knights,
higher even in some respects than King Arthur,
to whom he stands in much the same position as
4
Math does to Gwydion in the Mabinogi. Like
2
1
Op. cit., pp. 21-22. Morte Darthur, Book IV, chap. XVIII.
1 *
Ibid., Book I, chap. vin. Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 23.
By permission of Frederick Hollyer.
THE BEGUILING OF MERLIN

From the Picture by Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Math, he is an enchanter, and, like Math, too, who

could hear everything said in the world, in however
low a tone, if only the wind met it, he is practically
omniscient. The account of his finaldisappearance,
as told in the Morte Darthur, is
only a re-embellish
ment of the original story, the nature-myth giving
place to what novelists call feminine interest". "a
Everyone knows how the great magician fell into a

dotage upon the Malory
"lady
of the lake" whom
Nimue
"
calls
"
and Tennyson Vivien

",
both "
"
names being that of Rhiannon in disguise.

"
Merlin would let her have no rest, but always he

"
would be with her and she was ever passing

. . .
weary of him, and fain would have been delivered

of him, for she was afeard of him because he was a
devil s son, and she could not put him away by no
means. And so on a time it happed that Merlin
showed to her in a rock whereas was a great
wonder, and wrought by enchantment, that went
under a great stone. So, by her subtle working,
she made Merlin to go under that stone to let her
wit of the marvels there, but she wrought so there
for him that he never came out for all the craft
that he could do. And so she departed and left
1
Merlin."
Merlin s living grave is still to be seen at the end

of the Val des Ftes, in the forest of Bre cilien, in
Brittany. The tomb of stone is certainly but a

prosaic equivalent for the tower of woven air in
which the heaven-god went to his rest. Still, it is
not quite so unpoetic as the leather sack in which
i Morte Darthur, Book IV, chap. I.
Rhiannon, the original of Nimue, caught and im
prisoned Gwawl, the earlier Merlin, like a badger
1
in a bag.
Elen, Myrddin s consort, appears in Malory as

five different
"
Elaines ". Two them are wives

of
names of King Ban 2
"
of the dark god, under his

"
and "
King Nentres ".

3
A third is called the
daughter of King Pellinore, a character of un

4
certain origin. But the two most famous are the
ladies who loved Sir Launcelot Elaine the Fair, "
Elaine the lovable, Elaine the lily maid of Astolat 6 ",
and the luckier and less scrupulous Elaine, daughter

of King Pelles, and mother of Sir Launcelot s son,
6
Galahad.
But
it is time, now that the most important
figures of British mythology have been shown under
their knightly disguises, and their place in Arthurian
legend indicated, to pass on to some account of the

real subject-matter of Sir Thomas Malory s romance.
Externally, it is the history of an Arthur, King of
Britain, whom most people of Malory s time con
sidered as eminently a historical character. Around
this central narrative of Arthur s reign and deeds
are grouped, in the form of episodes, the personal
exploits of the knights believed to have supported

him by forming a kind of household guard. But,
with the exception of a little magnified and distorted
legendary history, the whole cycle of romance may
1
See chap, xvn "The Adventures of the Gods of Hades ".
2 3
Morte Darthur, Book IV, chap. I. Ibid., Book I, chap. II.
4
Ibid., Book III, chap. XV.
5
Whose story is told by Tennyson in the Idylls, and by Malory in Book XVIII
6
of the Morte Darthur. Morte Darthur, Book XI, chaps. II and in.
be ultimately resolved into a few myths, not only
retold, but recombined in several forms by their
various tellers. The Norman adapters of the
Matiere de Bret ague found the British mythology
already in process of transformation, some of the
gods having dwindled into human warriors, and
others into hardly less human druids and magicians.
Under their hands the British warriors became
Norman knights, who did their deeds of prowess in
the tilt-yard, and found their inspiration in the fan
tastic chivalry popularized by the Trouveres, while
the put off their still somewhat barbaric

druids
druidism for the more conventional magic of the
Latin races. More than this, as soon as the real
sequence and raison d etre of the tales had been lost
sight of, their adapters used a free hand in reweaving

them. Most of the romancers had their favourite
characters whom they made the central figure in
their stories.Sir Gawain, Sir Percival, Sir Tris-
trem, and Sir Owain (all of them probably once
local British sun-gods) appear as the most important
personages of the romances called after their names,

stories of the doughty deeds of christened knights
who had little left about them either of Briton or of
pagan.
It is only the labours of the modern scholar that
can bring back to us, at this late date, things long
forgotten when Malory s book was issued from
Caxton s press. But oblivion is not annihilation,
and Professor Rhys points out to us the old myths
lying embedded in their later setting with almost

the same certainty with which the geologist can
show us the fossils in the rock.
1
treated, they Thus
resolve themselves into three principal motifs, pro
minent everywhere in Celtic mythology: the birth
of the sun-god; the struggle between light and
darkness; and the raiding of the underworld by
friendly gods for the good of man.
The first has been already dealt with. 2 It is the
retelling of the story of the origin of the sun-god

in the Mabinogi of Math, son of Mathonwy. For
Gwydion we now have Arthur instead of Arianrod, ;
the wife of the superannuated sky-god Nwyvre, we

find the wife of King Lot, the superannuated sky-
god Lludd; Lieu Llaw Gyffes rises again as Sir

Gawain (Gwalchmei), and Dylan as Sir Mordred
(Medrawt); while the wise Merlin, the Jupiter of
the new system, takes the place of his wise proto
type, Math. Connected with this first myth is the

second the struggle between light and darkness,
of which there are several versions in the Morte
Darthur. The leading one is the rebellion of the
Mordred against Arthur and Sir
evilly-disposed Sir
Gawain; while, on other stages, Balan the dark
god Bran fights with Balin the sun-god Belinus;

and the same Balin, or Belinus, gives an almost
mortal stroke to Pellam, the Pryderi of the older
mythology.
The same myth has also a wider form, in which
the battle is
waged for possession of a maiden.
Thus (to seek no other instances) Gwynhwyvar was
contended for by Arthur and Medrawt, or, in an
1
See his Studies in the Arthurian Legend.
2
See chap. XXI The Mythological Coming of Arthur
"
".
The Gods as King Arthurs Knights 365
form of the myth, by Arthur and Gwyn.

earlier In
the Morte Darthur, Gwyn, under the corruption of
Cornish name Melwas into Sir Meliagraunce
"
his ",
still
captures Guinevere, but it is no longer Arthur
who rescues her. That task, or privilege, has fallen
to a new champion. It is Sir Launcelot who follows
Sir Meliagraunce, defeats and slays him, and rescues
1
the fair captive. But Sir Launcelot, it must be
stated probably to the surprise of those to whom
the Arthurian story without Launcelot and Queen
Guinevere must seem almost like the play of
"
Hamlet with Hamlet left out ",

is unknown to
the original tradition. Welsh song and story are
silentwith regard to him, and he is not improbably
a creation of some Norman romancer who calmly
appropriated to his hero s credit deeds earlier told
of other
"
knights".
But the romantic treatment of these two myths

by the adapters of the Matiere de Bretagne are of
smaller interest to us at the present day than that
of the third. The attraction of the Arthurian story
lies less in the battles of Arthur or the loves of
Guinevere than in the legend that has given it its
lasting popularity the Christian romance of the

Quest of the Holy Grail. So great and various
has been the inspiration of this legend to noble
works both of art and literature that it seems almost
a kind of sacrilege to trace it back, like all the rest
of Arthur s story, to a paganism which could not
have even understood, much less created, its mys
tical beauty. None the less is the whole story
1
Morte Darthur, Book XIX, chaps, i-ix.
directly evolved from primitive pagan myths con

cerning a miraculous cauldron of fertility and in
spiration.
In the later romances, the Holy Grail is a
Christian relic of marvellous potency. It had held
the Paschal lamb eaten at the Last Supper; 1 and,

after the death of Christ, Joseph of Arimathea had
2
filled it with the Saviour s blood. But before it
received this colouring, it had been the magic caul

dron of all the Celtic mythologies the Dagda s
which fed all who came to it, and from
"
"
Undry
which none went away unsatisfied; 3 Bran s cauldron
%
of Renovation, which brought the dead back to life; 4

the cauldron of Ogyrvran the Giant, from which the
Muses ascended; 5 the cauldrons captured by Cuchu-
lainn from the King of the Shadowy City, 6 and by
Arthur from the chief of Hades; 7 as well as several
other mythic vessels of less note.
In its transition from pagan to Christian form,
hardly one of the features of the ancient myth has

been really obscured. We may recount the chief
attributes, as Taliesin tells Spoiling of them in his
"
Annwn", of the cauldron captured by Arthur. It was
the property of Pwyll, and of his son Pryderi, who

lived in a kingdom of the other world called, among
other titles, the "
Revolving Castle ",

the
"
Four-
cornered Castle ",
the "
Castle of Revelry ",

the
*Morte Darthur, Book XVII, chap. xx.

2
Ibid., Book II, chap, xvi; Book XI, chap. XIV.
3
See chap, v The Gods of the Gaels
"
".
4
See chap, xvm The Wooing of Branwen and the Beheading
"
of Bran"
8
See chap, xxi The Mythological Coming of Arthur
"
".
chap, xn The Irish Iliad

6 See "
".
7
Chap xxi "The Mythological Coming of Arthur ".
THE CAULDRON OF INSPIRATION
From the
Draining by E. H allcoutini
"Kingly Castle", the "
Glass Castle", and the

"
Castle of Riches ". This place was surrounded by

the sea, and in other ways made difficult of access;
there was no lack of wine there, and its
happy
inhabitants spent with music and feasting an exist
ence which neither disease nor old age could assail.
As for the cauldron, it had a rim of pearls around
its
edge; the fire beneath it was kept fanned by the
breaths of nine maidens; it
spoke, doubtless in
words of prophetic wisdom; and it would not cook
1
the food of a perjurer or coward. Here we have
considerable data on which to base a parallel be
tween the pagan cauldron and the Christian Grail.
Nor have we far to go in search of corre
spondences, for they are nearly all preserved in
Malory s romance. The mystic vessel was kept by
King Pelles, who is Pwyll, in a castle called "Car-
bonek ",
a name which resolves itself, in the hands
of the philologist, into Caer bannawg, the square"
"
or four - cornered castle"

"
in other words, the

2
Caer Pedryvan of Taliesin s poem. Of the char
"
acter of the place as a Castle of Riches "
and a
Castle of Revelry
"
where bright wine ",

"
was the
drink of the host ",
we have more than a hint in the
3
account, twice given, of how, upon the appearance
of the Grail borne, it should be noticed, by a
maiden or angel the hall was filled with good
odours, and every knight found on the table all the
kinds of meat and drink he could imagine as most
Chap, xxi The Mythological Coming of Arthur

1 " *
".
2
3 Morte
Darthur, Book XI, chaps. II and IV.
desirable. be seen by sinners, 1 a
It could not
Christian refinement of the savage idea of a pot
that would not cook a coward s food; but the sight
of it alone would cure of wounds and sickness those
2
who approached it
faithfully and humbly, and in its
presence neither old age nor sickness could oppress

them. 3 And, though in Malory we find no refer
ence either to the spot having been surrounded by
water, or to the castle as a revolving" one, we
"
have only to turn from the Morte Darthur to the

romance entitled the Seint Greal to discover both.
Gwalchmei, going to the castle of King Peleur
(Pryderi), finds it encircled by a great water, while
Peredur, approaching the same place, sees it turning
with greater speed than the swiftest wind. More
over, archers on the walls shoot so vigorously that
no armour can which explains
resist their shafts,
how it happened that, of those that went with
except seven, none returned from Caer
"
Arthur,
4
Sidi ".
It is Arthur himself never at

noticeable that
tempts the quest of the Grail, though it was he

who had achieved its pagan original. We find in
Malory four competitors for the mantle of Arthur
6
Sir Pelleas, Sir Bors, Sir Percivale, and Sir
Galahad. 6 The put out of
first of these may be
court at once, Sir Pelleas, who, being himself Pelles,
1
Morte Darthur, Book XVI, chap. V.
ilbid., Book XI, chap, xiv; Book XII, chap, iv; Book XIII, chap. xvm.
3
Not mentioned by Malory, but stated in the romance called Seint Greal.
4
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, pp. 276-277; 302.
5
Morte Darthur, Book IV, chap. xxix.
Ibid., Book XVII, chap, xx, in which Sir Bors, Sir Percivale, and Sir Galahad
6
are all fed from the Sangreal.

By permission of Frederick Hollyer.
SIR GALAHAD
From the Picture by G. F. Watts, R.A.
or Pwyll, the have had no keeper of it, could
reason for such exertions. At the second we may
look doubtfully; for Sir Bors is no other than
1
Emrys, or Myrddin, and, casting back to the
earlier British mythology, we do not find the
sky -god personally active in securing boons by

force or craft from the underworld. The other
two have better claims Sir Percivale and Sir
Galahad. "
Sir Percivale" is the Norman-French

2
name for Peredur, the hero of a story in the Red
Book of Hergest 8
which gives the oldest form of
a Grail quest we have. It is anterior to the Nor
man romances, and forms almost a connecting-link

between tales of mythology and of chivalry. Pere
dur, or Sir Percivale, therefore, is the oldest, most
primitive, of Grail seekers. On the other hand, Sir

Galahad the latest and youngest.
is But there is
reason to believe that Galahad, in Welsh Gwal- "
chaved", the
"
Falcon of Summer", is the same

solar hero as Gawain, in Welsh "
Gwalchmei ",
the
4
*
Falcon of May".
Both are made, in the story
of "Kulhwch Olwen", sons of the same mother,
and
Gwyar. Sir Gawain himself is, in one Arthurian
5
romance, the achiever of the Grail. It is needless
to attempt to choose between these two. Both

have the attributes of sun-gods. Gwalchmei, the
successor of Lieu Llaw Gyffes, and Peredur Paladr-
to say, the Spearman with the Long
"
hir, that is
1
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 162. *Ibid. p. 133. t
3 Translated by Lady Guest in her Mabinogion, under the title of Peredttr, the
Son of Evrawc.
4
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, p. 169. But see whole of chap. VIII "Galahad
and Gwalchaved".
The German romance Diu by Heinrich von dem Turlin.
6
fCr$ne,
(B219) 2 A
1
Shaft", may be allowed to claim equal honours.
What is important is that the quest of the Grail,
once the chief treasure of Hades, is still accom
plished by one who takes in later legend
the place
of Lieu Llaw Gyffes and Lugh Lamhfada in the
earlier British and Gaelic myths as a long-armed
solar deity victorious in his strife against the Powers
of Darkness.
Rhys: Arthurian Legend,
1
p. 71.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GODS
If there be love of fame

in celestial minds, those
gods might count themselves fortunate who shared

in the transformation of Arthur. Their divinity
had fallen from them, but in their new r61es, as
heroes of romance, they entered upon vivid reincar
nations. The names of Arthur sKnights might
almost be described as "
household words while ",
the gods who had no portion in the Table Round

are known only to those who busy themselves with
antiquarian lore. It is true that a few folk-tales
stillsurvive in the remoter parts of Wales, in which

the names of such ancient British deities as Gwydion,
Gwyn, Arianrod, and Dylan appear, but it is in

such a chaos of jumbled and distorted legend that
one finds it hard to pick out even the slenderest
thread of story. They have none of the definite
coherence of the contemporary Gaelic folk-tales
quoted in a previous chapter as still preserving
the myths about Goibniu, Lugh, Cian, Manannan,
Ethniu, and Balor. Indeed, they have reached such
a stage of disintegration that they can hardly now
1
survive another generation.
There have been, however, other paths by which
the fame of a god might descend to a posterity
1
See, for example, a folk-tale, pp. 117-123 in Rhys s Celtic Folklore.
871
which would no longer credit his divinity. The
rolls of early British history were open to welcome
any number of mythical personages, provided that

their legends were attractive. Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth s famous Historia Britonum is, under its
grave pretence of exact history, as mythological as
the Morte Darthur, or even the Mabinogion. The
annals of early British saintship were not less
accommodating. A god whose tradition was too
potent to be ignored or extinguished was canonized,
as a matter of course, by clerics who held as an
axiom that "
the toleration of the cromlech facili

1 1
tated the reception of the Gospel. Only the most

irreconcilable escaped them such a one as Gwyn
son of Nudd, who, found almost useless by Geoffrey
and intractable by the monkish writers, remains the
last survivor of the old gods dwindled to the pro
portions of a fairy, but unsubdued.

This part of resistance is perhaps the most digni
fied for deities can be sadly changed by the caprices
;
of their euhemerizers. Don, whom we knew as the

mother of the heaven gods, seems strangely described
as a king of Lochlin and Dublin, who led the Irish
into north Wales in A.D. 267* More recognizable
is his son Gwydion, who introduced the knowledge
of letters into the country of his adoption. The
dynasty of King" Don, according to a manuscript
"
in the collection of Mr. Edward Williams better

known under his bardic name of lolo Morgan wg
held northWales for a hundred and twenty-nine
Preliminary Dissertation to his translation of Aneurin

1
Stephens s s Gododin*
2 Ilo MSS., p. 471.
years, when
the North British king, Cunedda, in
vaded the country, defeated the Irish in a great
battle, and drove them across sea to the Isle of Man.
This battle is historical, and, putting Don and Gwy-
dion out of the question, probably represented the
last stand of the Gael, in the extreme west of Britain,
against the second and stronger wave of Celtic in

vasion. In the same collection of lolo Manuscripts
is found a curious, and even comic, euhemeristic
version of the strange myth of the Bone Prison of
Oeth and Anoeth which Manawyddan son of Llyr,
built in Gower. The new reading makes that ghastly
abode a real building, constructed out of the bones of
"
the
"
Caesarians (Romans) killed in battle with the
Cymri. It consisted of numerous chambers, some of

large bones and some of small, some above ground
and some under. Prisoners of war were placed in
the more comfortable cells, the underground dun
geons being kept for traitors to their country.
Several times the Caesarians" demolished the
"
prison, but, each time, the Cymri rebuilt it stronger

than before. At last, however, the bones decayed,
and, being spread upon the ground, made an excel
lent manure! "
From
the people of that time forth"
the neighbourhood had astonishing crops of wheat"
and barley and of every other grain for many years". 1

It is not, however, in these, so to speak, un
authorized narratives that we can best refind our
British deities, but in the compact, coherent, and
at times almost convincing Historia Britonum of
Geoffrey of Monmouth, published in the first half of
1 lolo MSS., pp. 597-600.
the twelfth century, and for hundreds of years gravely
quoted as the leading authority on the early history

of our islands. The modern critical spirit has, of
course, relegated to the region of fable.
it can We
no longer accept the pleasant tradition of the descent
of the Britons from the survivors of Troy, led west
ward in search of a new home by Brutus, the great-
grandson of the pious /Eneas. Nor indeed does
any portion of the History", from /Eneas to Athel-
"
stan, persuade the latter-day reader.

quite Its
kings succeed one another in plausible sequence,

but they themselves are too obviously the heroes
of popular legend.
A
large part of Geoffrey s chronicle two books 1
out of twelve is, of course, devoted to Arthur. In
it he the story of that paladin s conquests, not
tells
only in his own country, against the Saxons, the

Irish, the Scots, and the Picts, but over all western
Europe. We
see the British champion, after annex
ing Ireland, Iceland, Gothland, and the Orkneys,

following up these minor victories by subduing Nor
way, Dacia (by which Denmark seems to have been
meant), Aquitaine, and Gaul. After such triumphs
there was clearly nothing left for him but the over
throw of the Roman empire; and this he had prac
tically achieved when the rebellion of Mordred
brought him home to his death, or rather (for even

Geoffrey does not quite lose hold of the belief in
the undying Arthur) to be carried to the island of
Avallon to be healed of his wounds, the crown of
his kinsman Constantine, the son
"
Britain falling to
1 Historia Britonum. Books IX, X, and chaps. I and II of XI.
of Cador, Duke
of Cornwall, in the five hundred
and forty-second year of our Lord s incarnation". 1
Upon the more personal incidents connected with
Arthur, Geoffrey openly professes to keep silence,
possibly regarding them as not falling within the
province of his history, but we are told shortly how
Mordred took advantage of Arthur s absence on the
Continent to seize the throne, marry Guanhamara
(Guinevere), and ally himself with the Saxons, only
to be defeated at that fatal battle called by Geoffrey
"Cambula", which Mordred, Arthur, and Walgan

in
the "Sir Gawain" of Malory and the Gwalchmei
of the earlier legends all met their dooms.
We find the gods of the older generation stand

ing in the same position with regard to Arthur in
History as they do in the later Welsh
"
"
Geoffrey s
triads and tales. Though rulers, they are yet his

vassals. In "
three brothers of royal blood", called

Lot, Urian, and Augusel, who are represented as
having been chiefs in the north, we may discern
Lludd, Urien, and Arawn. To these three Arthur
restored "the
rights of their ancestors", handing
over the semi-sovereignty of Scotland to Augusel,
giving Urian the government of Murief (Moray),
and re-establishing Lot in the consulship of Lou- "
donesia (Lothian), and the other provinces belong

ing to him".
2
Two other rulers subject to him are
Gunvasius, King of the Orkneys, and Malvasius,
King of Iceland,
3
in whom we recognize Gwyn,
Book XI, chap. II. 2
i Historia Britonum, Ibid., Book IX, chap. IX.
8 Book IX, chap. xn. They appear also as Guanius, King of the Huns,
Ibid.,
and Melga, King of the Picts, in Book V, chap. xvi.
under Latinized forms of his Welsh name Gwynwas
and his Cornish name Melwas. But it is char
acteristic of Geoffrey of Monmouth s loose hold
upon his materials that,
having not content with
connected several of these gods with Arthur s period,
he further endows them with reigns of their own.
"
Urien" was Arthur s vassal, but "
Urianus" was
himself King of Britain centuries before Arthur
was born. 1 Lud (that is, Lludd) succeeded his father
Beli.
2
We hear nothing of his silver hand, but
we learn that he was
famous for the building of "
8
cities, and for rebuilding the walls of Trinovantum ,
which he also surrounded with innumerable towers

. and though he had many other cities, yet he
. .
loved this above them all, and resided in it the

greater part of the year; for which reason it was
afterwards called Kaerlud, and by the corruption
of the word, Caerlondon; and again by change of
languages, in process of time, London; as also

by foreigners who arrived here, and reduced this
country under their subjection, it was called

Londres. At last, when he was dead, his body
was buried by the gate which to this time is
called in the British tongue after his name

Parthlud, and in the Saxon, Ludesgata." He was
succeeded by his brother, Cassibellawn (Cassi-
velaunus), during whose reign Julius Caesar first
invaded Britain.
Lludd, however, is not entirely dependent upon

Geoffrey of Monmouth for his reputation as a king
2
i Historia Britonum, Book III, chap. xix. Ibid,, Book III, chap. XX.
8 I.e.
Ixmdon, under its traditionary earlier name, Troja Nova, given it by Brutus.
of Britain. One of the old Welsh romances, 1 trans

lated by Lady Charlotte Guest in her Mabinogion,
relates the of London by Lludd in
rebuilding
almost the same words as Geoffrey. The story
which these pseudo-historical details introduce is,
however, an obviously mythological one. It tells
us how, in the days of Lludd, Britain was oppressed
by three plagues. The first was the arrival of a

2
strange race of sorcerers called the
"
Coranians",
who had three qualities which made them un

"
they paid their way in fairy

popular; money",
which, though apparently real, returned afterwards

like the shields, horses, and hounds made by
Gwydion son of Don, to deceive Pryderi into

the fungus out of which it had been charmed by
magic; they could hear everything that was said

over the whole of Britain, in however low a tone,
provided only that the wind met it; and they
could not be injured by any weapon. The second
was shriek that came on every May eve, over
"a
every hearth in the Island of Britain, and went
through people s hearts and so scared them that the

men lost theirhue and their strength, and the women
their children, and the young men and the maidens
their senses, and all the animals and trees and the
earth and the waters were left barren". The third
was a disappearance of the food hoarded in the
king s palace, which was so complete that a year s
provisions vanished in a single night, and so mys
terious that no one could ever find out its cause.
1
The Story of Lludd and Llevelys.
2 The name means "dwarfs".
Rhys: Hibbert Lectures, p. 606.
By the advice of his nobles, Lludd went to France

to obtain the help of its king, his brother Llevelys,
who was a man great of counsel and wisdom

"
".
In order to be able to consult with his brother with

out being overheard by the Coranians, Llevelys
caused a long tube of brass to be made, through
which they talked to one another. The sorcerer
tribe, however, got to know of it, and, though they
could not hear what was being said inside the speak
ing-tube, they sent a demon into it, who whispered
insulting messages up and down it, as though from
one brother to the other. But Lludd and Llevelys
knew one another too well to be deceived by this,
and they drove the demon out of the tube by flood
ing it with wine. Then Llevelys told Lludd to take
certain insects, which he would give him, and pound
them in water. When the water was sufficiently
permeated with their essence, he was to call both
his own people and the Coranians together, as
though for a conference, and, in the midst of the

meeting, to cast it over all of them alike. The
water, though harmless to his own people, would
nevertheless prove a deadly poison to the Coranians.
As for the shriek, Llevelys explained it to be
raised by a dragon. This monster was the Red
Dragon of Britain, and it raised the shriek because
it was
being attacked by the White Dragon of the
Saxons, which was trying to overcome and destroy
it. The French king told his brother to measure
the length and breadth of Britain, and, when he
had found the exact centre of the island, to cause
a pit to be dug there. In this pit was to be placed
a vessel containing the best mead that could be
made, with a covering of satin over it to hide it.
Lludd was then to watch from some safe place.
The dragons would appear and fight in the air
until they were exhausted, then they would fall
together on to the top of the satin cloth, and so

draw it down with them into the vessel full of
mead. Naturally they would drink the mead,
and, equally naturally, they would then sleep. As
soon as Lludd was sure that they were helpless,
he was to go to the pit, wrap the satin cloth round
both of them, and bury them together in a stone
coffin in the strongest place in Britain. If this
were safely done, there would be no more heard
of the shriek.
And the disappearance of the food was caused
by "a
mighty man of magic", who put everyone
to sleep by charms before he removed the king s
provisions. Lludd was to watch for him, sitting
by the side of a cauldron full of cold water. As
often as he felt the approach of drowsiness, he
was to plunge into the cauldron. Thus he would
be able to keep awake and frustrate the thief.
So Lludd came back to Britain. He pounded the
insects in the water, and then summoned both the
men of Britain and the Coranians to a meeting. In
the midst of it, he sprinkled the water over everyone
alike. The natives took no harm from this mytho
logical
"
powder beetle ",

but the Coranians died.
Lludd was then ready to deal with the dragons.
His careful measurements proved that the centre
of the island of Britain was at Oxford, and there he
caused the be dug, with the vessel of mead in
pit to
it, hidden by the satin covering. Having made every
thing ready, he watched, and soon saw the dragons
appear. For a long time they fought desperately
in the air; then they fell down together on to the
satin cloth, and, drawing it after them, subsided

into the mead. Lludd waited till they were quite
silent, and then pulled them out, folded them care
fully in the wrapping, and took them to the district
of Snowdon, where he buried them in the strong
fortress whose remains, near Beddgelert, are still
called "Dinas Emrys ". After this the terrible
shriek was not heard again until Merlin had them
dug up, hundred years later, when they recom

five
menced fighting, and the red dragon drove the
white one out of Britain.
Last of all, Lludd prepared a great banquet in
his hall, and watched over it, armed, with the
cauldron of water near him. In the middle of the
night,he heard soft, drowsy music, such as nearly

put him to sleep; but he kept awake by repeatedly
dipping himself in the cold water. Just before dawn
a huge man, clad in armour, came into the hall,
carrying a basket, which he began to load with the
viands on the table. which Pwyll
Like the bag in
captured Gwawl, its holding capacity seemed end

less. However, the man filled it at last, and was
carrying it out, when Lludd stopped him. They
fought, and Lludd conquered the man of magic, and
made him his vassal. Thus the "Three Plagues
came
"
of Britain an end.
to
Lludd, in changing from god to king, seems to

have lost most of his old mythological attributes.

Even hisdaughter Creudylad is taken from him and
given to another of the ancient British deities. Why
Lludd, the sky-god, should have been confounded
with Llyr, the sea-god, is not very apparent, but it is
certain that "Creudylad"
of the early Welsh legends
and poems is the same as Geoffrey s "Cordeilla"
and Shakespeare s Cordelia". The great dramatist
"
was ultimately indebted to the Celtic mythology for

the groundwork of the legend which he wove into
the tragic story of King Lear. Leir as Geoffrey
"
",
calls him, was the son of Bladud, who built Caer

1
Badus (Bath), and perished, like Icarus, as the re
sult ofan accident with a flying-machine of his own

invention. Having no sons, but three daughters,
Gonorilla, Regan, and Cordeilla, he thought in his
old age of dividing his kingdom among them. But,
first of all, he decided to make trial of their affection
for him, with the idea of giving the best portions of
his realm to the most worthy. Gonorilla, the eldest,
replied to his question of how much she loved him,
"that she called heaven to witness, she loved him
more than her own soul".

Regan answered "with
an oath, that she could not otherwise express her

(
thoughts, but that she loved him above all creatures ".
But when it came to Cordeilla s turn, the youngest

daughter, disgusted with her sisters hypocrisy, spoke
after a quite different fashion. My father, said
"
she, isthere any daughter that can love her father

more than duty requires? In my opinion, whoever
pretends to it, must disguise her real sentiments
1
Historia Britonum, Book II, chap, x-xiv.
under the veil of flattery. have always loved you
I
as a father, nor do yet depart from my purposed

I
duty; and if you insist to have something more

extorted from me, hear now
the greatness of my
affection, which I always bear you, and take this
for a short answer to all your questions; look how
much you have, so much is your value, and so much
Her enraged
"
do I love you. father immediately

bestowed his kingdom upon his two other daughters,
marrying them to the two highest of his nobility,
1
Gonorilla to Maglaunus, Duke of Albania and ,
Regan to Henuinus, Duke of Cornwall. To Cor-

deillahe not only refused a share in his realm, but
even a dowry. Aganippus, King of the Franks,
married her, however, for her beauty alone.
Once in possession, Leir s two sons-in-law rebelled
against him, and deprived him of all regal authority.
The sole recompense for his lost power was an agree
ment by Maglaunus to allow him maintenance, with
a body-guard of sixty soldiers. But, after two years,
the Duke of Albania, at his wife Gonorilla s instiga
tion, reduced them to thirty. Resenting this, Leir
left Maglaunus, and went to Henuinus, the husband
of Regan. The Duke of Cornwall at first received

him honourably, but, before a year was out, com
pelled him to discharge all his attendants except
five. This sent him back in a rage to his eldest
daughter, who, this time, swore that he should not
stay with her, unless he would be satisfied with one
serving -man only. In despair, Leir resolved to
throw himself upon the mercy of Cordeilla, and, full
i
Alba, or North Britain.
of contrition for the way he had treated her, and of
misgivings as to how he might be received, took
ship for Gaul.
1
Arriving at Karitia he sent a messenger to his
,
daughter, telling her of his plight and asking for her

help. Cordeilla sent him money, robes, and a retinue
of forty men, and, as soon as he was fully equipped
with the state suitable to a king, he was received in
pomp by Aganippus and his ministers, who gave the
government of Gaul into his hands until his own
kingdom could be restored to him. This the king
of the Franks did by raising an army and invading
Britain. Maglaunus and Henuinus were routed,
and Leir replaced on the throne, after which he
lived three years. Cordeilla, succeeding to the
government of Britain, "buried her father in a
certain vault, which she ordered to be made for him
under the River Sore, in Leicester Llyr-cestre (" "),
and which had been built originally under the ground

honour of the god Janus. And here all the
to the
workmen of the city, upon the anniversary solemnity
of that festival, used to begin their yearly labours."
Exactly what myth is retold in this history of

Leir and his three daughters we are hardly likely
ever to discover. But its mythological nature is
clearenough in the light of the description of the
underground temple dedicated to Llyr, at once the
god of the subaqueous, and therefore subterranean,
world and a British Dis Pater, connected with the
origin of things, like the Roman god Janus, with
2
whom he was apparently identified.
i Now Calais. 2
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, pp. 131-133
Ten kings or so after this (for any more exact
way of measuring the flight of time is absent from
Geoffrey s History] we recognize two other British

gods upon the Brennius (that is, Bran)
scene.
disputes the kingdom with his brother Belinus.

Clearly this is a version of the ancient myth of
the twin brothers, Darkness and Light, which we
have seen expressed in so many ways in Celtic
mythology. Bran, the god of death and the under
world, is
opposed to Belinus, god of the sun and
health. In the original, lost myth, probably they
alternately conquered and were conquered a symbol

of the alternation of night and day and of winter and
summer. In Geoffrey s History^-, they divided Bri
tain,Belinus taking the crown of the island with
"
the dominions of Loegria, Kambria, and Cornwall,

because, according to the Trojan constitution, the
right of inheritance would come to him as the elder",
while Brennius, as the younger, had Northumber "
land, which extended from the River umber to H

Caithness". But flatterers persuaded Brennius to
ally himself with the King of the Norwegians, and
attack Belinus. A battle was fought, in which
Belinus was conqueror, and Brennius escaped to
Gaul, where he married the daughter of the Duke
of the Allobroges, and on that ruler s death was
declared successor to the
firmly throne. Thus
established with an army, he invaded Britain again.
Belinus marched with the whole strength of the king
dom to meet him, and the armies were already drawn
1
Historia Britonum, Book III, chaps. I-X.
out opposite to one another in battle array when

Conwenna, the mother of the two kings, succeeded in
reconciling them. Not having one another to fight
with, the brothers now agreed upon a joint expedition
with their armies into Gaul. The Britons and the
Allobroges conquered all the other kings of the

Franks, and then entered Italy, destroying villages
and cities as Gabius and
they marched to Rome.
Porsena, the Roman
consuls, bought them off with
large presents of gold and silver and the promise of

a yearly tribute, whereupon Brennius and Belinus
withdrew their army into Germany and began to
devastate it. But the Romans, now no longer taken
by surprise and unprepared, came to the help of the
Germans. This brought Brennius and Belinus back
to Rome, which, after a long siege, they succeeded
in taking. Brennius remained in Italy, where he "
exercised unheard-of tyranny over the people"; and

one may take the whole of this veracious history to
be due to a patriotic desire to make out the Brennus
of "Vae Victis" fame who actually did sack Rome,
in B.C. 390 a Briton. Belinus, the other brother,
returned to England. "He made a gate
wonder of
ful structure in Trinovantum, upon the bank of the
Thames, which the citizens call after his name
Billingsgate to this day. Over it he built a pro
digiously large tower, and under it a haven or
quay
for ships. ... At last, when he had finished his
days, his body was burned, and the ashes put up in

a golden urn, which they placed at Trinovantum,
with wonderful art, on the top of the tower above
mentioned." He was succeeded by Gurgiunt Brab-
( B 219 ) 2 B
who, as he was returning by way of the
1
true,
Orkneys from a raid on the Danes, met the ships of

Partholon and his people as they came from Spain
2
to settle in Ireland.
Llyr and his children, large as they bulk in mythi

cal history, were hardly less illustrious as saints.
The family of Llyr Llediath is always described by
the early Welsh hagiologists as the first of the
"Three chief Holy Families of the Isle of Britain".
The glory of Llyr himself, however, is but a reflected
one; for it was his son Bran the Blessed" who
"
actually introduced Christianity into Britain. Legend

tells was taken captive to Rome with his
us that he
son Caradawc (who was identified for the purpose
with the historical Caratacus), and the rest of his
family, and remained there seven years, during
which time he became converted to the Gospel, and
spread it enthusiastically on his return. Neither his
son Caradawc nor his half-brother Manawyddan
exactly followed in his footsteps, but their descend
ants did. Caradawc s sons were all saintly, while
his daughter Eigen, who married a chief called Sarr-
log, lord of Caer Sarrlog (Old Sarum),
was the first
female saint in Britain. Manawyddan s side of the
family was less adaptable. His son and his grand

son were both pagans, but his great-grandson
obtained Christian fame as St. Dyfan, who was
sent as a bishop to Wales by Pope Eleutherius,
and was martyred at Merthyr Dyvan. After this,
the saintly line of Llyr increases and flourishes.
1
The same fabulous personage, perhaps, as the original of Rabelais Gargantua
a popular Celtic god. 2 Historia
Britonum, Book III, Chaps, xi-xn.
Singularly inappropriate persons are found in it

Mabon, the Gallo- British Apollo, as well as Geraint
and others of King Arthur s court. 1
so quaint a conceit that Christianity should
It is
have been, like all other things, the gift of the Celtic
Hades, that it seems almost a pity to cast doubt on
it. The
witness of the classical historians sums up,
however, dead in its disfavour. Tacitus carefully
enumerates the family of Caratacus, and describes
how he and daughter, and brother were
his wife,
separately interviewed by the Emperor Claudius,

but makes no mention at all of the chieftain s sup
posed father Bran. Moreover, Dio Cassius gives
the name of Caratacus s father as Cunobelinus
Shakespeare s "Cymbeline" who, he adds, had

died before the Romans first invaded Britain. The
evidence wholly against Bran as a Christian
is
pioneer. He remains the grim old god of war and

only to his pagan votaries, and
"
death, blessed"
especially to the bards, who probably first called him

Bendigeid Vran, and whose stubborn adherence
must have been the cause of the not less stubborn
efforts of their enemies, the Christian clerics, to
bring him over to their own side by canonization.

2
They had an easier task with Bran s sister, Bran-

wen of the "
Fair Bosom". Goddesses, indeed, seem

to have stood the process better than gods witness
"
Saint"
Brigit, the "Mary of the Gael". The
1 MSS. The genealogies and families of the saints of the island of
See the lolo
Britain. Copied by lolo Morgan wg in 1783 from the Long Book of Thomas Truman
of Pantlliwydd in the parish of Llansanor in Glamorgan, p. 515, &c. Also see
An Essay on the Welsh Saints by the Rev. Rice Rees, Sections IV and V.
2
Rhys: Arthurian Legend, pp. 261-262.
British Aphrodit6 became, under the name of Bryn-
wyn, or Dwynwen, a patron saint of lovers. As

late as the fourteenth century, her shrine at Llan-
dwynwyn, in Anglesey, was the favourite resort of
the disappointed of both sexes, who came to pray
to her image for either success or forgetfulness. To
make the result the more certain, the monks of the
church sold Lethean draughts from her sacred well.
The legend told of her is that, having vowed herself
to perpetual celibacy, she fell in love with a young
chief called Maelon. One night, as she was praying
for guidance in her difficulty, she had a vision in
which she was offered a goblet of delicious liquor as
a draught of oblivion, and she also saw the same
sweet medicine given to Maelon, whom it at once
froze into a block of ice. She was then, for her
the granting of three boons.
faith, offered The first
she chose was that Maelon might be allowed to re
sume his natural form and temperature; the second,
that she should no longer desire to be married; and
the third, that her intercessions might be granted
for all true-hearted lovers, so that they should either
wed the objects of their affection or be cured of
their passion.
1
From this cause came the virtues of
her shrine and fountain. But the modern generation
no longer flocks there, and the efficacious well is
choked with sand. None the less, she whom the
2
Welsh bards called the "
Saint of Love" still
has her occasional votaries. Country girls of the
1
lolo MSS, p. 474.
2 "The Welsh bards call Dwynwen the goddess, or saint of love and affection,
as the poets designate Venus."lolo MSS.
neighbourhood seek her help when all else fails.

The water nearest to the church is thought to be
the best substitute for the now dry and ruined
1
original well.
A striking contrast to this easy victory over
paganism is the stubborn resistance to Christian
adoption of Gwyn son of Nudd. It is true that he
was once enrolled by some monk in the train of the

2
Blessed but it was done in so half-hearted
"
Bran",
a way that, even now, one can discern that the

writer felt almost ashamed of himself. His fame
as at least a powerful fairy was too vital to be
thus tampered with. Even Spenser, though, in his
Faerie Queene, he calls him "the good Sir Guyon
... in whom great rule of Temp raunce goodly doth
3
appeare does not attempt to conceal his real
",
nature. It is no man, but

an Elfin born, of noble state
"
And mickle worship in his native land ",*
who sets forth the beauties of that virtue for which

the original Celtic paradise, with its unfailing ale
and rivers of mead and wine, would hardly seem
to have been the best possible school. Save for
Spenser, all authorities agree in making Gwyn the
determined opponent of things Christian. A curious
and picturesque legend 6 is told of him in connection
with St. Collen, who was himself the great-grandson
of Bran s son, Caradawc. The saint, desirous of
1
Wirt Sikes British Goblins, p. 350.
:
*
lolo MSS, p. 523.
3 The Faerie Queene, Prologue to Book 4
II. Ibid., Book II, canto I, verse 6.
e
Published in Y Great (London, 1805), an <* is to be found quoted in Rhys :
Arthurian Legend, pp. 338, 339; also in Sikes: British Goblins, pp. 7-8.
still further retirement from the world, had made
himself a cell beneath a rock near Glastonbury Tor,
Gwyn s own island of Avilion was
"
in ". It close
to a road, and one day he heard two men pass by
talking about Gwyn son of Nudd, and declaring
him to be King of Annwn and the fairies. St.
Collen put his head out of the cell, and told them to
hold their tongues, and that Gwyn and his fairies
were only demons. The two men
by retorted
warning the saint that he would soon have to meet

the dark ruler face to face. They passed on, and
not long afterwards St. Collen heard someone
knocking at his door. On asking who was there,

he got the answer: am here, the messenger of
"I
Gwyn ap Nudd, King of Hades, to bid thee come

by the middle of the day to speak with him on the
top of the The saint did not go; and the
hill."
messenger came a second time with the same mes

sage. On the third visit, he added a threat that, if
St. Collen did not come now, it would be the worse
for him. So, a little disquieted, he went, but not
unarmed. He consecrated some water, and took
it with him.
On
other days the top of Glastonbury Tor had
always been bare, but on this occasion the saint
found crowned by a splendid castle. Men and
it
maidens, beautifully dressed, were going in and

out. A page received him and told him that the
king was waiting for him to be his guest at dinner.
St. Collen found Gwyn sitting on a golden chair in
front of a table covered with the rarest dainties and

wines. He invited him to share them, adding that
ifthere was anything he especially liked, it should

be brought to him with all honour.
"
I do not eat
the leaves of trees," replied the saint, who knew
what fairy meats and drinks were made of. Not
taken aback by this discourteous answer, the King
of Annwn genially asked the saint if he did not
admire his servants livery, which was a motley
costume, red on one side and blue on the other.
"
Their dress is
good enough for its kind," said St.
Collen.
"
What kind is that?" asked Gwyn. "The
red shows which side is

being scorched, and the
blue shows which side is
being frozen," replied the
saint, and, splashing his holy water all round him,
he saw castle, serving-men, and king vanish, leaving
him alone on the bare, windy hill-top.
Gwyn, last of the gods of Annwn, has evidently by
this time taken over the functions of all the others.
He has the hounds which Arawn once had the
Cwn Annwn, "dogs of hell", with the white bodies
and the red ears. We hear more of them in folk
lore than we do of their master, though even their
tradition is
dying out with the spread of newspapers
and railways. We are not likely to find another
Reverend Edmund Jones 1 to insist upon belief in
them, lest, by closing our minds to such manifest
witnesses of the supernatural we should
world,
become infidels. Still, we may even now find
peasants ready to swear that they have heard them
sweeping along the hill-sides upon stormy nights, as
they pursued the flying souls of unshriven men or
i A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth and the Prin
cipality of Wales. Published at Newport, 1813.
unbaptized babes. The tales told of them agree

curiously. Their cry is like that of a pack of fox
hounds, but softer in tone. The nearer they are to
a man, the less loud their voices seem, and the
farther off they are, the louder. But they are less
often seen than heard, and it has been suggested
that the sounds were the
migrating bean- cries of
geese, which are not unlike those of hounds in

chase. The superstition is widely spread. The
Cwn Annwn of Wales are called in North Devon
the "Yeth"
(Heath or Heathen), or "Yell"
Hounds, and on Dartmoor, the Wish Hounds.

"
"
In Durham and Yorkshire they are called Gabriel" "
Hounds, and they are known by various names in

Norfolk, Gloucestershire, and Cornwall. In Scot
land it is Arthur who leads the Wild Hunt, and the
tradition is found over almost the whole of western
Europe.
Not many have been preserved in
folk - tales
which Gwyn is mentioned by name. His memory
has lingered longest and latest in the fairy-haunted
Vale of Neath, so close to his ridge, the Tawe abode "
. . . not the nearest Tawe . . . but that Tawe which

is the farthest ". But it may be understood when
ever the king of the fairies is mentioned. As the
last of the greater gods of the old mythology, he
has been endowed by popular fancy with the rule of

all the varied fairy population of Britain, so far, at
least, as it is of Celtic or pre-Celtic origin. For
some of the fairies most famous in English literature
are Teutonic. King Oberon derives his name,
through the French fabliaux, from Elberich, the
dwarf king of the
Niebelungenlied^ though his
queen, Titania, was probably named out of Ovid s
Metamorphoses? Puck, another of Shakespeare s
fays, is
merely the personification of his race, the
of Wales, of Ireland, "poakes"
"
"pwccas" pookas"
of Worcestershire, and
"
pixies"
of the West of
3
England. Wales that at the present time
It is
preserves the most numerous and diverse collection

of fairies. Some of them are beautiful, some hid
eous; some kindly, some malevolent. There are
the gentle damsels of the lakes and streams called
Gwragedd Annwn, and the fierce and cruel moun

tain fairies known as the Gwyllion. There are the
household sprites called Bwbachod, like the Scotch
and English "brownies"; the Coblynau, or gnomes
of the mines Cornwall); and
"
(called knockers" in
the Ellyllon, or elves, of whom the pwccas are a

branch. 4 In the North of England the spirits
belong more wholly to the lower type. The bogles,
brownies, killmoulis, redcaps, and their like seem
little akin to the higher, Aryan -seeming fairies.
The Welsh bwbach, too, is described as brown and
hairy, and the coblynau as black or copper-faced.
We hardly do wrong in regarding such
shall
spectres as the degraded gods of a pre- Aryan race,

like the Irish leprechauns and pookas, who have
nothing in common with the still beautiful, still
noble figures of the Tuatha De* Danann.

Of and nameless subjects of
these numberless
Gwyn, some dwell beneath the earth or under the
i Thistleton Dyer: Folklore of Shakespeare, p. 3. 2

Ibid., p. 4.
8 4 Wirt Sikes: British
/bid., p.5. Goblins, p. 12.
surface of lakes which seem to take, in Wales, the
place of the Gaelic others in
"
fairy hills "and
Avilion, a mysterious western isle of all delights

lying on or just beneath the sea. Pembrokeshire
the ancient Dyfed has kept the tradition most
completely. The story goes that there is a certain
square yard in the hundred of Cemmes in that county
which holds the secret of the fairy realm. If a man
happens to set his feet on it by chance, his eyes are

opened, and he can see that which is hidden from
other men the fairy country and commonwealth,
but, the moment he moves from
the enchanted spot,
he loses the vision, and he can never find the same
1
place again. That country is upon the sea, and
not far from shore; like the Irish paradise of which
it is the
counterpart, it may sometimes be sighted
by sailors. The Green Meadows of Enchant
"
ment are still an article of faith among Pembroke

"
shire and Caermarthenshire sailors, and evidently

not withoutsome reason. In 1896 a correspondent
of the Pembroke County Guardian sent in a report
made to him by a certain Captain John Evans to
the effect that, one summer morning,
while trending
up the Channel, and passing Gresholm Island (the

scene of the entertaining of Bran s head), in what
he had always known as deep water, he was sur
prised to see to windward of him a large tract of
land covered with a beautiful green meadow. It
was not, however, above water, but two or three

feet below it, so that the grass waved or swam about
as the ripple floated over it, in a way that made one
1
The Brython, Vol. I, p. 130.
who watched Captain Evans had
it feel drowsy.
often heard of the tradition of the fairy island from
old people, but admitted that he had never hoped to
see it with his own eyes. 1 As with the Hounds of "
Annwn "
one may suspect a quite natural explana

tion. Mirage is at once common enough and rare
enough on our coasts to give rise to such a legend,
and it must have been some such phenomenon as
of Sicily which has made
"
the Fata Morgana

"
sober men swear so confidently to ocular evidence of

the Celtic Paradise, whether seen from the farthest
western coasts of Gaelic Ireland or Scotland, or of
British Wales.
1
Rhvs : Celtic Folklore, pp. 171-173.
SURVIVALS OF THE CELTIC
PAGANISM
CHAPTER XXV
SURVIVALS OF THE CELTIC PAGANISM INTO MODERN
TIMES
The fall of the Celtic state worship began earlier

in Britain than in her sister island. Neither was it
Christianity that struck the first blow, but the rough

humanity and stern justice of the Romans. That
people was more tolerant, perhaps, than any the
world has ever known towards the religions of
others, and gladly welcomed the Celtic gods as
gods into its own diverse Pantheon. A friendly

Gaulish or British divinity might at any time be
granted the so-to-speak divine Roman citizenship,
and be assimilated to Jupiter, to Mars, to Apollo, or
to any other properly accredited deity whom the
Romans deemed him to resemble. It was not
against the god, but against his worship at the hands
of his priests, that Roman law struck. The colossal
human sacrifices of the druids horrified -even a
people who were far from squeamish about a little
bloodshed. They themselves had abolished such
practices by a decree of the senate before Caesar
1
first invaded Britain, and could not therefore permit
within their empire a cult which slaughtered men

in order to draw omens from their death-agonies. 2
Druidism was first required to be renounced by
a
1
In the year 55 B.C. Strabo, Book IV, chap. IV.
399
those who claimed Roman citizenship; then it was
vigorously put down among the less civilized tribes.
Tacitus tells us how the Island of Mona (Anglesey)
the great stronghold of druidism was attacked,
its sacred groves cut down, its altars laid level, and
1
its priests put to the sword. Pliny, recording how
Emperor Tiberius had
"
the suppressed the druids",
congratulates his fellow-countrymen on having put

an end, wherever their dominion extended, to the
monstrous customs inspired by the doctrine that the
gods could take pleasure in murder and cannibalism. 2
The practice of druidism, with its attendant barbari
ties, abolished in Britain wherever the long Roman
arm could reach to strike, took refuge beyond the
Northern Wall, savage Caledonian
among the
tribes who had not yet submitted to the invader s
yoke. Naturally, too, it remained untouched in

Ireland. But before the Romans left Britain, it had
been extirpated everywhere, except among
"
the
Picts and Scots ".
Christianity, following the Roman rule, completed

the ruin of paganism in Britain, so far, at least, as
its public manifestations were concerned. In the
sixth century of our era, the monkish writer, Gildas,
is able to refer complacently to the ancient British
religion as a dead faith. I shall not he says,

"
",
enumerate those diabolical idols of my country,

"
which almost surpassed in number those of Egypt,

and of which we still see some mouldering away
within or without the deserted temples, with stiff
and deformed features as was customary. Nor will
1
Annals, Book XIV, chap. xxx.
8 Natural History, Book XXX.
Survivals of Celtic Paganism 401
I
cry out upon the mountains, fountains, or hills, or
upon the rivers, which now are subservient to the
use of men, but once were an abomination and
destruction to them, and to which the blind people
paid divine honour."

1
And with the idols fell the
priests. The very word "
druid
"
became obsolete,
and scarcely mentioned in the earliest British
is
literature, though druids are prominent characters

in the Irish writings of the same period.
The secular arm had no power in Scotland and
in Ireland, consequently the battle between Paganism
and Christianity was fought upon more equal terms,

and lasted longer. In the first country, Saint Col-
umba, and in the second, Saint Patrick are the
personages who, at any rate according to tradition,
beat down the druids and their gods. Adamnan,
Abbot of lona, who wrote his Vita Columbce in the
last decade of the seventh century, describes how,
a century earlier, that saint had carried the Gospel
to the Picts. Their king, Brude, received him con
temptuously, and the royal druids left no heathen
spell unuttered to thwart and annoy him. But, as
the power of Moses was greater than the power of
the magicians of Egypt, so Saint Columba s prayers
caused miracles more wonderful and more convinc
ing than any wrought by his adversaries. Such
stories belong to the atmosphere of myth which has
always enveloped heroic men; the essential fact is
that the Picts abandoned the old religion for the
new.
A similar legend sums up the life-work of Saint
1
Gildas. See Six Old English Chronicles Bohn s Libraries.
( B 219 ) ?
4O2 Mythology of the British Islands
Patrick in Ireland. came, Cromm
Before he
Cruaich had received from time immemorial his
yearly toll of human lives. But Saint Patrick faced
the gruesome idol; as he raised his crozier, we are
told, the demon shrieking from his image, which,
fell
deprived of its soul, bowed forward to the ground.

It is far easier, however, to overthrow the more
public manifestations of a creed than to destroy its

inner vital force. Cromm Cruaich s idol might fall,
but his spirit would survive a very Proteus. The
sacred places of the ancient Celtic religion might be
invaded, the idols and altars of the gods thrown
down, the priests slain, scattered, or banished, and
the cult officially declared to be extinct but, ;
driven from the important centres, it would yet

survive outside and around them. The more civil
ized Gaels and Britons would no doubt accept the
purer gospel, and abandon the gods they had once
adored, but the peasantry the bulk of the popula
tion would still
cling to the familiar rites and
names. A
nobler belief and a higher civilization
come, after all, only as surface waves upon the great
ocean of human life; beneath their agitations lies a

vast slumbering abyss of half-conscious faith and
thought to which culture penetrates with difficulty

and which changes come very slowly.
in
We have already shown how long and how faith
fully the Gaelic and Welsh peasants clung to their
old gods, in spite of all the efforts of the clerics to
explain them as ancient kings, to transform them

into wonder-working saints, or to ban them as
demons of hell. This conservative religious instinct
of the agricultural populations is not confined to the
inhabitants of the British Islands. The modern
Greeks still believe in nereids, in lamias, in sirens,
and in Charon, the dark ferryman of Hades. 1 The
descendants of the Romans and Etruscans hold that
the old Etruscan gods and the Roman deities of the
woods and fields still live in the world as spirits. 2
The high altars of the Lord of the Mound" and
"
his terrible kin were levelled, and their golden
images and great temples left to moulder in abandon

ment; but the rude rustic shrine to the rude rustic
god still received its
offerings. It is this shifting
of the care of the pagan cult from chief to peasant,
from court to hovel, and, perhaps, to some extent
from higher to lower race, that serves to explain
how more primitive and uncouth gods have
the
tended so largely to supplant those of higher, more
graceful mien. Aboriginal deities, thrust into
obscurity by the invasion of higher foreign types,

came back to their own again.
For it seems plain that we must divide the
spiritual population of the British Islands into two
classes. There is little in common between the
"
fairy", strictly so-called, and the unsightly elf who

appears under various names and guises, as pooka,
leprechaun, brownie, knocker, or bogle. The one
belongs to such divine tribes as the Tuatha D6
Danann of Gaelic myth or their kin, the British
gods of the Mabinogion. The other owes his origin
1
Rennell Rodd Customs and Lore of Modern Greece. Stuart Glennie Greek
: :
Folk Songs.
*
Charles Godfrey Leland : Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition.
and much lower, kind of imagina
to a quite different,
tion. One might fancy that neolithic man made him
in his own image.
None the less has immemorial tradition wonder
fullypreserved the essential features of the Celtic
nature-gods. The fairy belief of the present day
hardly differs at all from the conception which the
Celts had of their deities. The description of the
Tuatha De Danann in the
"
Dialogue of the Elders"

as
"
sprites with corporeal or material

or fairies
"
forms but indued with immortality would stand as

an account of prevailing ideas as to the "good
people" to-day. Nor do the Irish and Welsh
fairies of popular belief differ from one another.
Both alike live among the hills, though in Wales
a lake often takes the place of the "
fairy mound";
both, though they war and marry among them
selves, are semi-immortal; both covet the children
of men, and will steal them from the cradle, leaving
one of their own uncanny brood in the mortal baby s
stead; both can lay men and women under spells;
both delight in music and the dance, and live lives
of unreal and splendour and luxury.
fantastic
Another point in which they resemble one another
is in their tiny size. But this would seem to be the
result of the literary convention originated by Shake
speare; in genuine folktales, both Gaelic and British,
the fairies are pictured as of at least mortal stature. 1
But, Aryan or Iberian, beautiful or hideous, they
1
Rhys Celtic Folklore, p. 670 Curtin Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost
:
;
:
World; and Mr. Leland Duncan s Fairy Beliefs from County Leitrim in Folklore,
fune, 1896.
are fast vanishing from belief. Every year, the
secluded valleys in which men and women might
live in the old way, and dream the old dreams,
still
tend more and more to be thrown open to the

modern world of rapid movement and rapid thought.
The last ten years have perhaps done more in this
direction than the preceding ten generations. What
lone shepherd or fisherman will ever see again the
vision of the great Mananndn? Have the stable-
boys of to-day still any faith left in Finvarra? Is
Gwyn apNudd often thought of in his own valleys

of the Tawe and the Nedd? would be hard,
It
perhaps, to find a whole-hearted believer even in

his local pooka or parish bogle.
It is the ritual observances of the old Celtic faith
which have better weathered, and will longer survive,
the disintegrating influences of time. There are no
hard names to be remembered. Things may still
which were once done for re
"
be done for luck "
ligion. Customary observances die very slowly,

held up by an only half acknowledged fear that,
unless they are fulfilled,
"
something may happen".

We shall get, therefore, more satisfactory evidence
of the nature of the Celtic paganism by examining
such customs than in any other way.
We find three forms of the survival of the ancient
religion into quite recent times. The first is the

celebration of the old solar or agricultural festivals
of thespring and autumn equinoxes and of the
summer and winter solstices. The second is the
practice of a symbolic human sacrifice by those who
have forgotten its
meaning, and only know that they
are keeping up an old custom, joined with late in
stances of the actual sacrifices of animals to avert
cattle-plagues or to change bad luck. The third

consists of many still - living relics of the once
universal worship of sacred waters, trees, stones,
and animals.
Whatever may have been the exact meaning of
the Celtic state worship, there seems to be no doubt
that it centred around the four great days in the
year which chronicle the rise, progress, and decline

of the sun, and, therefore, of the fruits of the earth.
These were: Beltaine, which fell at the beginning
of May; Midsummer Day, marking the triumph of
sunshine and vegetation; the Feast of Lugh, when,
in August, the turning-point of the sun s course had
been reached; and the sad Samhain, when he bade
farewell to power, and fell again for half a year
under the sway of the evil forces of winter and
darkness.
Of
these great solar periods, the first and the
last were, naturally, the most important. The
.whole Celtic mythology seems to revolve upon
them, as upon pivots. It was on the day of Beltaine

that Partholon and his people, the discoverers, and,
indeed, the makers of Ireland, arrived there from
the other world, and it was on the same day, three
hundred years later, that they returned whence they
came. It was on Beltaine-day that the Gaelic gods,
the Tuatha De* Danann, and, after them, the Gaelic
men, first set foot on Irish soil. It was on the day
of Samhain that the Fomors oppressed the people

of Nemed with their terrible tax; and it was again
at Samhain that a later race of gods of light and
life
finally conquered those demons at the Battle
of Only one important mythological
Moytura.
incident and that was one added at a later time!
happened upon any other than one of those two
days; it was upon Midsummer Day, one of the
lesser solar points, that the people of the goddess
Danu took Ireland from its inhabitants, the Fir
Bolgs.
The mythology of Britain preserves the same
root-idea as that of Ireland. If anything uncanny
took place, it was sure to be on May-day. It was
on night of the first of May" that Rhiannon

"the
lost, and Teirnyon Twryf Vliant found, the infant

1
Pryderi, as told in the first of the Mabinogion. It
was
"
on every May-eve that the two dragons

"
fought and shrieked in the reign of King"

Lludd. 2 "
It is on every first of May" till the day of doom

"
that Gwyn son of Nudd, fights with Gwyrthur son

of Greidawl, for Lludd s fair daughter, Creudylad. 8
And it was when she was "a-maying" in the woods
and near Westminster that the same Gwyn,
fields
or Melwas, under his romance-name of Sir Melia-

4
graunce, captured Arthur s queen, Guinevere.
The nature of the rites performed upon these
days can be surmised from their pale survivals.
They are still celebrated by the descendants of the
Celts, though it is probable that few of them know
or would even care to know why May Day,
St. John s Day, Lammas, and Hallowe en are times
2
i The Mabinogi of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. The story of Lludd and Llevelys.
4 Morte Darthur, Book XIX, chaps. I and II,
8 Kulhwch. and Olwen.
of ceremony. The first called
"
Beltaine
"
in Ire
land, "Bealtiunn" in Scotland, "Shenn da Boaldyn

Man, and Galan-Mai
"
in the Isle of (the Calends

"
of May) in Wales celebrates the waking of the

earth from her winter sleep, and the renewal of
warmth, life, and vegetation. This is the meaning
of the May-pole, rarely seen in our streets, now
though Shakespeare tells us that in his time the
festival was so eagerly anticipated that no one could
1
sleep upon the people rose,
its eve. At midnight
and, going to the nearest woods, tore down branches
of trees, with which the sun, when he rose, would
find doors and windows decked for him. They
spent the day in dancing round the May-pole, with
rude, rustic mirth, man joining with nature to cele
brate the coming of summer. The opposite to it
was the day Samhain in Ireland and Scot
called
"
"
Nos Galan-gaeof"
"
Sauin Man, and

" "
land, in
(the Night of the Winter Calends) in Wales. This

festival was a sad one: summer was over, and
winter, with its short, sunless days and long, dreary

nights, was at hand. It was the beginning, too, of
the ancient Celtic year, 2 and omens for the future
might be extorted from dark powers by uncanny

rites. It was the holiday of the dead and of all the
more evil supernatural beings. On November- "
eve says a North Cardiganshire proverb, there

"
",
isa bogy on every stile." The Scotch have even

invented a special bogy the Samhanach or goblin
which comes out at Samhain. 3
i act scene *
Henry VIII, v, 3. Rhys: Hibbert Lectures, p. 514
., p. 516.
The sun-god himself is said to have instituted the
August festival called "Lugnassad" (Lugh s com

"
memoration) in Ireland, Lla Lluanys in Man,

"
and Gwyl Awst" (August Feast) in Wales; and

"
it was once of
hardly less importance than Beltaine
or Samhain. It is noteworthy, too, that the first of
August was a great day at Lyons formerly called

Lugudunum, the dun (town) of Lugus. The mid
summer festival, on the other hand, has largely
merged its
mythological significance in the Christian
Feast of St. John.
The characteristic features of these festivals give
certain proof of the original nature of the great
pagan ceremonials of which they are the survivals

and travesties. 1 In all of them, bonfires are lighted
on the highest and the hearth fires solemnly
hills,
rekindled. They form the excuse for much sport

and jollity. But there is yet something sinister in
the air; the are active and abroad, and
"fairies"
one must be careful to omit no prescribed rite, if

one would avoid kindling their anger or falling into
their power. To some of these still-half-believed-in
nature-gods offerings were made down to a com
paratively late period. When Pennant wrote, in
the eighteenth century, it was the custom on Bel-
taine-day in many Highland villages to offer libations
and cakes not only to the
"
who were be
spirits"
lieved to be beneficial to the flocks and herds, but

also to creatures like the fox, the eagle, and the
1
A good account of the Irish festivals is given by Lady Wilde in her Ancient
Legends of Ireland, pp. 193-221.
hoodie-crow which so often molested them. 1 At
Hallowe en (the Celtic Samhain) the natives of the
Hebrides used to pour libations of ale to a marine
god called Shony, imploring him to send sea-weed
2
to the shore. In honour, also, of such beings,
curious rites were performed. Maidens washed
their faces in morning dew, with prayers for beauty.
They carried sprigs of the rowan, that mystic tree
whose scarlet berries were the ambrosial food of the
Tuatha De Danann.
In their original form, these now harmless rural
holidays were undoubtedly religious festivals of an

orgiastic nature-worship such as became so popular
in Greece in connection with the cult of Dionysus.
The great
"
lords of and of the powers of nature

life"
that made and ruled lifewere propitiated by madden

ing invocations, by riotous dances, and by human
sacrifice.
The bonfires which fill so large a part in the

modern festivals have been casually mentioned.
Originally they were no mere feux de joie, but had
a terrible meaning, which the customs connected
with them preserve. At the Highland Beltaine,
a cake was divided by lot, and whoever drew the
"burnt
piece"
was obliged to leap three times over
the flames. At the midsummer bonfires in Ireland
allpassed through the fire the men when the flames ;
were highest, the women when they were lower,

and the cattle when there was nothing left but
smoke. In Wales, upon the last day of October,
1 Pennant : A
Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides, 1772.
2
Martin: Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, 1695.
the old Samhain, there was a slightly different, and

still more suggestive rite. The hill-top bonfires were
watched they were announced to be extinct.
until
Then all would race headlong down the hill, shouting
a formula to the effect that the devil would get the
hindmost. The devil of a new belief is the god of
the one it has supplanted; in all three instances, the
custom was no mere meaningless horse-play, but a
symbolical human sacrifice.
A more cruel kind,
similar observance, but of a
was kept up in France upon St. John s Day, until
forbidden by law in the reign of Louis the Four
teenth. Baskets containing living wolves, foxes,
and were burned upon the bonfires, under the
cats
auspices and in the presence of the sheriffs or the

1
mayor of the town. Caesar noted the custom
among the druids of constructing huge wicker-work
images, which they filled with living men, and set
on fire, and it can hardly be doubted that the
wretched wolves, foxes, and cats were ceremonial
substitutes for human beings.
Aningenious theory was invented, after the intro
duction of Christianity, with the purpose of allowing
such ancient rites to continue, with a changed mean
ing. The passing of persons and cattle through
flame or smoke was explained as a practice which
interposed a magic protection between them and the
powers of evil. This homoeopathic device of using
the evil power s own sacred fire as a means of pro
tection against himself somewhat suggests that seeth
ing of the kid in its mother s milk which was repro-

i Gaidoz: Esquisse. de la Religion des Gaulois, p. 21.
bated by the Levitical law; but, no doubt, pagan
demons" were considered fair
game. The explana
"
tion,of course, is an obviously and clumsily forced

one; it was the grim druidical philosophy that to
quote Caesar life of man was repaid
"
unless the
for the life of man, the will of the immortal gods
could not be appeased" that dictated both the
national and the private human sacrifices of the
Celts, the shadows of which remain in the leaping
through the bonfires, and in the numerous recorded

sacrifices of cattle within quite recent times.
Mr. Laurence Gomme, in his Ethnology in Folk
lore, has collected many modern instances of the
sacrifices of cattle not only in Ireland and Scotland,
but also in Wales, Yorkshire, Northamptonshire,
1
Cornwall, and the Isle of Man. Within twenty miles "
of the metropolis of Scotland a relative of Professor
Simpson offered up a live cow as a sacrifice to the

2
spirit of the In Wales, when cattle-
murrain."
sickness broke out, a bullock was immolated by
being thrown down from the top of a high rock.

Generally, however, thewretched victims were
burned alive. In 1859 an Isle of Man farmer
offered a heifer as a burnt offering near Tynwald
Hill, to avert the anger of the ghostly occupant of
a barrow which had been desecrated by opening.
Sometimes, even, these burnt oblations were offered
to an alleged Christian saint. The registers of the
Presbytery of Ding wall for the years 1656 and 1678
contain records of the sacrifices of cattle upon the
1
Gomme: Ethnology in Folklore, pp. 136-139.
*
Ibid., p. 137.
site of an ancient temple in honour of a being whom
some called
"
St. Mourie", and others, perhaps know

1
ing his doubtful character, "ane
god Mourie". At
Kirkcudbright, it was St. Cuthbert, and at Clynnog, ,
in Wales, it was St. Beuno, who was thought to

2
delight in the blood of bulls.
Such sacrifices of cattle appear mainly to have
been offered to stay plague among cattle. Man for
man and beast for beast, was, perhaps, the old rule.
But among all nations, human sacrifices have been
gradually commuted for those of animals. The
family of the O Herlebys in Bally vorney, County
Cork, used in olden days to keep an idol, "an image
of wood about two feet high, carved and painted like
3
a woman". She was the goddess of smallpox, and
to her a sheep was immolated on behalf of anyone
seized with that disease.
The third form of Celtic pagan survival is found
in numerous instances of the adoration of water,
trees, stones, and animals. Like the other Aryan" "
nations, the Celts worshipped their rivers. The

Dee received divine honours as a war-goddess with
the title of Aerfon, while the Ribble, under its name
of Belisama, was identified by the Romans with
4
Minerva. Myths were told of them, as of the
sacred streams of Greece. The Dee gave oracles
as to the results of the perpetual wars between the
Welsh and the English; as its stream encroached
i
Mitchell : The Past in the Present, pp. 271, 275.
*
Elton: Origins of English History, p. 284.
3
Gomme :
Ethnology in Folklore, p. 140.
4 The word Dee probably meant The river was also called Dyfridwy,
"divinity".
i.e. "water of the divinity". See Rhys: Lectures on Welsh Philology, p. 307,
eitherupon the Welsh or the English side, so one
nation or the other would be victorious.
1
The
Tweed, like many of the Greek rivers, was credited
2
with human descendants. That the rivers of Great
Britain received human sacrifices is clear from the
folklore concerning many of them. Deprived of
their expected offerings, they are believed to snatch
by stealth the human lives for which they crave.

River of Dart, River of Dart, every year thou
"
claimest a heart," runs the Devonshire folk-song.

3
The Spey, too, requires a life yearly, but the Spirit
of the Ribble is satisfied with one victim at the end
of every seven years. 4
Evidence, however, of the worship of rivers is
scanty compared with that of the adoration of wells.
In the case of well- worship," says Mr. Gomme,
"
"
it
may be asserted with some confidence that it prevails

in every county of the three kingdoms."
5
He finds
it most vital in the Gaelic counties, somewhat less
so in the British, and almost entirely wanting in the
Teutonic south-east. So numerous, indeed, are "holy
wells" that several monographs have been written
6
solely upon them. In some cases these wells were
resorted to for the cure of diseases; in others, to
obtain change of weather, or "good

luck". Offer
ings were made to them, to propitiate their guardian
gods or nymphs. Pennant tells us that in olden
1 Celtic Britain, p. 68.

Rhys :
2 Social Life in Scotland, chap,

Rogers : ill, p. 336.
3
Folklore, chap, in, p. 72.
* Henderson: Folklore of Northern Counties, p. 265.
6 Gomme Ethnology in Folklore, p. 78.
:
Hope: Holy Wells of England; Harvey: Holy Wells of Ireland.

times the rich would sacrifice one of their horses at
a well near Abergeleu, to secure a blessing upon the
1
rest. Fowls were offered at St Tegla s Well, near
2
Wrexham, by epileptic patients. But of late years
the well-spirits have had to be content with much
smaller tributes such trifles as pins, rags, coloured
pebbles, and small coins.
With sacred wells were often connected sacred
trees, to whose branches rags and small pieces of
garments were suspended by their humble votaries.

Sometimes, where the ground near the well was
bare of vegetation, bushes were artificially placed
beside the water. The same
people who venerated
wells and trees would pay equal adoration to sacred
stones. Lord Roden, describing, in 1851, the Island
of Inniskea, off the coast of Mayo, asserts that a
sacred well called Derrivla" and a sacred stone
"
called
"
which was kept carefully wrapped

Neevougi",
up in flannel and brought out at certain periods to

be publicly adored, seemed to be the only deities
known to that lone Atlantic island s three hundred
inhabitants. 3 It sounds incredible; but there is
ample evidence of the worship of fetish stones by
quite modern inhabitants of our islands. The Clan
Chattan kept such a stone in the Isle of Arran; it
was believed, like the stone of Inniskea, to be able
to cure diseases, and was kept carefully wrapped "
up in fair linen cloth, and about that there was a

4
piece of woollen cloth".
Similarly, too, the worship
i Sikes: British Goblins, p. 351. a

Ibid., p. 329.
3
Roden Progress of the Reformation in Ireland, pp. 51-54.
:
4 Martin: Description of the Western Islands, pp. 166-226.

of wells was connected with the worship of animals.
At a well in the Devil s Causeway", between Ruck-
"
ley and Acton,

in Shropshire, lived, and perhaps
stilllive, four frogs who were, and perhaps still are,
believed to be "the devil and his imps" that is to
1
say, gods or demons of a proscribed idolatry. In
Ireland such guardian spirits are usually fish trout,
eels, or salmon thought to be endowed with eternal
life.
2
The genius of a well in Banffshire took the
form of a fly,
which was also said to be undying,
but to transmigrate from body to body. Its function
was to deliver oracles; according as it seemed active

or lethargic, its votaries drew their omens. 3 It is
needless to multiply instances of a still surviving

cult of water, trees, stones, and animals. Enough
to say that it would be easy. What concerns us is
that we
are face to face in Britain with living forms
of the oldest, lowest, most primitive religion in the
world one which would seem to have been once
universal, and which, crouching close to the earth,
lets other creeds blow over it without effacing it,
and outlives one and all of them.

It underlies the three great world-religions, and
still forms the real belief of perhaps the majority

of their titular adherents. It is characteristic of the
wisdom of the Christian Church that, knowing its
power, she sought rather to sanctify than to extir

pate it. What once were the Celtic equivalents of
"
the Greek fountains of the nymphs

"
were conse
crated as
"
holy wells ". The process of so adopting
J Burne :
Shropshire Folklore, p. 416.
a Gomme :
Ethnology in Folklore, pp. 92-93.
3 Ibid.
, p. 102.
them began early. St. Columba, when he went in
the sixth century to convert the Picts, found a
spring which they worshipped as a god; he blessed
it, and from that day the demon separated from
"
the water". 1 Indeed, he so sanctified no less than

three hundred such springs. 2 Sacred stones were
equally taken under the aegis of Christianity. Some
were placed on the altars of cathedrals, others built
into consecrated walls. The animal gods either
found themselves the heroes of Christian legends,
or where, forsome reason, such adoption was hope
less,were proclaimed witches animals", and dealt
with accordingly. Such happened to the hare, a
creature sacred to the ancient Britons, 8 but now in
bad odour among the superstitious. The wren, too,
is hunted to death
upon St. Stephen s Day in Ire
land. Its crime is said to be that it has drop of "a
the de il s blood in it but the real reason is pro

",
bably to be found in the fact that the Irish druids

used to draw auguries from its
chirpings.
We have made in this volume some attempt to

draw a picture of the ancient religion of our earliest
ancestors, the Gaelic and the British Celts. We
have shown what can be gathered of the broken
remnants of a mythology as splendid in conception
and as brilliant in colour as that of the Greeks.
We have tried to paint its divine figures, and to
retell their heroic stories. We have seen them
1
Adamnan s Vita Columbce.
2
Dr. Whitley Stokes Three Middle Irish Homilies.
:
3
Caesar: De Bella Gallico, Book V, chap. XH.
( B 219 ) S D
fall from their shrines, and yet, rising again, take on
new lives as kings, or saints, or knights of romance,
and we have caught fading glimpses of them sur
viving to-day as the fairies", their rites still
cherished by worshippers who hardly know who

or why they worship. Of necessity this survey
has been brief and incomplete. Whether the great
edifice of the Celtic mythology will ever be wholly
restored one can at
present only speculate. Its
colossalfragments are perhaps too deeply buried
and too widely scattered. But, even as it stands
ruined, it is a mighty quarry from which poets yet
unborn will hew spiritual marble for houses riot
made with hands.
APPENDIX
A FEW BOOKS UPON CELTIC MYTHOLOGY

AND LITERATURE
The object of this short list is merely to supplement the mar
ginal notes by pointing out to a reader desirous of going deeper
into the subject the most recent and accessible works upon it.
That they should be accessible is, in its intention, the most im
portant thing; and therefore only books easily and cheaply obtain
able will be mentioned.
INTRODUCTORY
Matthew Arnold. THE STUDY OF CELTIC LITERATURE. Popular
Edition. London, 1891.
Ernest Renan. THE POETRY OF THE CELTIC RACES (and other
studies). Translated by William G. Hutchinson. London,
1896.
Two eloquent appreciations of Celtic literature.
Magnus Maclean, M.A., D.C.L. THE LITERATURE OF THE

CELTS. Its History and Romance. London, 1902.
A handy exposition of all the branches of Celtic literature.
Elizabeth A. Sharp (editor). LYRA CELTICA. An Anthology
of Representative Celtic Poetry. Ancient Irish, Alban,
Gaelic, Breton, Cymric, and Modern Scottish and Irish
Celtic Poetry. With introduction and notes by William
Sharp. Edinburgh, 1896.
Alfred Nutt. CELTIC AND MEDIEVAL ROMANCE. No. i of Mr.
Nutt s
"
Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance, and Folk

London, 1899.
lore".
A pamphlet briefly tracing the indebtedness of mediaval

European literature to pre-mediceval Celtic sources.
419
HISTORICAL
H. d Arbois de Jubainville. LA CIVILISATION DES CELTES EI
CELLE DE L EPOPE*E HOMERIQUE. Paris, 1899.
Vol. VI of the author s monumental Cours de Litteraturt "
celtique ."
Patrick Weston Joyce. A SOCIAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT IRELAND,

treating Government, Military System, and Law;
of the
Religion, Learning, and Art; Trades, Industries, and Com

merce; Manners, Customs, and Domestic Life of the Ancient
Irish People. 2 vols. London, 1903.
Charles I. Elton, F.S.A. ORIGINS OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
Second edition, revised. London, 1890.
John Rhys. CELTIC BRITAIN. "Early
Britain" Series. London,
1882.
H. d Arbois de Jubainville. INTRODUCTION A L ^TUDE DE LA
LITTERATURE CELTIQUE. Vol. I of the Cours de Litterature "
Paris, 1883.
celtique".
Contains, among other information, the fullest and most

authentic account of the druids and druidism.
GAELIC MYTHOLOGY
II. d Arbois de Jubainville. LE CYCLE MYTHOLOGIQUE IRLAN-
DAIS ET LA MYTHOLOGIE CELTIQUE. Vol. II of the Cours "
de Litte rature celtique". Paris, 1884. Translated into Eng

lish as
THE IRISH MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE AND CELTIC MYTHOLOGY.

With notes by R. I. Best. Dublin, 1903.
Anaccount of Irish mythical history and of some of the
greater Gaelic gods. With chapters on some of the more

striking phases of Celtic belief.
Alfred Nutt. THE VOYAGE OF BRAN, SON OF FEBAL. An

Irish Legend of the eighth century.
Historic Edited by
Kuno Meyer. With essays upon the Happy Otherworld in
Irish Myth and upon the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth. Vol.
I The Happy Otherworld. Vol. II The Celtic Doctrine
of Rebirth. Grimm Library, Vols. IV and VI. London,
1895-1897.
Appendix 421
Contains, among other notable contributions to the study of

Celtic mythology , an enquiry of the Tuatha De
into the nature
Danann, a subject same author s

briefly treated in the
THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY OF SHAKESPEARE. No. 6 of Popu "
lar Studies in Mythology, Romance, and Folklore London, ".
1900.
Patrick Weston Joyce. OLD CELTIC ROMANCES. Translated
from the Gaelic. London, 1894.
A retelling in popular modern style of some of the more im
portant mythological and Fenian stories.
Lady Gregory. GODS AND FIGHTING MEN. The story of the
Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna of Erin. Arranged
and put into English by Lady Gregory. With a Preface by
W. B. Yeats. London, 1904.
Covers much the same ground as Mr. Joyce s book, but in
more literary manner,
Alfred Nutt. OSSIAN AND THE OSSIANIC LITERATURE. No. 3
of "Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance, and Folk
lore". London, 1899.
A short survey of the literature connected with the Fenians.
John Gregorson Campbell, Minister of Tiree. THE FIANS.

Stories, poems, and traditions of Fionn and his Warrior
Band, collected entirely from oral sources. With introduc
tion and bibliographical notes by Alfred Nutt Vol. IV of
"Waifs and
Strays of Celtic Tradition". London, 1891.
An account of the Fenians from the Scottish- Gaelic side.
Alfred Nutt. CUCHULAINN THE IRISH ACHILLES. No. 8 of

"Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance, and Folklore".
London, 1900.
A brief but excellent introduction to the Cuchulainn cycle.
Lady Gregory. CUCHULAIN OF MUIRTHEMNE. The story of

the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster. Arranged and put
into English by Lady Gregory. With a Preface by W. B.
Yeats. London, 1902.
A retelling in poetic prose of the tales connected with Cuchu
lainn.
Eleanor Hull. THE CUCHULLIN SAGA IN IRISH LITERATURE.

Being a collection of stories relating to the Hero Cuchullin,
translated from the Irish by various scholars. Compiled and
edited with introduction and notes by Eleanor Hull. With
Map of Ancient Ireland. Grimm Library, Vol. VIII.
London, 1898.
A series of Cuchulainn stories from the ancient Irish manu
scripts. More literal than Lady Gregory s adaptation.
H. d Arbois de Jubainville. L EPOPÊ CELTIQUE EN IRLANDE.
Vol. V of the "Cours de Litterature celtique". Paris, 1892.
A collection, translated into French, of some of the principal
stories of the Cuchulainn cycle, with various appendices upon
Gaelic mythological subjects.
L. Winifred Faraday, M.A. THE CATTLE RAID OF CUALGNE

(Tain Bo Cuailgne). An
old Irish prose-epic translated for
the first time from the Leabhar na h-Uidhri and the Yellow
Book of Lecan. Grimm Library, Vol. XVI. London,
1904.
A strictly literal rendering of the central episode of the
Cuchulainn cycle.
BRITISH MYTHOLOGY
Ivor B. John. THE MABINOGION.

No. 1 1 of Popular Studies "
Mythology, Romance,
in and Folklore". London, 1901.
A pamphlet introduction to the Mabinogion literature.
Lady Charlotte Guest. THE MABINOGION. From the Welsh of
the LLYFR COCH o HERGEST (the Red Book of Hergest)
in the library of Jesus College, Oxford. Translated, with
notes, by Lady Charlotte Guest.
First edition. Text, translation, and notes, 3 vols., 1849.
Translation and notes only, i voL, 1877,
The Boys Mabinogion, 1881.
Cheap editions of this classic have been lately issued. One

may obtain it in Mr. Nutfs handsome little volume; as one of
Dent s "
Temple Classics" ,
or in the
"
Welsh Library".
J. Loth. LES MABINOGION, traduits en entier pour la premiere

fois en frangais avec un commentaire explicatif et des notes
critiques. 2 vols. Vols. Ill and IV of De Jubainville s

de Litterature celtique". Paris, 1889.
"Cours
Amore exact translation than that of Lady Guest, with

notes embodying more recent scholarship.
Appendix 423
J. A. Giles, D.C.L. OLD ENGLISH CHRONICLES, including . . .
Geoffrey of Monmouth s British History, Gildas, Nennius

. . .
Edited, with illustrative notes, by J. A. Giles, D.C.L,
"Bonn s Antiquarian Library". London, 1901.
The most accessible edition of Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Sir Thomas Malory. THE MORTE DARTHUR. Edited by Dr.
H. Oskar Sommer. Vol. I the Text. Vol. II Glossary,
Index, &c. Vol. Ill Study on the Sources. London,
1889-1891.
Vol. I of this, the best text of the Morte Darthur, can be
obtained separately.
Jessie L. Weston. KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS. A sur
vey of Arthurian romance. No. 4 of "
Popular Studies in
Mythology, Romance, and London, 1899.
Folklore".
Alfred Nutt. THE LEGENDS OF THE HOLY GRAIL. No. 14 of

"Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance, and Folklore"
London, 1902.
Useful introductions to a more special study of Arthurian
literature.
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CELTIC MYTHOLOGY

John Rhys. LECTURES ON THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF RE
LIGION AS ILLUSTRATED BY CELTIC HEATHENDOM. "The
Hibbert Lectures for

London, 1898.
1886."
John Rhys. STUDIES IN THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND. Oxford,

1901.
These two volumes are the most important attempts yet made
towards a scientific and comprehensive study of the Celtic
mythology.
CELTIC FAIRY AND FOLK LORE

GAELIC
T. Crofton Croker. FAIRY LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF THE

SOUTH OF IRELAND.
This book isone of the earliest, and, if not the most scientific,
perhaps the most attractive of the many collections of Irish

fairy-lore. Later compilations are Mr. William LarminiJs
"
West Irish Folktales and Romances ",

and Mr. Jeremiah
Curtiris "Hero Tales of Ireland", "Myths and Folklore of
and Tales of the Fairies, collected in South Mun-
"
Ireland",
ster ". On the Scotch side, notice should be particularly taken
of Campbell s "Popular Tales of the West Highlands" and

the volumes entitled Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition
"
".
All these books are either recent or recently republished, and are
merely selected out of a large list of ivorks, valuable and other
wise, upon this lighter side of Celtic mythology.
BRITISH
John Rhys. CELTIC FOLKLORE, WELSH AND MANX. 2 vols

Oxford, 1901.
Wirt Sikes. BRITISH GOBLINS: Welsh Folklore, Fairy Mytho
logy,Legends, and Traditions. By Wirt Sikes, United States
Consul for Wales. London, 1880.
FOLKLORE COMPARATIVELY TREATED

George Laurence Gomme. ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE.
"Modern Science" Series.
London, 1892.
An attempt to assign apparently non-Aryan beliefs and cus
toms in the British islands to pre- Aryan inhabitants.
INDEX
Aberftraw, marriage of Branwen at, 289. Alaw, river in Anglesey, 294, 295.
Abergeleu, sacred well at, 415. Alba, 97, 104, 163, 178, 192, 193, iofc.
Achill Island, folk-tales preserved at, 382 Deirdre s farewell to, 194-195.
;
233- Albania, a name for Alba, 382.

Achilles, the Irish, 158. Ale of Goibniu, 61.
Achren, battle of, 305, 306; castle of, Allobroges, 384, 385.
320. Amaethon, son of Don, British god of
Acrisius, 236. Agriculture, 261, 305, 308, 313, 316,
Adamnan s Life of Saint Columba, 401, 345 fights against Bran in the battle
;
417. of Achren, 305-308 ;

assists Kulhwch
Advocates Library at Edinburgh, u, towin Olwen, 345.
190. Amergin, druid of the Milesians, 123-
Aebh, wife of 142. Le"r, 130.
Aed, son of 143. Le"r, Ames bury, "castle" of, 29.
Aedh, son of Miodhchaoin, 105. Amlwch, stream of, 295.
Aeife, wife of L6r, 142, 143, 144. Ana, see Anu.
Aerfon, a title of the river Dee, 413. Ancient Britons, who were the, 18-23.
JEs Sidhe, the "folk of the mounds", Aneurin, a sixth-century British bard,
the gods or fairies, 137, 168. n, 295, 372.
Africa, 19, 120, 274, 324. Aneurin, the Book of, n.
Aganippus, king of the Franks, 382, 383. Anglesey, island of, 289, 294, 322, 388,
Agriculture god of, British, 261 a ; 400.
Gaulish, 274. Anglo-Saxon, our descent not entirely,
Ailbhe, foster -daughter of Bodb the 3-
Red, 142. Anguish, Anguissance, king of Ireland,
Aileach, grave of Nuada at, 122, 157. 357-
Ailill, king of Connaught, 147, 154, 164, Angus, Gaelic god of love and beauty,
165, 175, 179, 200. 56, 79, 80, 117, 136, 139-142, 147,
love-story of, 188, 189.
<\ilinn, 156, 157, 205, 2TI-2I4, 217, 2l8, 221,
Ailioll of Arran, 142. 240 his attributes, 56 his wooing of
; ;
Aine", queen of the fairies of South Mun- Caer, 140-142; cheats his father, the
ster, 244-246. Dagda, 139 steals Etain from Mider,
;
Ainle, one of the sons of Usnach, 192, 147; helps Diarmait and Grainne, 217,
193, 196. 218, 221 matches his pigs against the
;
Airceltrai, the stdh of Ogma, 136, 157. Fenians, 213-214.

Airem, Eochaid, high king of Ireland, Anicetus, Sol Apollo, a Romano-Britisn
147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 331, 332. god, 275.
Airem, meaning of the word, 149, 333. Animals, sacred, 406, 416, 417 ;
sacrifices
Airmid, daughter of Diancecht, 80, 81, of, 406, 411, 412, 413.
82, no. Anna, sister of Arthur, 323.
Alator, a war-god worshipped in Britain, Annals of the Four Masters, 204.
275- Annwn, the British Otherworld, 254
425
273i 278-282, 303, 308, 309, 318, 319, fessor Rhys s, 148, 158, 255, 257, 258,
321, 390, 391. 269, 272, 274, 278, 285, 313, 314, 316,
Annwn, the Spoiling of, a poem by 321, 322, 323, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330,
Taliesin, 305, 306, 317, 366. 33L SS 2 333. 358, 359, 360, 364, 367,
,
Anu, or Ana, a Gaelic goddess of 368, 369, 370, 383, 387, 389.
prosperity and abundance, 50; the Artur, son of Nemed, 274.
"Paps of Ana", 50; still living in Aryans, 21, 31, 32, 247; common tra
Aynia and
folklore as 245. Aine", ditions of the, 32, 176, 189; Aryan
Aoibhinn, queen of the fairies of North languages, 21.
Munster, 244. Astarte, worshipped at Corbridge, 275.
Aoife, an Amazon defeated by Cuchu- Astolat, 362.
lainn, 164, 176, 177. Athens, 153.
Aphrodit6, the British, 271, 388. Athlone, 175, 216.
Apollo, the Gaelic, 62 the British, 262 ; ; Augusel, a king of Scotland, 375.
a temple of, in Britain, 42, 325. Aurelius, a British king, 325.
Apples, of the Garden of the Hesperides, Avallach, see Avallon.
98, 99, 102 in the Celtic Elysium,
; Avallon, a British god of the Under
98, 136. world, 329, 359 ;
Isle of, 374, and see
Apple-tree of Ailenn, 189. Avilion.
Aquitani, 22. Avebury, the "castle" of, 29.
Aranon, son of Mile", 123. Avilion, 133, 315, 329, 332, 334, 335,
Arawn, king of Annwn, 279, 280, 281, 390, 394-
306, 308, 309, 312, 315, 329, 357, 375. Aynia, a fairy queen of Ulster, 245.
Ardan, a son of Usnach, 192, 193, 196.
Ard Chein, 93. Babylon, 178.
Arddu, Black Stone of, 305. Badb, a Gaelic war-goddess, 52, 53, 72,
Are s, 52. 117, 119, 245; the name often used
Argetldm, 49, 78. generically, 53 description of a, 53.
;
Arianrod, a British goddess, 261-265, in the bag", the game of, 285,
"Badger
3*3- 3i7 322, 364, 371 her place in ; 303-

later legend taken by Arthur s sister, Badon, battle of, 338.
364- Baile, love-story of, 188-189.
Armagh, 136, 158. Baile s Strand, 186, 188.
Arnold, Matthew, 3, 16, 356. Bajocassus, Temple of the sun -god
Arran, Isle of, 60, 142, 415. Belinus at, 276.
Art, the Lonely", king of Tara, 189, Bala lake, 265.
"
202. Balan, 276, 357, 364.

Artaius, Mercurius, a Gaulish god, 274. Balder, 33.
Arthur, 6, 8, 14, 155, 202, 222, 246, 258, Balgatan, a mountain near Cong, 73.
259, 271, 273, 274, 276, 296, 304, 306, Balin, 276, 357, 358, 364.
311, 312-320, 322, 323, 326, 327, 328, Ballymagauran, village of, 38.
329, 330-343. 348, 349. 35i-36o, 362, Ballymote, Book of, 10, 38, 123, 138,
364-366, 368, 371, 374-376, 392 407; 229, 231.
the mythical and the historical, 313, Ballysadare, 75.
314; assumes the attributes of Gwyd- Balor, a king of the Fomors, 48-49, 50,
ion, 316 the Spoiling of Annwn by,
; 79, 83, 84, 90, 112, 113, 120, 233-239,
319-322 becomes head of the British
;
269, 324, 341, 345, 371 his evil eye, ;
Pantheon, 312-313; wins Olwen for 49; kills Nuada and Macha, 112; is
Kulhwch, 343-353 in Geoffrey of ; blinded by Lugh, 112; tales of, in
Monmouth s History, 374, 375 ;
leads modern folklore, 233-239.
the Wild Hunt, 392. "Balor s Hill", 69, 90.
Arthurian Legend, Studies in the, Pro Ban, king of Benwyk, 356, 360, 362.
Index 427
Banba, a goddess representing Ireland, Black Book of Caermarthen, the, u,
125 an ancient name of Ireland, 126,
; 255. 3". 312, 335.
IS3- Bladud, mythical founder of Bath, 381.
Banshee, meaning of the word, 137. Blathnat, daughter of Mider, 55, 179.
Baoisgne, Clann, 209, 217. Bliant, Castle, 358.
Bards, 32, 42. Blodeuwedd, wife of Lieu Llaw Gyffes
Bardsey Island, 326. 265, 266, 268.
Barrow, river, how it got its name, 62. Blood-fines among the Celts, 30; blood-
Barrule, South, 242. fine paid for Cian, 94-97.
Barry, the, 246. Boann, wife of the Dagda, 55, 139, 141.
Basque race, 19. Boar, wild, of Bengulben, 221 the Boar ;
Bath, 228, 275, 276, 338, 381. Trwyth, 347~3S3-

Bathurst s Roman Antiquities in Lyd- Bodb the Red, son of the Dagda, 60,
ney Park, 254. 133, 140, 141-145, 157, 205, 208; is
Battle of Achren, 305 ;

of Badon, 338 ;
made king of the Tuatha D6 Danann,
of Camlan, 222, 315, 334, 337, 375, 140 his swineherd, 164 marries
; ; tiis
376 of Clontarf, 53 of Gabhra, 222,

; ; daughter Sadb to Finn, 208.
223, 225, 315; of Mag Rath, 52; of Bogles, 393, 403, 405.
Moytura Northern, 107-117, 407; of Bonfires in Celtic ritual, 409-412.
Moytura Southern, 72 - 75 of the ; Bordeaux, Sir Huon of, 7.
Trees, 123, 305-308. Borcada, 42.

Bayeux, temple of Belinus at, 276. Borrach, 193, 195, 200.
Bean, curious passage relating to the, Bors, king of Gaul, 360.
306, 307. Bors, Sir, 368, 369.
Becuma of the Fair Skin, 202. Boyne, river, 55, 56, 129, 136, 137, 158,
Bedivere, Sir, 6. 210, 213, 230.
Bedwini, Arthur s bishop, 337. Brahmans, 32.
Bedwyr, a follower of Arthur, 343, 344, Bran, son of Febal, an Irish king, 134,
349- i3S. 224.
Belacatudor, a war-god worshipped in Bran, Finn s favourite hound, 213.
Britain, 275. Bran, British god of the Underworld,

Belgae, 23, 76. 258, 271-272, 276, 289-294, 296, 306,
Beli, a British god, 120, 252, 260, 268, 308, 313, 328, 329, 331, 338, 356, 357,
295. 313. 335. 376. 360, 364, 366, 384, 386, 387, 389, 394;
Belinus, a Celtic sun-god, 276, 358, 364; fights the battle of Achren, 306; be
as a king of Britain, 276, 384, 385. comes the "Wonderful Head", 296;
Belisama, the Latin name of the Ribble, in Geoffrey of Monmouth s History,
413- 384, 385 in the Morte Darthur, 356,

;
Beltaine, the Gaelic May-day, 41, 65, 357; introduces Christianity into Bri
287, 406, 408, 409, 410. tain, 386.
Berber race, 19. Brandegore, King, 272, 356.
Beth, an Iberian god, 64. Brandegoris, King, 356.
Bettws-y-coed, 7. Brandel, Brandiles, Sir, 356.
Beuno, Saint, sacrifices of cattle to, Branwen, British goddess of love, 271,
413- 289-294, 387.

Big-Knife, Osla, 352, 353. Brazil, 133.
father of the Gaelic gods and men,
Bile", Brea, ford of, Finn killed at the, 222.
51, 65, 120, 121, 122, 252. Breasal s Island, 133.
Billingsgate, origin of name, 385. Bre"cilien, Forest of, 361.

Birds, of Rhiannon, the, 273, 294, 296 ; Bregon, 121.
Dechtir6 and her maidens changed Brennius, a mythical British king, 5, 276,
into, 160. 384, 385-
Brennus, 385. Caer Bannawg, 367.
Bress, son of Elathan, a Fomor, 50, 78- Caer Colvin, 275.
80, 82, 83, 90, 108-111, 115-116, 269; Caer Dathyl, 308, 310.
his beauty, 50 marries Brigit, and is
; Caer Golud, 320.
made king over the Tuatha De* Dan- Caer Llyr, 270.
ann, 78; is forced to abdicate, 83; Caer London, 376.
makes war on the Tuatha Danaan, De" Caer Myrddin, 324.
83 is defeated and captured, 115-116.
;
Caer Ochren, 320.
Brian, son of Tuirenn, 90, 91, 92, 94, Caer Pedryvan, 319, 356, 367.
99-102, 103, 105, 106. Caer Rigor, 319.
Briareus, 326. Caer Sarrlog, 386.
Caer
"
Bridge of the Cliff", the, 163. Sidi, 319, 321, 322, 368.
Bridget, Saint, 7, 56, 228. Caer Vandwy, 257, 320.
Brigantes, a North British tribe, 277. Caer Vedwyd, 319.
Brigantia, a British Minerva, 277. Caer Wydyr, 320.
Brigindo, a Gaulish goddess, 277. Caesar, Julius, 5, 8, 18, 22, 23, 25, 27,
Brigit, Gaelic goddess of fire, poetry, 30, 35. 38, 119. 2 4. 376, 399. 412, 417.
and the hearth, 56, 78, 109, no, 228, Cairbre", son of Cormac, 206, 222, 315.
269, 277, 387 ;
is married to Bress, 78 ;
Cairn of Octriallach, no.
is canonized as Saint Bridget, 228, Cairpre",
son of Ogma, bard of the
387. Tuatha D6 Danann, 58, 82, 83, 87,
Bri Leith, the sidh of Mider, 136, 148, 139-
152. 332- Calais, 383.
Brindled ox, the, 320. Calatin the wizard, 171, 172; daughters
Britain, ancient names of, 292, 323. of Calatin, 178-181.
British Goblins, Mr. Wirt Sikes , 389, Caledonians, 22.
393. 4iS Camelot, 314, 335.
Britons, ancient, who were the, 18-23. Camlan, battle of, 222, 315, 334, 337,
Britonum, Historia. See Historia, 375. 376.
Geoffrey, Nennius. Camulodunum, the Roman name of
Brittany, 24. Colchester, 276.
Briun, son of Bethar, 113. Camulus, a Gaulish god of war and the
Brownies, 248, 393 403. sky, 51, 204, 275, 323.
Brude, king of the Picts, 401. Caoilte, a Fenian hero, 63, 146, 208,
Brugh-na-boyne, 136, 139, 160, 213, 214. 212, 217, 222, 227, 246.
Brutus, 121, 374. Caractacus, Caratacus, 271, 386, 387.
Brythons, 21, 22, 23, 24, 35. Caradawc of the Strong Arms, son of
Buarainech, father of Balor, 48. Bran, 271, 291, 295, 338, 386, 389.
Buinne, the Ruthless Red, son of Fergus, Carbonek, 357, 367.
193, 196, 197. Carmarthen, 324.
Bull, the Brown, of Cualgne, 164, 165, Carnac, 114.
168, 175 ;the White-horned, of Con- Carnarvon, 310.
naught, 165, 175. Carrowmore, 114.
Bwbachod, 393. Cassibellawn, Cassivelaunus, 376.
"
Cassiopeia s Chair", 252.

Cadbury, the supposed site of Camelot, Castell y Moch, 310.
335- Castle of Arianrod, 252, 264.
Cader Idris, 305. Castle Bliant, 358.
Caemhoc, Saint, 146. Castle of Gwydion, 253.
Caer, daughter of Etal Ambuel, 141. Castle Racket, 244.
Caer Arianrod, 252, 264. Castle of Revelry, 366, 367.
Caer Badus, 381. Castle of Riches, 367.
Index 429
"Castles", Celtic, 29. Ciaran, Saint, 10.
Caswallawn, son of Beli, 295. Cichol the Footless, a Fomor, 66.
Cath Godeu. See the Battle of the
"
Cilgwri, the Ousel of, 349.

Trees". Clann Baoisgne, 209, 217, 222.
Cathbad, druid of Emain Macha, 161, Clan Chattan, 415.
162, 174, 178, 181, 190, 198, 200. Clann Morna, 209, 211, 218, 232.
Cathubodva, a Gaulish war-goddess, Clann Neamhuinn, 216, 218.
276. Clann Ronan, 218.
Cauldrons mythology; the
in Celtic Clas Myrddin, an old name for Britain,
Dagda s, of Ogyrvran
54, 71, 366; 323-
the Giant, 366 of Diwrnach the Gael,
; Claudius, Roman emperor, 387.
346, 349; cauldron given by Bran Cliodna, fairy queen of Munster, 244.
to Matholwch, 290, 293, 366 caul ; Clontarf, battle of, 53.
dron stolen from Mider by Cuchu- Clud, goddess of the river Clyde, 284,
lainn, 176, 366; cauldron kept in 285.
Annwn by the chief of Hades, 273, Cluricanes, 248.
319, 366 the legend of the Holy
;
Cnoc Miodhchaoin, 97.
Grail founded upon Celtic myths of Cnucha, battle of, 209.
a cauldron of fertility and inspiration, Coblynau, 393.
365-370. Cocidius, a war-god worshipped by a
Celtas, 22. Dacian colony in Cumberland, 275.
Celtic mythical literature the forerunner Coed Helen, 310.
of mediaeval romance, 184. Coel, a mythical king of Britain, 275,
Celtic strain in modern Englishmen, 3. 323-
Celts, the, 19, 20, 21, 25-44, 70, 119, Coir Anmann, the Choice of Names ",
121, 124, 136, 138, 261, 262, 278, 283, an old Irish tract, 50, 54, 61, 245, 270.
329, 404, 407, 412. Colchester, 276.

Cemmes, a parish in Pembrokeshire, 394. "Cole, Old King", 276.
Cenn Cruaich, 41. Collen, Saint, 389, 390, 391.
Cermait, i.e. "Honey-mouth", a title Columba, Saint, 12, 240, 401, 417.
of Ogma, 57. Comes Britannia, 313.
Celtic", son of Diancecht, 62, 90. Comes Littoris Saxonici, 314.
Cethlenn, wife of Balor, 90. Comyn, Michael, a Gaelic poet, 223.
Lugh
"Chain, 62; "chief 93.
s", s",
Conaire" the Great, high king of Ire
Champion of the Tuatha Danann, De" land, 152, 157.
59, 276; Champions of the Red Conall the Victorious, 163, 177, 183,
Branch, see Red Branch; "The 192, 193, 197, 198.
Champion s Prophecy ",
201. Conan, a Fenian hero, 209, 218.
Chariots, war, of the Celts, 25, 27, 28. Conann, son of Febar, a king of the
Charon, 403. Fomors, 67.
Chaucer, 2, 12. Conchobar, king of Ulster, 29, 147,
Chess, Mider s game with Eochaid 154-156, 158, 160-162, 166-168, 173,
Airem, 149; Ossian s game with Finn, 174, 179, 185, 190-192, 193, 195-198,
220. 200, 201, 204, 227; his treachery
Children of D6n, Nudd, and Llyr, 252. towards the sons of Usnach, 192-200;
Christianity, introduced into Britain by his tragical death, 155.
Bran, 386, 387 conquers Druidism,
; Condates, a war -god worshipped in
400, 401 ; adopts harmless heathen Britain, 275.
cults, 416, 417. Cong, village of, 73, 76.
Cian, son of Diancecht, 62, 63, 78, 84, Conlaoch, son of Cuchulainn, 177, 178.
90-94, 106, 235-237, 239, 269, 345, Conn the Hundred Fighter, 201, 202.
Conn, son of Lr, 143.
Conn, son of Miodhchaoin, 105. Cruind, the river, 165.
Connaught, 73, 75, 76, 165, 168. Cu, son of Diancecht, 62, 90.
Connla, son of Conn the Hundred Cualgne, a province of Ulster, 164, 165
Fighter, 202. 175-
Contemporary Review, the, 241. Cuan, head of the Munster Fenians, 218.
Contrary Head, 242. Cuchulainn, chief hero of the Ultonians,
Conway, river, 262. 10, ii, 14, 27, 154, 155, 156, 158-188,
Cooking-places of the Fenians, 206. 192, 193, 202, 204, 210, 217, 223, 227,
Cooking-spits of the women of Fian- 274, 366; is the son of Lugh, 159-160;
chuive 96; at Tara, 98.
, obvious solar character of, 158-159;
Cooley, see Cualgne. how he obtained his name, 160-161 ;
Coranians, a mythical tribe of dwarfs, fights in the Tain B6 Chuailgne, 164-

377-379- 175; his wooing of Emer, 184-186;
Corb, an Iberian god, 64. his raid upon the Other World, 175-
Corbridge, 275. 176; his death, 183; is raised from
Core, son of Miodhchaoin, 105. the dead by Saint Patrick, 227.
Corca-Duibhne, 70. Culann, chief smith of the Ultonians,
Corca-Oidce, 70. 161; "Culann s Hound", 161, 166.
Cordeilla, daughter of Leir, in Geoffrey "Culture-King", 153.
of Monmouth s History, 381-383. Cumhal, father of Finn, 204, 209, 210,
Cordelia, daughter of Shakespeare s 275-
King Lear, 259, 381. Cunedda, a North British king, 373.
Coritiacus, a war-god worshipped in Cunobelinus, king of Britain, 387.
Britain, 275. Curoi, king of Munster, 147, 154, 179.
Cormac, "the
Magnificent", 201, 202, Custennin, 343, 344.
203, 206, 215, 222, 315. Cuthbert, Saint, bulls sacrificed to, 413.
Cornwall, 3, 23, 294, 296, 327, 334, 353, Cwm Cawlwyd, the Owl of, 349.
382, 384. Cwn Annwn, the "Hounds of Hell"
Coronation Stone, the, 71. 39L 392.

Corrib, see Lough Corrib. Cwy, 320.
Corspitium, see Corbridge. Cymbeline, Shakespeare s, 387.
Corwenna, mother of Brennius and Cymri, 255, 373.
Belinus, 385.
Count of Britain, 313 of the Saxon ; Dagda, the, Gaelic god of the Earth, 54,
Shore, 314. 78, 79, 87, 98, 107-109, 116, 117, 122,
Court of Ddn, the, 252, 317. 132, 135, 136, 138-141, 156, 157, 211,
Cow, Baler s Gray, 235, 236, 237, 240; 213, 228, 230, 240, 243, 269, 346, 366;
Mider s three cows, 57, 176. his dress, arms, and harp, 54; his
Cow, Book of the Dun, 10, 12, 14, 37, porridge-feast, 108 ;
is cheated by his
156, 164, 175, 184, 202, 227. son Angus, 139 ; resigns the kingship
Credn6, the bronze- worker of the Tuatha of the Tuatha De" Danann, 140; his
De" Danann, 85, 86, 109. last appearance, 157.
Crete, 153. Daire" of Cualgne, owner of the Brown
Creudylad, daughter of the British sky- Bull, 165.
god Lludd, 256, 258, 259, 332, 348, Dalan, druid of Eochaid Airem, 392.
381, 407. Danes, the, 230.
Criminal Resolutions of Britain, the Danu, the mother of the Gaelic gods,
Three, 334. the same as Anu, q.v., 44, 50, 51, 70,
Crom Croich, 40. 245, 252, 407.
Cromm Cruaich, 38, 39, 41, 154, 402. Dart, river, 414.
Cronos, 63, 65, 326. Dartmoor, 392.
"Croppies Grave", the, at Tara, 72. Darvha, Lake, 143-145.
Index 431
Deaf Valley, the, 180. Domnu, a
goddess, mother of the
Dechtire", mother of Cuchulainn, 156, Fomors, 48, 70, 112; meaning of the
159, 160, 181. name, 48 gods of Domnu, 48, 70
;
;
De"
Danann, see Tuatha De" Danann. men of Domnu, 70.
Dee, river, 413. D6n, the British equivalent of the Gaelic
Deimne, the of Finn, 210.
first name Danu, 44, 252, 260, 268, 269, 273,
Deirdre, 190-200; Deirdre s Farewell to 2 95 38, 310, 316 euhemerized intc ;
Alba, 194-195; Deirdre s Lament over a king of Dublin, 372-373.

the Sons of Usnach, 199-200.
Donn, son of Mile", 126-131, 246.
Demetia, Roman province of, 273, 278. "Donn s House",
246.
Demetrius, an early traveller in Britain, Dormarth, the hound of son of
Gwyn
326. Nudd, 257.
"Demon of the changed into
air", Aeife"
Dowth, 137-138.
a, 145- Dragon, Red, of Britain, 378 ; White,
Derivla, a sacred well in the island of of the Saxons, 378.
Inniskea, 415. "Dragon-mouth", a lake called, 141.
Desmond, fourth Earl of, nicknamed Dream of Rhonabwy, the, 260, 312, 337,
"the
Magician", 245. 338.
"Destiny, laying a",
a Celtic custom, Drogheda, 137.
262-265, 34- Drowes, river, no.
Devon, 312, 392. Drudwyn, the whelp of Greid the son
Devwy, the dales of, 320. of Eri, 347.
Dialogue of the Elders, the, 205, 222, Druidism, the religion of the Celts, 35,
404; Dialogues of Patrick and Ossian, 43 ; possibly non-Aryan in origin, 36 ;
226-227. in Gaul, 34; derived from Britain, 35;

Diancecht, the Gaelic god of medicine, suppressed by the Romans, 399, 400.
61, 62, 78, 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 90, Druids, 18, 33-37, 84, in, 115, 151,
no, 141, 232, 269; makes a silver 179. 180, 182, 188, 202, 399-401, 411,
hand for Nuada, 78; kills his son 412, 417 origin of the name, 33 in
;
;
Miach, 81-82; presides over the Gaul, 34; in Britain, 35; human
"Spring of Health", no; prescrip sacrifices of the druids, 37, 412 the ;
tions of Diancecht, 232. druids of Brude, king of the Picts,

Diarmait O Duibhne, the Fenian Adonis, 401.
209, 212, 215-221, 315. Drumcain, an old name for Tara,
Dinadan, Sir, 328. 126.
Dinas Dinllev, 264. Dublin, 66, 372.
Dinas Emrys, 324, 381. Duke of the Britains, the, 313.
Dingwall, Registers of the Presbytery Dulachan, 247, 248.
of, 412. Dul-dauna, the, 237.
Dinnsenchus, 38, 40, 132, 154. Dun Cow, Book of the. See Cow.
Dio Cassius, 387. Dundalk, 177.
Diodorus Siculus, 41, 42, 325. Dundealgan, 177, 181, 188, 189.
Dionysus, rites of, 410. Dun Scaith, 175-176.
Dis Pater, 51, 120, 252, 383. Dux Britanniarum. See Duke of the
Dissull the Giant, 348-349. Britains.
Diwrnach the Gael, the cauldron of, Dwynwen, Saint, 388.
346, 349- Dyfan, Saint, 386.
Dobhar, king of Sicily, 96, 98, 102, 103. Dyfed, or Demetia, a province of South
Doctrine of the transmigration of souls, Wales, 273, 278, 279, 281, 282, 286,
36, 37- 298-301, 303, 304, 309, 310, 394.
Domnann, Fir, i.e. men of Domnu. Dylan, a British god, 261, 262, 322,
See Fir Domnann. 335. 36o, 364, 371.
Eagle, of Gwern Abwy, 350; Lieu Ere, king of Tara, 179, 182, 183.
changed into an, 266-268. Eremon, son of Mild, and first king of
Earl Gerald, 245. Ireland, 40, 129, 130, 131, 132, 146,
Easal, king of the Golden Pillars, 96, 153. 154-
103. Erin, 97, 98, 99, 102, 104, 126, 193, 225,
Eber, son of Mile", 129-131, 146, 153. 231; meaning of the word, 126.
Eber Scot, 120. Eriu, a goddess representing Ireland,
Eboracum, Roman name of York, 275. 125, 126, 128, 129.
Edeyrn, son of Nudd, 260. Eros, the Gaelic, 56, 140. See Angus.
Edinburgh, the Advocates Libraryat, n. Essyllt, wife of March, or Mark. See
Eel, the Morrfgu takes the shape of an, Iseult.
169 transformation of the

;
rival Etain, wife of Mider, 57, 139, 147-152,
swineherds into eels, 165. 154, 224, 331-333.
Egypt, 120. Etair, a vassal of King Conchobar, 147.
Eigen, the first female saint in Britain, Etal Ambuel, father of Caer, 141.
386. Etan, wife of Ogma, 62, 87, 239.
Eildon Hills, Arthur living beneath the, Ethnea, a name of Ethniu in modern
335- folklore, 238.
Elaine, 362. Ethniu, daughter of Balor, 62, 79, 84,
Elathan, a king of the Fomors, 49, 50, 90, 269, 371.
78, 83, 90, 116, 269. Ethnology in Folklore, Mr. G. L.
Elayne, 358. Gomme s, 35, 69, 412, 413, 414, 416.
Elberich, 392. Etirun, "an idol of the Britons", 294.
Elders, Dialogue of the. See Dialogue. Etive, Loch, 193.
Elen Lwyddawg, wife of Myrddin, 323, Etruscans, the, 20; Etruscan mythology
362. in modern Italian folklore, 403.
Eleutherius, Pope, 386. Ettard, 358.
Ellylion, the Welsh elves, 393. Ettarre, Pelleas and, Tennyson s idyll
Elton s Origins of English History, 6, of, 358.
8, 25, 26, 70, 228, 327, 413. Euhemerism of Gaelic gods, 227-230;
Elves, 393. of British gods, 372-389.
Elysium, Celtic. See Other World, Euskarian race, 19.
Celtic. Evelake, King, 359.
Emain Macha, the capital of ancient Evnissyen, son of Penardun, 290, 292,
Ulster, 28, 29, 158, 160, 161, 162, 293.
164, 173, 174, 179, 180, 183, 188, 192,
194, 196, 200, 201, 204. Failinis, the hound of the king cf
Emer, wife of Cuchulainn, 162, 164, Ioruaidh, 96, 97, 104.
177, 184-188. Fairie Queene, Spenser s, 7, 389.
Emer, the Wooing of, an old Irish saga, Fairies, the, 4, 137, 242-248, 389-393,
28, 29, 37, 184. 403, 404, 409, 418 ;
the old gods are
Emperor, a title given in Welsh legend remembered as 243-248,
"fairies",
to Arthur, 314, 338. 389-393; two varieties of fairy in folk

Emrys, a title of Myrddin, 324, 329, lore, 403; Irish and Welsh fairies
360, 369. identical in nature, 404 ; king of the

Englishmen, Celtic strain in, 3. Irish fairies, 136 king of the Welsh
;
"Entertaining of the Noble Head", fairies, 392; size of the fairies, 404;
the, 296. fairy money, 377 ; fairy food, 391 ;
Eochaid, son of Ere, king of the Fir the "fairy hills",135-139, 394-
Bolgs, 69, 73, 74, 75. Fal, the stone of. See Stone of Destiny.
Eochaid Airem, see Airem. "Falcon of May", 369; "Falcon of
Eochaid O Flynn, an Irish poet, 231. Summer", 369.
Index 433
254, 274, 314, 315; his upbringing
Falga, Isle of, 57, 175.
Falias, a city of the Tuatha D6 Danann, and boy-feats, 209-210; reorganizes
the Fenians, 211; is killed at the Ford
71, 72.
of Brea, 222; is reborn as Mongan,
Fand, wife of Mananndn son of Le*r,
186-188, 202.
an Ulster chief, 37; is he historical or
Faraday, Miss, her translation of

the mythical, 204; parallels between Finn
Tdin B6 Chuailgnt, 164. and Arthur, 314-315.
Fata Morgana, 395. Finn mac Gorman, compiler of the Book
Fate of the Children of Ler, 142-146; of Leinster, 10.
of the Sons of Tuirenn, 90-105 of ;

Finn the Seer, 210.
the Sons of Usnach, 190-200. Finola, daughter of L6r, 143.
Fea, a war-goddess, wife of Nuada, 52. Finvarra, king of the Irish fairies, 243,
"Feast of Age",
Manannan s, 61, 98, 244, 405.
Fiona Macleod, Miss, 241.
143-
Feast of Lugh, see Lugnassad. Fionn, see Finn.
Feast of St. John, 409. Fionnbharr, the sidh of Meadha assigned
Fee s Pool, on the Boyne, 210. to, 136; his appearance in the Fenian
Fedlimid, vassal to King Conchobar, sagas, 212; becomes fairy king of

Ireland, 243.
190.
n, Fir Bolgs, an Iberian tribe, 68-70, 72-
Fenians, the, 17, 155, aoi, 203-209,
211-215, 217-219, 220-223, 225, 226, 78, 114, 125, 229, 230, 407.
314, 315 real or mythical, 203-205

;
;
Fir Domnann, an Iberian tribe, 68-70,
origin of, 206; duties of, 206; accom 76, 172.
of, 207; chief heroes of,

Fir Gaillion, an Iberian tribe, 68-70, 76.
plishments
207-209 destruction of, at the battle
;
Fish, sacred, 416.
of Gabhra, 222 stories of, 209-226
;
; Fly, Etain changed into a, 147 Lugh ;
the Fenian sagas possibly non-Aryan, takes the form of a, 159; a sacred, 416.
Folklore, Ethnology in. See Ethnology.
70.
Fenius Farsa, 120. Folk-tales, Irish, 233-240; Welsh, 371.
Ferdiad, a warrior slain by Cuchulainn, Fomors, Gaelic deities of Death, Dark

172, 173, 184. ness, and the Sea, n, 48-50, 67, 70,
86, 88, 98, 107-117,
Fergus, son of Finn, 208. 76, 83, 89, 90,
Fergus, son of Roy, an Ulster hero, 14, 120, 122, 157, 205, 225, 229, 230, 252,
269, 274, 327, 406; meaning
of the
166, 167, 170, 171, 175, 192-196, 198,
200. name, 48 their war with the Tuatha
;
Fergusson, Dr. James, 76, 114, 137, 138.

D6 Danann, 107-117; are the Loch-
Celtic solar or agricultural, lannach in the Fenian sagas, 205.
Festivals,
405-412. Forgall the Wily, father of Emer, 162,
Ffordd Elen, 324. 163 164, 184.
Fiacha, son of Conchobar, 197, 198. Fotla, a goddess representing Ireland,
125; an ancient name of Ireland,
126.
Fiachadh, king of Ireland, 206.
Fiachra, son of Ler, 143. "Four Ancient Books of Wales", the,
Fianchuive", submarine island of, 97, 104. ii, 15. See also Skene.
Fianna Eirinn, see Fenians. "Four Branches of the Mabinogi", the,
Figol, son of Mamos, druid of the 14, 15, 251, 278, 289, 312, 355.
Tuatha D6 Danann, 90. "Four-cornered castle", the, 366.
Findabair, daughter of Medb, 168. Frazer s Golden Bough, 33.
Findias, a city of the Tuatha De* Danann,

"
Frivolous Battles of Britain, The

71, 72. Three", 334.
Finn mac Coul (Cumhail), 4, n, 16, 37, Frogs, sacred, 416.
Fury, Great, and Little Fury,
two
146, 155, 201, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208
209, 2IO-2I8, 220-222, 224, 226, 246
swords of Manannan, 60, 217.
( B 219 )
Gabhra, battle of, 222, 223, 225, 315. as a character in folk-tale, 232-
q.v. ;
Gabius, a Roman consul, 385. 240. See Gavida and Gavidjeen Go.
Gabriel Hounds, the, 392. Goidel, a mythical ancestor of the Irish,
Gae bolg, Cuchulainn s spear, 170, 173, 120.
178. Goidels, the, 21, 22, 23, 24, 35.
Gaels, 68, 69, 70, 71, 76, 93, 108, 119, Golden bough, the mistletoe the, 33.
124, 149, 183, 203, 204, 230, 357. Golden Pillars, king of the. See Easal.
Gaiar, son of Manannan, 202. Goll, 209, 211, 222.
Gaillion, Fir. See Fir Gaillion. Gomme, Mr. G. L., 20, 35, 69, 412,
Galahad, Sir, 362, 368, 369. 413, 414, 416.
Galan-mai, Welsh spring festival, 408. Gonorilla, daughter of Leir, 381, 382.
Gan Ceanach, 247. Gore, 357. See Gower.
Garden of the Hesperides, the, 95, 98, Goreu, Arthur s cousin, 317, 338.
99- Gorias, a city of the Tuatha D6 Danarm,
Gargantua, Rabelais 386. ,
7i. 72, 97-
Gast Rhymri s cubs, 347, 349. Govannan son of D6n, British god of
Gaul, 22, 274, 276, 383, 384, 385. Smithcraft, 261, 313, 316, 345; kills
Gauls, the, 22, 23, 119, 230. hisnephew Dylan, 261 assists ;
Gavida, 238, 239. Kulhwch, 345.

Gavidjeen Go, 235. Gower regarded as part of the other
Gawain, Sir, 360, 363, 364, 369, 375. world, 272, 356, 357, 373.
Geasa, taboos among the Irish Celts, 177, Grail, the Holy, 2, 7, 273, 357-359- 365-
195, 216. 37-
Genii locorum, 43. Grainne, 209, 215-221, 315.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 9, 121, 251, Graves of the Warriors, the Verses of
254, 259, 276, 323, 324, 330, 336, 372, the, 272, 311, 334.
373-376, 381, 384- Gray of Macha, Cuchulainn s horse, 174,
George s Hill, Saint, 29. 181, 182, 183.
Geraint, 312, 387. Greece, i, 20, 68, 99, 100, 101, 155.
Gildas, a British writer, 400. Greek mythology, ancient, i, 2, 4;
Glamour, the Realm of", an old name
"
modern, 403.
for Dyfed, 279. "Green Meadows of Enchantment",
Glamour put on Cuchulainn by Cath- the, 394.
bad, 178; by the daughters of Calatin, Gregory, Lady, 159, 201.
179, 180; put on the sons of Usnach, Greid, the son of Eri, 347, 350.
198 ;
on Arianrod, 264, 265 ;
on Gresholm Island, 294, 356, 394.
Dyfed, 298. Grianainech, the "sunny-faced", an
Glass Castle, of the Fomors, 67; a epithet of Ogma, 59.
synonym for the other world, 320, Grianan Aileach, grave of Nuada at.
367- See Aileach.
Glastonbury, 260, 329. Gronw Pebyr, 265, 266, 268.
Glastonbury Tor, 272, 390. Guanius, Gwyn as a mythical king of
Glenn Faisi, 130. the Huns, 375.
Glora, Isle of, 144, 145, 146. Guest, Lady Charlotte, 253, 255, 268,
Glyn Cuch, 279, 281. 278, 289, 295, 298, 308, 317, 337, 339,
Gobhan Saer, the, 232, 235, 240. 34. 348, 350. 3 6 9. 377-
Goibniu, Gaelic god of smithcraft, 61, Guinevere, Arthur s queen, 315, 334,
84, 86, 98, 109, no, 141, 231, 23*, 357, 359. 3 6 5. 375. 4O7-
2 38, 239, 261, 371 ; forges the weapons Gunvasius, king of the Orkneys, 376.
of the Tuatha Danann,
De"
61, 109 ; Gurgiunt Brabtruc, king of Britain, 385.
kills Ruadan, no; his ale, 61 ;
sur Guyon, Sir, in Spenser s Fairie Quetne,
vives in tradition as the Gobhan Saer, 7, 389-
Index 435
Gwalchaved, 369. Gwynhwyvar, 315, 226, 331-333, 334,
Gwalchmei, 323, 330, 334, 335, 338, 343, 364. See Guinevere.
360, 364, 368, 369, 375. Gwynn Mygddwn, the horse of Gweddw,
Gwales, island of, 294, 296, 356. 347-
Gwarthegyd, son of Kaw, 337. Gwynwas, a form of the name Gwyn,
Gwawl, son of Cltid, Pwyll s rival for ?-. 332, 359-
Rhiannon, 284, 285, 303, 362, 380. Gwyrd Gwent, father of one of the three
Gweddw, owner of a magic horse, 347. Gwynhwyvars, 331.
Gweir, a form of the name Gwydion, Gwyrthur, son of Greidawl, contends
g.v., 319, 321, 322. with Gwyn for Creudylad, 258, 259,
Gwenbaus, Sir, 359. 348, 407; father of one of the three
Gwern, son of Matholwch and Branwen, Gwynhwyvars, 331.
291, 292, 293.
Gwinas, Sir, 359. Hacket, Castle, 244.
Gwlgawd Gododin, the drinking-horn Hades, the Celtic. See Other World,
of, 346. Celtic.
Gwragedd Annwn, 393. Hades, the Greek god, 152, 260.

Gwrhyr, a companion of Arthur, 343, "Hades, Head a name given to
of",
349. 350. 35 1 -
Pwyll, 278, 282.
Gwri of the Golden Hair, 287. Hallowe en, 40, 153, 407, 410.
Gwrnach the Giant, 346, 348. Hamitic languages, 19.
Gwyar, wife of Lludd,
"
323, 338, 369. Happy Plain", the, 133, 135, 186. See
Gwyddneu Garanhir, his dialogue with Mag Mell.
Gwyn, 255-258; his magic basket, 346. Hare held sacred by the Ancient Britons,
Gwyddolwyn Gorr, the magic bottles of, 417.
346. Harlech, 289, 294, 295, 296.
Gwydion son of D6n, the British Mer Harp of the Dagda, 54, 346; of Angus,
cury, 260-268, 305, 306, 308-311, 316, 56; of Teirtu, 346.
317, 322, 327, 330, 335, 358, 360, 364, Havgan, a king of Annwn, 279, 281.
371, 372, 373, 377; druid of the gods, Hawthorn, chief of Giants, father of
260; father of the sun-god, 261; fights Olwen, 340, 341, 343-345. 349. 353-
the Battle of the Trees", 306; is the Heifer, a black-maned, called
"
"
Ocean",
British equivalent of the Teutonic 80, 117, 240; the Morrfgu takes the
Woden, 260; his place taken in later shape of a, 169-170.
myth by Arthur, 316. Hengist, 325.
Gwyl Awst the Welsh August
t festival, Henuinus, Duke of Cornwall, 382, 383.
409. Hephaestus, the Gaelic, 61, 63, 233.
Gwyllion, 393. Heracles, 158, 276.
Gwyn son of Nudd, British god of the Here", 263.
Other World, 254-259, 272, 313,
7, Hereford, 299.
315. 329. 33 2 348, 359. 3 6 5. 371, 372,
. Hergest, the Red Book of, n, 258, 260,
376, 389-393, 405, 407; attributes of, 312, 328, 336, 369.
255; his dialogue with Gwyddneu Herimon, 40. See Eremon.
Garanhir, 255-258; contends with "Hero-light", Cuchulainn s, 177, 183.
Gwyn for Lludd s daughter Creudylad, "Hero s salmon-leap", Cuchulainn s,
259; is made warder of Hades, 254- 163.

255; prominent in the Arthur legend, Hesiod, 65.
359; becomes king of the Welsh Hesperides, garden of the. See Garden.
fairies, 392; his interview with Saint Hesus, a Gaulish god, 52.
Collen, 389-391. Hevydd the Ancient, father of Rhiannon,
Gwynas, Sir, 359. 283, 285.
Gwyngelli, a companion of Arthur, 352. Hi Dorchaide, 70.
(B219)
Hibbert Lectures (for 1886) on Celtic Inniskea, the Lonely Crane of, 146;
Heathendom, Professor Rhys s, 41, 43, stone worship in, 415.
48, 51. 54. 57, 59. 90, 120, 205, 238, Invasions, the Book of, 121.
253, 254, 258, 262, 264, 268, 271, 277, loldanach, the Master of All "
Arts", a
282, 284, 307, 313, 318, 324, 325, 331, of Lugh, 63, 85, 237, 239.
title
377. 408. lolo Morganwg, bardic name of Mr.

Hill of Uisnech, 69, 324. Edward Williams, 37 z.
Historia Britonum of Nennius, 9, 336; lolo MSS., the, 269, 270, 372, 373, 387,
of Geoffrey of Monmouth, 9, 251, 323, 388, 389-
324. 336, 372, 373. 374. 375. 376, 381, lona, Adamnan, Abbot of, 401.
384, 386. loruaidhe, 96, 97, 104.

Hittites, the, 20. Ireland, old names of, 125, 126, 150,
Holy Families of Britain, the Three See also Iweridd.
Chief, 386. Iseult, wife of King Mark, 327, 338,
Holy Grail, the. See Grail. Island, submarine, 97, 104.
Holy wells, 414-415.

"
Island of the Mighty", a bardic nam*

Homeric and Celtic civilization com for Britain, 292.
pared, 25, 29. Islands, sacred, 326.

Hoodie-crow, 52, 53, 169, 271. Ith, 121, 122; Ith s Plain, 66, 122.
Horse of Manannan mac Lir, 60, 88, luchar, son of Tuirenn, 90-106.
98; of Gweddw, 347; of Gwyn son of lucharba, son of Tuirenn, 90-106.
Nudd, 255, 256, 348. Iweridd, i.e. "Ireland", wife of the
"Hound of Culann", the, 161, 166; British sea-god Llyr, 258, 270, 271.
hound of Lugh, 63; of the king of
loruaidhe 104; hounds of Finn mac
,
Janus, 383.
Coul, 213; hounds of Celtic myth, Javelin, Red, one of Mananndn s spears,
225, 280, 391, 392. 60, 217.
Hull, Mis Eleanor, her Cuchullin Saga, John, Feast of Saint, 245, 407, 411.
155, 156, 159, 184, 190, 199, 227. Jones, the Rev. Edward, on apparitions,
Human sacrifices of the Druids, 37, 38; 391-
to Cromm Cruaich, 38, 39, 40, 400; Joseph of Arimathea, 358, 359, 366.
symbolical, 405, 410, 411. Jubainville, M. H. d Arbois de, 25, 34,
Huon of Bordeaux, Sir, 7. 37, 48, 54, 67, 68, 72, 77, 78, 107,
Huxley, Professor, 19. 120, 124, 128, 132, 158, 188, 202.
Hy-Breasail, 133. Judgment of Amergin, the, 127.
Julius Caesar, see Caesar.
Iberians, the, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 35, 68,
69. 70, 76, 230, 248, 278; their Kacmwri, the servant of Arthur, 352,
physique, 19; language, 19; original 353-
home, 19; state of culture, 20; gods, Kaerlud, 376.
43, 44, 64. Kai, 326, 327, 338, 343, 348, 349, 350,
Iddawc, the Agitator of Britain, 337, 351.
338. Karitia, see Calais.
Ilbhreach, son of Manannan, 136, 140, Kay, Sir, 6, 326.
211, 222.
"
Keening" invented, no.

Iliad, the, 75, 156. Kelli Wic, 334.
Illann the Fair, son of Fergus mac Roy, Keltic Researches, Mr. Nicholson s, 3.
193, 196-198. Kenmare, river, 121.

"Illusion, the Land of", an old name Kicva, wife of Pryderi, 289-301.
for Dyfed, 279. Kildare, shrine of St. Bridget at, 22&
Indech, son of Domnu, a king of the Killaraus, Mount, 324.
Fomors, 48, 70, 83, 90, 108, 112. Killarney, Lake, 223, 247.
Index 437
see Caer Rigor. his rebellion against Bodb the Red,
"
Kingly Castle",
Kirwans of Castle Racket, the, 244. 140; their reconciliation, 142; the
Knights, King Arthur s, 6, 7, 8, 155, fate of the children of, 142-146; is
251, 274, 358, 371. killed by the Fenian hero Caoilte", 146,
Knockainy, 245. 222.
Knockers, 393, 403. Levarcham, 196.
Knockma, fairy hill of, 136, 243, 244. Ley den, 277.
Knockthierna, 247. Lia Fdil, see Stone of Destiny.
Knowth, 137, 138. Liban, 186, 202.
Kulhwch, 340, 341, 343, 344, 345, 347, Lismore, the Book of, 10.
353- Lla Lluanys, the Manx August festival,

Kulhwch and Olwen, the tale of, 258, 409.
259, 260, 313, 321, 327, 339, 340-353. Llacheu, son of Arthur, 258, 326.
369, 407. Llandwynwyn, the church of Dwynwyn
Kyndellig, 343. (Branwen), in Anglesey, 388.
Kynedyr Wyllt, 348, 352. Lleminawg, 319.
Lieu (Llew) Llaw Gyffes, the British
Labhra, Mider s leech, 213. sun-god, 261-268, 276, 305, 306, 322,
Labraid of the Quick Hand on Sword, 323- 325. 33, 33S. 36o, 364, 369. 37o:
202. his birth, 261 ;
and naming, 263 ;
Lady of the Lake, 361. takes part in the Battle of the Trees,
Laeg, Cuchulainn
"
s charioteer, 169, 181, 306; is changed into an eagle, 266;
182, 186. his place taken in myth by later
Laegaire the Battle-winner, 163. Gwalchmei, 323 and in the Arthurian

;
Lakes, twelve chief, of Ireland, 88. legend by Sir Gawain, 360.

Lamias, 403. Llevelys, king of France, 378.
Lammas, 407. Lloegyr (Loegria), Saxon Britain, 258,
Land of Illusion, 279; of Happiness, 299. 300, 384-
119, 133; of the Living, 133, 335; of Lludd Llaw Ereint, the British Zeus, 252,
Promise, 133, 217, 337; of Summer, 253, 254, 259, 312, 315, 323, 329, 332,
119, 329; of the Young, 133, 225. 350, 3S9. 364. 375-38i, 407 his wife 1
Laon, 277. Gwyar, 323; puts an end to the

Larminie, Mr. William, 233. "Three Plagues of Britain", 377-
Launcelot, Sir, 7, 328, 333, 358, 359, 380; founds London, 376; appears in
362, 365. the Morte Darthur as King Lot of
Lear, King, Shakespeare s, 5, 7, 259, Orkney, 359.
270, 381. Llwyd, son of Kilcoed, avenges Gwawl,
Lecan, the Book of, 10, 38, 123, 229; son of Clud, 303, 304.
the Yellow Book of, 10, 164. Llwyr, son of Llwyrion, the magic
Leicester, 270, 383. vessel of, 346.
Leinster, 179, 189. Llyn Llyw, the salmon of, 350.
Leinster, Mount, 140, 211, 212. Llyr, the British sea-god, 252, 259, 269,
Leinster, the Book of, 10, 38, 55, 56, 270, 271, 273, 289, 290, 304, 313, 316,
121, 132, 139, 155, 156, 157, 190, 199, 338, 381, 383, 386; possibly borrowed
204, 229. from the Gaels, 270; becomes the
Leir, Geoffrey of Monmouth s King, "King Leir" of Geoffrey of Mon-
381-383- mouth, 381; and the "King Lear"
Leodogrance, father of Guinevere, of Shakespeare, 270, 381 founds a ;
357- family of saints, 386 his tomb or ;
Leprechaun, 247, 248, 393, 403. temple at Leicester, 383.

Lr, the Gaelic sea- god, 60, 140, 142- Llyr-cestre, 270, 283.
T44, 146, 205, 211, 212, 222, 252, 269; Llys Ddrt, 252, 317.
LJywarch Hen, a sixth -century British Mabon, a British sun-god. 276, 338, 330,
poet, ii. 335. 338, 347, 349-352, 387-

Loch, a warrior slain by Cuchulainn, Macaulay, 22.
169-170. Mac Cecht, a king of the Tuatha De"
Lochlann (Lochlin), 97, 205, 372; Loch- Oanann, 122, 125, 126, 130.
lannoch, the, 205, 211. Mac Cuill, a king of the Tuatha De*
London, 294, 296, 376, 377. Danann, 122, 125, 126, 130.
Londres, 376. Mac Gee, Thomas D Arcy, 232.
Lot or Loth, king of Orkney, 359, 364, Mac a king of the Tuatha
Creine", De"
375- Danann, 122, 125, 126, 130.

Loucetius, a war-god worshipped in Mac Kineely, 238-239.
Britain, 275. Mac Moineanta, a king of the Irish
Lovgk Corrib, its Shores and Islands, fairies, 242.

Sir William Wflde s, 76. Mac Nia, an old Irish poet, 138.
Lough Gur, 246. Mac Oc, Son of the Young a
"
",
title of
Lucan, the Roman poet, 52. Angus, 56, 139.

Luchtaing, the carpenter of the Tuatha Mac Pherson s Ossian, 203.
D Danann, 61, 84, 86, 109. Mac Samthainn, 238.
Lud, king of Britain, 5, 7, 376-381. Macha, a war-goddess of the Gaels, 52,
Ludesgata, Ludgate, 5, 254, 376. 72, 112; meaning of her name, 52;
Lugaid, son of Curoi, 179, 182, 183.
"
Macha s acorn-crop", 53; is killed
Lugh Lamhfada, the Gaelic sun-god, by Balor, 112.
62-63, 84-90, 93-97, 103, 105, 106, Macleod, Miss Fiona, 241.
111-113, 115-117, 136, 139, 156, 157, Maelmuiri, scribe of the Book of the
160, 170, 201, 230, 233, 238-240, 262, Dun Cow, 10.
76, 325. 339. 344, 345- 37. 37* his ; Maelon, 388.
spear, 63, 71, 97; his hound, 63, 97; Maenor Alun, 310; Maenor Penartr
his rod-sling and chain, 62; his first 310.
appearance at Tara, 84; gains the Maen Tyriawc, the grave of Pryderi, 311.
title of loldanach, 85; avenges his Maglaunus, Duke of Albania, 382, 383.
Mag Mell, the Happy Plain a name
"
father smurder upon the sons of ",
Tuirenn, 94-106; leads the Tuatha for the Celtic Elysium, 133, 135.
Danann Mag the
"
Plain of a
De"
against the Fomors, in; A/on, Sports",
prophecies to Conn the Hundred name for the Celtic Elysium, 134.
Fighter, 201. Mag Slecht, human sacrifices at, 38-40,
Lvgnassad, "Lugh s Commemoration", i3 2 . 154-

277.409- Mag Tuireadh, see Moytura.
Lugudunum, "town of Lugus", 177. Magog, 229.
409. Malory, Sir Thomas, 323, 328, 330, 333,
Lugus, the Gaulish sun-god, 42, 276, 354-357, 359-364, 367, 368-
409. Malvasius, king of Iceland, 376.
Lundy Island, 272, 322. Man, Isle of, 23, 24, 57, 60, 175, 241,
Lydney, temple of Nodens at, 254; 261, 272, 273, 408, 409.
monograph upon it, 254. Manannan son of Ler, a Gaelic god,
Lyons, 277, 409. 60-61, 89, 98, 129, 134, 136, 140, 143,
157, 186, 188, 199, 202, 203, 205, 217,
Mab, Queen, 246. 224, 233, 235-237, 239, 240-242, 270,
Mabinogi, the Four Branches of the, 371, 405; his armour, 60, 88; weapons,
14. i& 355- 60, 217; horse, 60, 89, 98; mantle, 61,
Mabinogion, 12, 14, 16, 356, 372, 377, 199, 188, 217, 221; pigs, 61, 98; his
61, 143; lord of the
"
403, 407. See also Guest, Lady Feast of Age",
Charlotte. Celtic Paradise, 134 ; his wife Fand In

Index 439
love with Cuchulainn, 186-188; his Mdwas, 329, 332, 359, 365, 407.
friendship with Connac, king of Ire Menai Straits, the, 262, 264.
land, 203 his message to Saint Col-
; Menw, 343, 344, 351.
umba, 240-241 ; his connection with Mercurius Artaius, a Gallo-Roman god,
the Isle of Man, 60, 241-242. 274. 3I3-
Manawyddan son of Llyr, his British Mercury, 274, 313.
analogue, 270, 271, 273, 289, 290, 293, Merlin, 324, 325, 339, 360, 361, 364.
294, 296, 298-304, 313, 315, 317, 321, See Myrddin.
338, 352, 373; his attributes, 270-271; Mesgegra, king of Leinster, 147, 154.
accompanies Bran to Ireland, 289- Meyer, Dr. Kuno, 38, 134, 154, 184.
294; marries Rhiannon, 298 defeats ; 190.
the magic of Llwyd, son of Kilcoed, Miach, son of Diancecht, 62, 80-82, 232.
301-304; constructs the bone-prison Midas, the British, 328.
of Oeth and Anoeth, 270; helps Arthur Mider, Gaelic god of the Under World,
in the chase of Twrch Trwyth, 352, 56, 57, 117, 136, 140, 142, 147-151,
Maponos, a Gallo-British sun-god, 276, 154, 157. 175. 179. 205. 211-213, 224,
328- 243, 331-333; rebels against Bodb
March, a British god of the Under the Red, 140 ; gambles with Eochaid
World, 316, 327, 329, 335, 338. Airem for possession of Etain, 149;
Mark, King, 327, 328. is besieged in his stdJi, and helped by
Mars, 51, 204. the Fenians, 211-213.

Master of All Arts see loldanack.
", Midsummer Day, 75, 406, 407.
Math, a British god, brother to Don, Midsummer Eve, 242.
260, 265, 266, 268, 308, 310, 322, 329, Mile, die ancestor of the Gaels, 122,
360, 361, 364 meaning of his name,
;
123, 126, 129, 130, 132, 146, 153.
260 ; teaches magic to Gwydion, 260 ; Milesians, the, 76, 125-127, 129, 145,
rules from Caer Dathyl, 308; com 153, 229, 230, 243.
pared with Merlin, 360, 361, 362.
"
Milky Way", the, 62, 253, 208.

Mathohvch, long of Ireland, 289-293. Minerva, 275, 277, 413.
Mathonwy, father of Math, 260, 308. Minos, 153.
Matiere de Brctagnc, the, 363, 365. Miodhchaoin, 97, 105, 106.
Matthew Arnold, 3, 16, 356. Mistletoe, 18, 33.
May Day, 123, 259, 287, 407. Mithras, a Persian sun-god worshipped
May Eve, 377, 407. at York, 275.
Maypole, 408. Mochdrev, 310.

Meadha, the sidh of, 136, 212, 243. Mochnant, 310.
Meath, 179. Modron, wife of Urien and mother of
Medb, queen of Connaught, 147, 154, Mabon, 328, 338.
164-168, 170, 171, 172, 175, 178, 179, Mona, see Anglesey.
183, 200, 246; makes war on Ulster Mongan, an Ulster prince, a reincar
to get the Brown Bull of Cualgne, nation of Finn mac Coul, 37.
165-166; becomes a fairy queen, 246; Monmouth, Geoffrey of. See Geoffrey.
is perhaps the original of "Queen More, son of Dela, a king of the
Mab", 246. Fomors, 67, 327.
Mediterranean race, 19 ; Mediterranean Mordred, Sir, 315, 334, 360, 364, 374,
Race, The, Prof. Sergi s, 20, 375-
Medrawt, 315, 323, 332, 333, 334, 337, Morgawse, sister to Arthur, 323.
360, 364- Morrigu, the, Gaelic goddess of war,

M f1fiHif. or Mrfiac. de Lile, Sir, 359. 52, 53- 72, 87, 98, 107, 113. "7, 139.
Melga, king of the Picts, 375. 157, 168-170, 323; description of, 52;
Meliagaunce, or Meliagraunce, Sir, 359, her dealings with Cuchulainn OB the
365- 407. Tain Bo Chuailgne, 168- 170.
Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory s, Nemon, a Gaelic war-goddess, wife of
7, 272, 276, 323, 328, 334, 354, 362, Nuada, 52, 276.
364-368, 372, 407. Nennius, his History of the Britons, 9, 336.
Mound, Lord of the",
"
41, 403. Nentres, King, 357, 362.

Mountains of Ireland, the twelve chief, Nereids, 403.
87. Net, an Iberian god, 64.
Mourie, "Saint", 413. New Grange, 137-139.
Mouse, Manawyddan and the, 301-304. Nia, the Plain of, 73.
Moyle, Sea of, 144, 145. Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of
Moytura, Northern, Battle of, n, 107- Manannan, 223-225.
7 *57i 47i Southern, Battle of, Nicholson s Keltic Researches, 3.
72-77, 114. Niebelungenlied, 393.

Muirthemne, 90, 93, 166, 181. Nimue, 358, 361, 362.
Munster, 69, 164, 218, 244, 245. Nissyen, son of Penardun, 290, 293.
Murias, a city of the Tuatha D6 Danann, Niul, 120.
71, 72. Noah, descent of the Gaelic gods and
Mur y Castell, Lleu s palace near Bala men from, 329.
Lake, 265, 268. Nodens, a temple to, at Lydney, 253.
Myrddin, a British Zeus, 323-325, 329, Northern Crown", constellation of
"
360, 362, 369; gave its first name to the, 252.

Britain, 323; his wife Elen, 323; his Nos galan-gaeof, the Welsh winter
town Carmarthen, 324; appears in festival, 408.
Monmouth and in the
Geoffrey of Nuada of the Silver Hand, a Gaelic
Morte Darthur as Merlin, q.v. Zeus, 51, 52, 74, 75, 78, 80, 81, 83-86,
Myrddin, a sixth-century British bard, 93, 94, 105, 122, 157, 230, 253, 276,
ii. 323; his sword, 51, 71; his wives, 52;
Mythology, importance of, i; Greek, i, his hand cut off in battle, 75; a silver
2, 4,403; Scandinavian, 3; Celtic, its hand made for him by Diancecht, 78;
influence on English literature, 6, 7; his own hand renewed by Miach and
on mediaeval chivalric romance, 184. Airmid, 81; his death at the hands
of Balor, 112; his tomb at Grianan
Name, ancient British superstitions with Aileach, 122, 157.
regard to, 263. Nudd, British god, 252, 253, 254, 313;
Names, Choice of, The. See Coir An- to be identified with Lludd, q.v.
mann. Nutt, Mr. Alfred, 12, 37, 38, 134, 154,
Names, early of Britain, 292, 323 ;
of 158, 164, 318, 348.
Ireland, 126, 150, 151. Nwyvre, 322, 364.
Nant Call, 310. Nynniaw, son of Beli, 268, 269, 313.
Nant y Llew, 267.
Naoise, son of Usnach, 191-193, 195-198. Oak, held sacred by the Druids, 33.
Narberth, 279, 281, 282, 283, 288, 298, Oberon, 7, 392.
Ocean", a black-maned heifer
"
300. called,
Navan Fort, 158. 80, 240.
Neamhuainn, Clann, 216, 218. Ochall Ochne, king of the Sfdhe of Con-
Neath, Vale of, 255, 335, 392. naught, 164.
Nedd, river, 405. Ochren, battle of, 305; Caer, 320, see
Neevougi, a stone worshipped at Innis- Achren.
kea, 415. Octriallach, son of Indech, no; the
Nemed, 67-69, 274; the race of, 229, "Cairn of Octriallach", no.
230, 3 27, 406. O Curry, Eugene, 37, 56, 63, 72, 78, 89,
Nemetona, a war-goddess worshipped 93, in, 113, 137, 138, 146, 151, 152,
at Bath, 275, 276. 155, 188, 201, 204.
Index 441
Odin, 260. lainn, 175-176, 186; Conn, 201; Conn
O Donaghue, the, 247. la, 202, Ossian, 224; Pwyll, 281 ; Gwyd-
O Donovan, 238. ion, 305 ; Arthur, 317-320. See also
Oeth and Anoeth, the Bone-prison of, Annwn, Avilion, Happy Plain, Mag
270, 271, 317, 373. Mell, Mag Mon, Land of Happiness,
O Flynn, Eochaid, an old Irish poet, of the Living, of Promise, of Summer,
231. of the Young.
Ogam, writings in, 58, 93, 151, 189. Ousel of Cilgwri, 349.
Ogma, Gaelic god of Literature and Ovid s Metamorphoses, 393.
Eloquence, 57-60, 79, 80, 82, 84, 85* Owain, son of Urien, 328, 330; Sir
112, 116, 117, 122, 136, 139, 157, 276; Owain, 363.
his wifeand children, 57; his epithets Owl, of Cwm Cawlwyd, 349 Blodeu- ;
and wedd changed

" "
of Cermait "
Grianainech ,
57, into an, 268.
59; his great strength, 59; kills Indech Ox, the brindled, 320, 321; oxen, magic,
in the battle of Moytura, 112; inven 345-
tor of the ogam alphabet, 58. Oxford, 379.
Ogmios, a Gaulish god, 276.
O Grady, Standish Hayes, Mr., 28, 159, Paradise, the Celtic. See Other World,
201, 203, 205, 207, 213, 215, 222. Celtic.
Ogyrvran, a British god of the Under Parthludd, 254, 376.

World, father of Gwynhwyvar, 329- Partholon, 65-68, 386; race of, 229, 230,
33L 357, 366. 406.
O Herlebys, wooden idol of the, 413. Patrick, Saint, 8, 40, 41, 132, 145, 222,
Old Plain, the, 66. 225, 226, 227, 242, 401, 402.
Old Sarum, 29, 386. Paul s Cathedral, Saint, 254.
Olwen, 340, 341, 343, 345, 353. Pausanias s Description of Greece, 36.
Onagh, queen of the Irish fairies, 243, Pedigree of the gods, 229 of Finn mac ;
244. Coul, 204.

Origins of English History, Mr. Elton s, Pedryvan, Caer, 319, 356, 367.
6, 8, 25, 26, 70, 228, 327, 413. Peel Castle, 242.
Orkneys, 386; King Lot of Orkney, 359. Peibaw, son of Beli, 268, 269, 313.
Oscar, son of Ossian, 208, 212, 217, 222, Pelasgoi, 20.
246, 315- Peleur, King, 368.
Osla Big-Knife, 352, 353. Pellam, King, 358, 364.
Ossian, MacPherson s, 203. Pelican, King, 358.
Ossian, son of Finn mac Coul, n, 208, Pelleas, Sir, 358, 368; Pelhas and
212, 214, 215, 217, 220, 223-227, 246, Ettarre, Tennyson s Idyll of, 358.
3i8, 337. Pelles,King, 357, 362, 367.

"Ossianic ballads", 205, 208, 213; Ossi- King, 362.
Pellinore,
anic Society, see Transactions. Pembroke, County Guardian, the, 394.
Other World, the Celtic, 65, 68, 71, 98, Pembrokeshire, 273, 278, 394.
119, 121, 133-136, 150, 151, 175, 176, Pen Annwn, the "
Head of Hades", a
201, 202, 203, 224, 252, 255, 270, 271, of Pwyll, 278, 282.
title
272, 273, 278, 279, 281, 305, 307, 316, Penardun, daughter of Beli and wife of
317, 318-322, 329, 334, 336, 366, 387, Llyr, 269, 270, 289, 290, 293.
389, 395; different names of, 133, 318- Pendaran Dyfed, 288, 295.
320; descriptions of, 136, 150-151, Pendragon, meaning of the word, 330.
224; variously imagined as upon the Pennant, 409.
sea, 202, 224, 272, 394; under the sea, Percivale, Sir, 359, 363, 368, 369.
305; under the earth, 135-136; upon Peredur, 330, 368, 369.
earth, 271, 272, 273, 278, 279; original Perilous glens, the, 163.
abode of men, 119; visited by Cuchu- Persephone^ the British, 259, 260.
Persia, 274; Pisear, king of, 96, 97, 101- Pwccas, 393.
103. Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed and "Head of
Petrie, Dr., 72, 98, 114. Annwn ", 273, 274, 278-288, 298, 303,
Picts, 23, 230, 401, 417. 304- 305. 3 8 3i6, 319, 329, 357-358,
Pigs, in the Celtic Other World, 136; 366, 367, 380; changes shapes with
of Manannan, 61, 63; of Easal, king Arawn, king of Annwn, 281 his ;
of the Golden Pillars, 96, 97, 103 of ; wooing of Rhiannon, 282-286 is ;
Pryderi, 308, 316, 327; of March, 316, owner of a magic cauldron in Hades
327; of Angus, 214; Cian changed 321 and keeper of the Holy Grail in
;
into a pig, 91. the Morte Darthur, 357-358.

Pigskin of King Tuis, the, 96, 99, 100. Pwynt Maen Dulan, 262.
Pillars, king of the Golden. See Easal.
Pisear, king of Persia, 96, 97, 101-103. Queen Guinevere, 315, 334, 357, 359,
Pixies, 393. 3 6 S. 375. 407.
Plain of 111 Luck, 163 of the Sea, 72
; ; "Queen Mab", 246.
of Adoration, 38; the Old, 66. Queen of the Irish fairies, 243, 244; of
Pliny, 33, 35, 400. the fairies of Munster, 244; of the
Plutarch, 326. fairies of North Munster, 244 ;
of the-
Pluto, the Gaelic, 57; the Cambrian, fairies of South Munster, 244.
260. Queene, The Fairie, Spenser s, ?
Poetry, the Gaelic goddess of, 56; Quicken-tree, the magic, 219.
cauldron of inspiration and, 365-370.
Policy of the Christian Church towards Races of Britain, the, 19-21.
objects of pagan worship, 417. Rathconrath, 69.
Pookas, 247, 248, 393, 403, 405. Realm of Glamour,
"
The", a name for

Porsenna, a Roman consul, 385. Dyfed, 279.
Poseidon, 52, 260; the Gaelic, 60; the Re-birth of Cuchulainn, 37; of Finn
British, 269. mac Coul, 37.
Posidonius, 26. Red Book of Hergest, see Hergest.
Prophecy of Badb, 117-118; of Eriu, Red Branch Champions of Ulster, the,
125-126; of the seeress to Queen 4, 147, 157, 167, 183, 191, 192, 204,
Medb, 166; of Lugh to Conn the 227, 314.
Hundred- Fighter, 201-202; of Cath- Red Branch House, the, 29, 196, 197.
bad concerning Cuchulainn, 161, con Red Dragon of Britain, the, 378.
cerning Deirdre, 190-191. Redynvre, the stag of, 349.
Pryderi, son of Pwyll and Rhiannon, Regan, daughter of King Leir, 381,
273, 286-288, 289, 294, 295, 298-301, 382-
303-305. 308, 309-311. 3*3> 3iS. 3i6, Religion, Aryan, 32, 47.
319, 321, 327, 335, 358, 364, 366, 368, Retaliator, the, the sword of Manannan
377. 407; is stolen at birth, 286; mac Lir, 6c, 198.
meaning of his name, 288; accom Revelry, the Castle of, 319, 366.
panies Bran to Ireland, 289-294; is Revolving Castle, the, 319, 366.
spiritedaway by Llwyd and recovered Revue Celtique, 40, 53, 78, 107, 117,
by Manawyddan, 300-304; receives a 142, 158, 184, 190, 201, 241, 246.
present of pigs from Annwn, 308 is ; Rhiannon, a British goddess, 273, 282-
killed by Gwydion, 311; appears in 288, 298, 300, 301, 303, 304, 358, 361,
Arthurian legend, 358. 362, 407; her three magic birds, 273,
Prydwen, Arthur s ship, 319, 320, 352. 294, 296; her name afterwards cor
Puck, 393. rupted into Nimue and Vivien, 358,
Puffin Island, 322. 361.
P^lrsuit of Diarmait and Grainne, The, Rhinnon Rhin Barnawd, the magic
215-221. bottles of, 346.
Index 443
Rhonabwy, 336, 337, 338; The Dream Samhain, the Celtic winter festival, 40,
of Rhonabwy, 312, 337, 338. 42, 67, 107, 108, 286, 406, 407, 408,
Rhyd y Groes, a ford on the Severn, 337. 410, 411.
Rhys, Professor, 22, 23, 35, 41, 44, 64, Samhanach, 408.
68, 158, 205, 254, 256, 262, 282, 289, Sarn Elen, 324.
307, 313. 3i6, 318, 319, 324, 331, 335, Sarrlog, 386; Caer Sarrlog, 386.
352, 363. 370, 395. 404. 413. 414. Satires, magical, 83, 87, 172, 182.
See also Arthurian Legend and Scathach the Amazon, 163, 164, 172,
Hibbert Lectures. 173, 176.
Ri, Roi, an Iberian god, 64. Sce ne the , river, 121.
Ribble, the river, 413, 414. Scot, Eber, a mythical ancestor of the
Riches, the Castle of, 367. Gaels, 1 20.
Rience, King, 357. Scota, 120.
Rigor, Caer, 319. Scotti, 357.
Rigosamos, a war-god worshipped in Sea, Celtic ideas regarding the, 48, 261,
Britain, 275. 270.
Ritual, remains of Celtic, 405-412. Second Battle of Moytura, The, the
Rivers, the twelve chief, of Ireland, 88. Harleian MS. called, 50, 54, 72, 78, 107.
Rivers, the worship of, 413, 414. Seint Greal, the, 322, 326, 368.
Rodruban, the sidh of Lugh, 136. Senchan Torpeist, 14.
Romans, the, 23, 24, 25, 373, 385, 386, Sen Mag, see Old Plain.
399. 4i3- Serapis worshipped at York, 275.

Rome, 5, 155, 274, 315, 317. Setanta, original name of Cuchulainn,
Ronan, Clann, 218. 160, 161.
Round Table, King Arthur s, 6,
314. Severn, the river, 254, 337, 350, 352, 353.
"Round Towers", the, attributed to Sgeolan, one of Finn s hounds, 213.
Goibniu, 233.
"
Shadowy Town, or City ", 175, 366.

Rowan-tree, 219, 410. Shakespeare, 5, 259, 270, 381, 393, 408.
Ruadan, son of Bress and Brigit, 109- Shannon, the river, 88, 165, 292.
110. "Shape-shifting", 37.
Rude Stone Monuments, Fergusson s, Sharvan the Surly, 219.
76, 114, 137, 138. Shield, Conchobar s magic, 197.
Ryons, King, 357. Shony, a Hebridean sea-god, 410.
Shouts on a hill, the three, 94, 97, 105,
Sacred animals, 406, 416, 417; islands, 106.
326; fish, 416; frogs, 416; stones, 406, Sicily, 96, 102.
415, 417; trees, 406, 415; wells, 414- SUh Airceltrai, 136; Bodb, 136; Eas
416. Aedha Ruaidh, 136; Fionnachaidh,
Sacrifices of animals, 406, 412; human, 136, 140, 142, 146, 222; Meadha, 136,
18, 37-40, 399; symbolical human 243; Rodruban, 136.
sacrifices, 405, 410, 411. Sidhe, "fairy mounds", 135, 136, 139,
Sadb, daughter of Bodb the Red, and 181.
mother of Ossian, 208. Sidhe, The, the Gaelic gods, or fairies,
"Sage s seat", the, 85, 86. 136, 223, 244, 246.
St. Catherine s Hill, 29; St. George s Sidi, Caer, 319, 321, 322, 368.
Hill, 29. Silures, tribe of the, 22.
St. Gall MS., the, 232. Silurian race, the, 19.
Saints, transformation of Celtic gods Silver Hand, Nuada s, 51, 78, 81, 253-
into, 6, 228, 229, 372, 386, 389. Lludd s- 253.
Salisbury Plain, 325. Sinann, goddess of the Shannon, 56.
Salmon of Knowledge, the, 55, 210; of Skene, Dr. W. F., 71, 123, 256, 258
Llyn Llyw, 350. 311, 312, 316, 317, 319, 328, 334.
Skye, Isle of, 163. of, 141-142; the children of L6t
Slecht, Mag. See Mag Slecht. changed into, 143; Mider and Etain
Slieve Bloom, 209; Slieve Fuad, 136; become, 151.
Slieve Mish, 130. Sword, of Manannan, 60, 198; of Nuada,
Smallpox, goddess of the, 413. 51; of Gwrnach the Giant, 346, 348.
Snowdon, 267, 305, 335, 380. Swinburne, 6.
Sol Apollo Anicetus, a sun-god wor Swineherds, the rival, 164-165.
shipped at Bath, 275.
Solar festivals of the Celts, 41, 405-412. Table Round, the, 6, 354, 371.
Solinus, Caius Julius, 228. Taboos, Celtic. See Destiny, Ge&sa.
Somerset, 329. Tacitus, 22, 24, 387, 400.
Son of the Young", see
"
Mac Oc. Tailtiu, the Gaelic gods defeated by the

Sore, the river, 383. Milesians at, 130.
Sorrowful Stories of Erin, The Three, Tdin B6 Chuailgnt, 10, 14, 28, 159,
106. 164, 175.
Spain, 22, 121 ;
used as an euphemism Taliesin, n, 123, 124, 261, 271, 273, 294,
for the Celtic Other World, 68, 120, 296, 306, 317, 318, 320, 321, 328, 356,
121, 230, 386. 366, 367.
Spear of Lugh, 62, 97; of Pisear, king Taliesin, the Book of, n, 123, 261, 271,
of Persia, 96, 97, 101, 103. 273. 306 317, 3i8, 321, 328.
.
"
Spearman with the Long Shaft", 369. Tallacht, burial-place of Partholon s

Speech, Aryan, 21, 31. people, 66.
Spenser, 7, 389. Tara, 29, 72, 84, 93, 98, 105, 125, 126,
Spey, the river, 414. 129, 147, 153, 189, 190, 216, 230.
"Splendid Mane", the horse of Man- Taran, 294.
annan mac Lir, 60, 88, 98. Taranis, 294.
Spoiling of Annwn, The, a poem of Tathlum, a sling-stone, 112, 113.
Taliesin, 306, 317-321, 366. Tawe, a river in South Wales, sacred to
"Spring of Health", the, no. Gwyn ap Nudd, 257, 279, 392, 405.
Sreng, a warrior of the Fir Bolgs, 75. Tegla s well, Saint, 415.
Stag of Redynvre, the, 349. Teirnyon Twryf Vliant, 287, 288, 358,
Stokes, Dr. Whitley, 40, 50, 72, 78, 107, 407.
152, 190, 203, 417. Teirtu, the harp of, 346.
Stone, Black, of Arddhu, 305; Corona Tclltown, see Tailtiu.
tion, 71; of Destiny, 72; of Kineely, Temple of Nodens at Lydney, 253-254;
239- St. Paul s cathedral occupying the

Stones, worship of, 406, 415. site of a, 254; sacrifices of cattle on
Stonehenge, 42, 324, 325. the site of a, 413; ancient British
Strabo, 22, 399. temples still standing in the sixth

Strachey, Sir Edward, 356. century, 400.
Study of Celtic Literature, Matthew Tennyson, 6, 133, 260, 274, 297, 312,
Arnold s, 3, 16, 356. 354, 355. 358, 361, 362.
Sualtam, the mortal father of Cuchu- "Terrace cultivation", 20.
lainn, 159, 160, 173, 174. "Terrestrialgods and goddesses", 156.

Suir, the river, 165. "Terrible Broom, The", name of the
Sul, a goddess worshipped at Bath, 228, banner of Oscar s battalion, 209.

275- Tethra, a king of the Fomors, 83, 90.
"
Summer, the Land of", i.e. the Celtic Teutates, a god of the Gauls, 51, 52.
Other World, 119, 329. Thames, the river, 254.
Sun, worship of the, 41, 42; Cuchulainn Theseus, 153.

a personification of the, 158-159. Thirteen Treasures of Britain, the, 313,
Swans. Caer and Angus take the forms 326, 339. 340.
Index 445
Three Birds of Rhiannon, the, 273, Trinity Well, the source of the Boyne,
294, 296. 55-
Three Chief Holy Families of Britain, Trinovantum, i.e. New Troy, a mythic
386. name of London, 376, 385.
Three Counselling Knights of Arthur, Tristrem, Sir, 6, 327, 363.
312. Trouveres, the, 363.

Three Cows of Mider, 57, 176. Troy, 374.
Three Cranes of Denial and Churlish Tuatha De"
Danann, the gods of the
ness, 57. ancient Gaels, u, 17, 48, 50, 51, 58,
Three Criminal Resolutions of Britain, 59, 60, 65, 70-79, 82-86, 91, 95, 97,
334- 104, 108-112, 114, 115, 117, 123, 125,
Three Etains, 331. 126, 129, 132, 136-138, 140, 141, 145,
Three Frivolous Battles of Britain, 334. 153, 154, 156, 157, 205, 211, 214, 217,
Three Generous Heroes of Britain, 253. 219, 222, 225, 228, 229-231, 243, 246,
Three Gwynhwyvars, 333. 252, 269, 276, 312, 330, 393, 403, 404,
Three Paramount Prisoners of Britain, 406, 410; their arrival in Ireland, 71,
350-35 1 - 72; their battle with the Fcmors, 108-
Three Plagues of Britain, 253, 377-380. 117; are conquered by the Milesians,
Three shouts on a hill, 94, 97, 105, 106. 130; retire into underground palaces,
Three Sorrowful Stories of Erin, 106. J 35>
I 36; and become the fairies of
Three War-knights of Arthur, 312. Irish belief, 137.
Three Wicked Uncoverings of Britain, Tuirenn, son of Ogma, 57, 90, 106.
297, "Tuirenn, the Fate of the Sons of",
Tiberius, the Emperor, 400. 90-106.

Tigernmas, a mythical Irish king, 153- Tuis, king of Greece, 96, 98, 102.
1
154- Turning Castle", 322.

Tighernach, an old Irish chronicler, Tweed, tne river, 23, 41^
204. Twr Bran wen, 289.
Tir nam beo, see Land of the Living. Twrch Trwyth, the hunting of, 347-353.
Tir nan og, see Land of the Young. Tylwyth Teg, the Welsh fairies, 255.
Tir Tairngire", see Land of Promise. Tynwald Hill, 412.
Titania, 393. Tyrian Hercules worshipped at Cor-
Tomb of the Dagda, 138. bridge, 275.
Tombs of the Tuatha De"
Danann, 138-
139- Uaman, sidh of, 141.
Torpeist, Senchan. See Senchan. Uaran Garad, spring of, 165.
Tory Island, 49, 67, 238. Uffern, the "Cold Place", a name for
Toutates, a war-god worshipped in Annwn, 319.

Britain, 275. Uisnech, the hill of, 69, 324.
Tower Hill, Bran s head buried at, 294, Ulster, 29, 57, 64, 69, 76, 158, 164, 165,
296, 331. 166, 171, 174, 175, i8q 183, 188, 189,
Transactions of the Ossianic Society, 190, 191, 192, 217, 245,
124, 127, 128, 201, 203, 211, 213, 215, "Undry", the name of th<
Dagda s
223, 226. cauldron, 54, 366.
Transmigration of souls, 36; of the Unius, the river, 107.
swineherds, 164-165. Unsenn, the river, 112.
Treasures of Britain, the Thirteen, 313, Urddawl Ben, see Venerable Head.
326, 339. 340. Urien, an Under World king, 328, 329,
Trees, the Battle of the, 123, 305-308. 357 376 Uriens, Urience, King, in
1 ;
Trees, worship of, 406. the Morte Darthur, 357; Urianus,

Triads, u, 253, 273, 331, 334, 350, 351. King, in Geoffrey of Monmouth
Trim, 175. History, 376.
Usnach, the sons of, 191-200. Wild Huntsman, the, 255.
Uther Ben, the "Wonderful Head", a Wilde, Sir William, his Lough Corrib,
name for Bran, 296, 330, 356. 76; Lady Wilde s Ancient Legends oj
Uther Pendragon, Arthur s father, 330, Ireland, 243, 409.
356. Williams, Mr. Edward. See lolo Mor-
ganwg.
Val des Fes, in the forest of Bre"cilien, Wish Hounds, the 392.
361- Woden, 260.
Vandwy, Caer, 257, 320. Wolf, the Morrfgii takes the shape of a,
Varro, 26. 170.

Vedwyd, Caer, 319. Women, position of, among the Celts,
"Venerable Head, The",
296. 30-
Verses of the Graves of the Warriors,
"
Wonderful Head", the, 296, 330.

The, 272, 311, 334.
"
Wood of the Two Tents ", the, 216.

"Victor, son of Scorcher". See Wordsworth, 4, 5.
Gwyrthur, son of Greidawl. Wren, Lieu and the, 263; a bird of
Vita Columbce, Adamnan s, 401, 417. augury among the druids, 417.
Vivien, 358, 361. Wydyr, Caer, 320.
Wye, the river, 352.
Wales, the Four Ancient Books of, n,
15. See Skene.
Yeats , Mr., The Wanderings of Oisin,
Walgan, 375.
223.
Wall, Roman, 25, 273, 274, 400.
Yell, or Yeth, Hounds, tht, 392.
War-chariots, 27; Cuchulainn s, 28.
Yellow Book of Lecan, the, 10, 164.
Warrefield, 242.
"Yellow Shaft", one of Manannan s
"Water-dress", Brian s, 104.
spears, 60, 217.
Waves, the Four, of Britain, 261. See Avilion, Glas-
Mananndn s boat,
Ynys Avallon, 329.
Wave-sweeper ",
tonbury.
60, 98, 104.
of the Celts, 27.
Ynys Bran wen, 295.
Weapons
Ynys Wair, 322. See Lundy Island.
Wells, worship of, 414, 415; holy, 414.
York, 275.
Welsh fairies, 255, 392-394. Son
Young, Land of the, 133, 225 ;
of
Westminster, 407; Westminster Abbey, Mac Oc.
the, see
71-
Yspaddaden Penkawr, see Hawthorn,
White Dragon of the Saxons, 378.
Chief of Giants.
White-horned Bull of Connaught, 165,
I7S-
White Mount in London, see Tower Zeus, 65, 260, 261 ;
the Gaelic, 41, 51,
Hill. 253; the British, 5, 324.
White-tusk, king of the Boars, 346, 349. Zimmer, Professor, 152.

TABLE OF PRONUNCIATION
FOR THE MORE DIFFICULT WORDS
A. Stress is of four kinds, and marked here: (i)

-
(weak stress).
(2) 1
(medium).
(3) (strong).
(4) ; (emphatic).
Bo Cymric words of more than one syllable have the stress regularly on the
antepenult (although there are some words with the stress on the last ;
and the negative prefix an often takes full stress).
Cymric wy = ui; ftS = th in English //*en; 11 (tt) = a broad buzzed 1,
i.e. like the unvoiced, sounds like hi, and is unilateral (right
French 1
side) with the tongue in the i position. The thorn letter = voiceless j>
sound as in English wi/^.

C, Nasality of vowels marked with (
-
)
underneath the vowel.
Interdental (t, d, 1, marked with dot underneath.
n)
1 mouille, i.e. palatal, marked \.
n ,, ,, n (cf. Colo^-we).
e = open e ;
e = close e ; o = o open ; o o close.
r thin r (i.e. r after e, i).
ce = the mid-front narrow round (close) ; cf. German 6.
e mid-mixed sound at end of unstressed syllables, often

indefinite
alternating with mid-back (close) vowel a, which is the sound of

u in Gaelic agws ; the a has the sound of a in father, but it occurs
both long and short. Doubling of, vowels indicates length, a is
a more obscure sound.
i = high-mixed open z; i = high-front open *; i itself is in Gaelic a
high-front narrow, i.e. close sound.
For basis cf. H. Sweet s Phonetics.
d3 approximately like dg in English juoê.

tj (tch),
the voiceless sound of preceding,
pb is to indicate the peculiar quality of Gaelic initial b, which
begins voiceless and ends voiced.
h stands for breath-glide, on or off, according as it
precedes or
follows the consonant concerned.
5 like ch in standard pronunciation of German \ch, the

"
I It ". i?
forward palatal position of the guttural ch, here marked x. It is
in Gaelic associated with thin or clear vowels (i.e. e, i).
c = forward palatal position of k.

447
voiced form of the voiceless x : it is
ordinarily written gh, while the
voiceless sound is written ch in the ordinary script. In the later
form of Mag (a plain) it passes into gh, i.e. Ma^, and is often
but feebly felt, in which cases it is Moy in place names, c.f.
Moylena.
h
Aberffraw (-ab er-frau). Argetlam( arc-et l aav). Brea (pbree).
Abergeleu (
abar gel-oi). Arianrod (ari an-rod). Brian ( pbri-an).
Achill (-ag-ll). Armagh (-ar mah), from Brigit ( pbrii-tj).
Achren ( axran). Ard Macha (-aard Bri Leith (-pbri -Iheeh).
Adamnan ( adam-nan). maaxa), i.e. Altitude Buarainech
Aebh (*eev). Machae, Macha s pbuuar-aflex). (
Aed eet).
(
f
Height. Bwbachod (-bu bax-od).

Aedh ee). In Scotland Arran ( arr-an).
(
f
y, e.g. y M y = Hugh Art (ar t).

s
Caemhoc (-kiivook).
Mackay. Arthur ( Camulodunum ?
ar]>-ir).
Aeife (eeif-a). Artur (-ar s t-ar). (ka mulo duun-sim).

Aerfon ( air von). Avallach (avatt-ax). Caswallawn
ees Aine. h
AesSfdhe( -jii-he). Aynia v. (-kas ua l-aun).
Ailbhe ( ePv-9). Cian (kiian).
Ailech ( at-ex). Badb (pbav). Ciaran (kiiaran).
Ailill Badon ( bad-on). Cichol (-kixol).
Ailinn Baile (pbai-la). Clann Chattan (klan
Ailioll (al-jul). Bala ( baal-a). xatt-an).
Aine ( qa-ns). Balin ( bal-in). Clann Neamhuinn (klan
Airceltrai ( er keltrai). Ballymagauran fievifi).
Airem, Eochaid ( air-em, (-pbala-ma gaur-an). Clontarf (klon tarf).
eox-atf). Ballymote Coblynau (-kob lyn-oi).

Airmid ( air-miitj). (G. Baile an mhota, Conchobar ( kona-xar).
Alaw (
(
al-au). -pbal-an ;voot-a). Conlaoch ( kgp-loaoex).
Alba (al9-pa). Ballysadare Connaught ( kon-aht).
Allobroges (G. Baile-easa-Dara, Connla ( kqp-la). f
(-al lo-brog-es). -pbal-esa ;dhara). Cruind (kru u in).

Amaethon (-am u
aij>-on).
Balor ( pbal-or). Cualgne ( ku al-n9).
9
Amergin, G. Amorgin, Banba ( pban -va). Cuchulainn (-ku xul-ifi).
Amorgene Baoisgne ( pbcecejc-fio). Culann ( kul-an).
( amor-gin). Beltaine ( pbjaull-tifl). Cumhal ( kuh-al).
Amlwch ( am-lux). Bettws-y-coed I. (ibetus
1
Curoi (-ku rooi).
Ana ( aana).
f
kooyd), 2. (-bets-8 koid). Custennin (kust enin).

Aneurin (-a noi-rin), Beuno ( boi-no). Cwm Cawlwyd (-kum
Annwn (
an nuun). Bile( pbil-Q). kaul-uiSS).
Aoibhinn (
T
oiv-in). Blathnat ( pblaa-nat). Cwy (kui).

Aoife (-oif-9). Blodeuwedd
Aranon (ar an-on). Daire (dhai-ra).
Arawn (
ar aun). Boann ( pboo-an). Dechtire (-dseg-tjira).
Ardan ( aart-an). Bodb (pbov). De Danann (d5e
Arcl Chein (-aart ceen). Borrach (
f
pborr-ax). dan-an).
Arddu ( arft). Branwen (ibran u-en). Deimne (
Table of Pronunciation 449
Deirdre Hi Dorchaide Maen Tyriawc (:main
Devwy ( dev-ui) (hi dorx-ad3-a). -tir-i-auk).
Diancecht ( d3ian;cjext). Hy Breasail(hi bree-8al). Manawyddan
Diarmait O Duibhne (man-cm y$S-an).
( d3iiar-mitj-o dhui-na).
Iddawc March ( niarx).
Dinas Dinllev ( diinas Inniskea (
iii-i
sh-cjee). Matholwch
dm-hlev). lolo Morganwg (li olo (-ma]) ol-ux).
Dinas Emrys ( diinas -mor gan-ug). Mathonwy (-majj on-u i).
em-ris). Iseult (-i-scelt). Meadha (-meh-a).
Dingwall ( ding-wal). luchar (-m-xar). Medb (-mesv).
Dinn-senchus Iweridd (-iirer-i^)- Melwas (:mel;u-as).
( d3ijn;hen-xus). Menw (menu),
Diwrnach ( d3urn-ax). Killarney (-citt aarno). Mesgegra (-mes-geg-ra).
Dobhar ( dov-ar). Knockainy Miach ( mii-ax).
Domnann ( dom-nann). (-krohk-aafia). Mider ( mu-t/or).
Dundalk (-dun-dok). Kulhwch (-kcel huch). Mile (-mn-lo).
Dundealgan Mochdrev ( mox-drev).
(duun-d3Ja! g-an).
9
Laeg (loeoek). Mochnant ( mox-nant).
?
Laegaire ( loeoek-ara). Morrigu ( mor-riig-u).

h
Eriu ( eer-iu). Ler (-ier). Moytura (:moi t uur-a).
Essyllt (-ess i
h
lt). Levarcham ( -levar-xam). Muirthemne
Etain ( et-qan). LiaFail (
iiia -faal). (:mur;hem-na).
Evnissyen (-evni ss-jen). Lismore (-li s moor). Myrddin ( mor^- in).
I.levelys (-hlev el-is).
Ferdiad (-fer d3iia). Lloegyr ( hloigtir). Nant y Llew (inant -9
h
Ffordd El en (-fortJS Lludd (hltt88). loi).
el-an). Llyr (hlir). Neevougi (-neevook-a).

Fionnbharr ( f junn-varr). Lochlann (-lox-lann). Niamh (njiav).
Nos galan gaeof (-nos
Gabhra gau-ra). ( Mabinogion -gal-an gai -of).
Gaillion, Fir ( gal-i-on, (mab- inog- i-on). Nwyvre ( nuiv-ra).
fir). MacCecht(-ma h k cjext). Nynniaw (in in i-au).
h h u
Govannon (-govann-on). MacCuill(-ma k c u il).
Gwalchaved Mac Greine Oeth, Anoeth
h h
(-ma k cr ee-n8). ( oij>, anioij)).
Gwalchmei ( gualx-mei). Mac Kineely Ossian (
!
oj-an) (Irish,
h h ifi
Gwarthegid (-ma k ic eel-i). -ij iin).
(-guar)> eg-i?yS). Mac Moineanta

h
Gwawl i. ( guaul), (-ma k moin-ant-8). Pryderi (-pri de-ri).
2. ( waul). Mac Nia (-ma h k mia). Prydwen ( prad-wen).
Gwlgawd Gododin Mac Oc (-ma h k -ook). Pwyll ( pui-tt).
(gul gauftS -god od-in). Mac Samthainn

h
Gwragedd Annwn (-ma k sav-hin). Queen Guinevere
(-gur ag-eSS -an nuun). Macha (maax-a). (-kgi n-e veer).
Gwrhyr ( gur hir). Maelmuiri

Gwyngelli (gum gel-li). (-mcecel mur-i). Rhiannon (-Vi an-non).
h riStJ -a
Gwynhwyvar Maenor Alun (
mai-nor Rhyd y Groes (-
(-gu in hul ivar). -al-tin). grois).

Sadb (saav). Tawe (-tau-e). Twr Branwen (ituur
Samhain sav-iil).
( Teirnyon Twryf Vliant bran-wen).
Scathach (-skah-ax). (-teir n i-on tur-if Twrch Trwyth (:turx
Scene (-scjee-ne). vli-ant). trui.
Senchan Torpeist Tethra ( tfe-rci). Tylwyth Teg (:t9l-ui])
th Tigernmas teg).
( [en-xan or-peejt).
Sen Mag (Jen mag). ( tjih-orn-mas).
Sgeolan ( skjoo-lcm). Tighernach (tfih-arn-ax). Uisnech ( uf-fiex).
Sfdh (JiiCh). Tir nam beo ( ir -nam Unsenn un-Jen).
(
tji
Sinann ( Ji n-an). -beoo). Urddawl Ben
Tir nan og ( tji
ir -nan ben).
Tailtiu (-taal-tju). ook).
Tain Bo Chuailgne Tir Tairngire ( tjur Wydyr
(
t h qan pbo xualc-no). thairn-c iro).
Taliesin (-tal-i ess- in). Tuatha De Danann Yspaddaden Penkawr
Tallacht ( t h al-axt). h u
( t u ah-a idse (i sp-a?^ ad-en
Tathlum ( t h al-8m). ;dan-an).

?
pen-kaur)o

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CELTICMYTH AND LEGEND

POETRY AND ROMANCE

TEUTONIC MYTH AND LEGEND

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED

This book is what its author believes to be the only

sion, in clear, compact, and what it is hoped may prove

introduced, as numerous people of whose ante

gods and the giants against whom they struggled; of the

martial epopee almost worthy to be placed beside &quot;the

tale of Troy divine&quot;; and of Finn and his Fenians. He

champions, but belonging to the same mythic company.

recorded, from the time of their unquestioned godhood,

dying recognition of them in the present day, as fairies

Thus the volume will form a kind of handbook to a subject

The book does not, of course, profess to be for Celtic

is within it. It aims only at interesting the reader familiar

with the mythologies of Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia

sity ofOxford, with their sequel entitled Studies in the

Hayes O Grady (to mention no others), as contained in

the Transactions of the Ossianic Society, in Mr. O Grady s

THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE CELTIC

III. WHO WERE THE &quot;ANCIENT BRITONS&quot;? . . l8

IV. THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS AND

THE GAELIC GODS AND THEIR STORIES

VI. THE GODS ARRIVE 65

X. THE CONQUEST OF THE GODS BY MORTALS .

XII. THE IRISH ILIAD 153

XV. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GODS . .

THE BRITISH GODS AND THEIR STORIES

SURVIVALS OF THE CELTIC PAGANISM

From a painting by E. ffallcousins

THE DREAM-MAIDEN VISITS ANGUS -

CUCHULAINN CARRIES FERDIAD ACROSS THE RIVER 173

BLODEUWEDD S INVITATION TO GRONW PEBYR - z66

From the draiving by E. WallcQusim

PORTION OF THE CIRCLES, STONEHENGE - -

LUGH S MAGIC SPEAR 62

From a drawing by H. R. Millar

BRIAN SEIZES THE PIG-SKIN ..... 100

From the painting by J, H. F. Bacon, A.R.A.

&quot;THE KISSING STONE&quot;, CARROWMORE, SLIGO -

ENTRANCE TO THE GREAT CAIRN OF NEW

LER AND THE SWANS 144

QUEEN MEDB S CAIRN, KNOCKNAREA, SLIGO -

CUCHULAINN REBUKED BY EMER - 186

From a drawing by H. R. Millar

DEIRDRE S LAMENT &quot;)*

From the painting by J. H. F. Bacon, A.R.A.

OSSIAN S CAVE, GLENCOE ... -

FINN FINDS THE SALMON OF KNOWLEDGE - 210

From a drawing by H. R. Millar

CIAN FINDS BALOR S DAUGHTER

GWYDION CONQUERS PRYDERI

KING ARTHUR S CASTLE, TINTAGEL .... 32O

THE TREASURES OF BRITAIN -

THE BEGUILING OF MERLIN ..... ,,360

LEAR AND CORDELIA

by Ford Madox Brown

THE INTEREST AND IMPORTANCE OF CELTIC

martial epopee almost worthy to be placed beside "the

tale of Troy divine"; and of Finn and his Fenians. He

III. WHO WERE THE "ANCIENT BRITONS"? . . l8

"THE KISSING STONE", CARROWMORE, SLIGO -

DEIRDRE S LAMENT ")*

any other age or race. Lastly, when the glory "

way with the traditionary exploits of the Red "

Branch Champions", or of Finn and his mighty men,

not one Eng ",

Ancient Books of Wales" are small in size, and con