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Publishing in IA1113/05oo57סס000Ireland's Fairy LoreMiehaelP. Mahon1919Thomas J. FI)nn & Co.Gerry Lee

mELAND'S FAIRY LORE

IRELAND'SFAIRY LORE

BYREV. MICHAEL P. MAHON

,THOMAS J. FLYNN & COMPANY

BOSTON, MASS.1919

JIIitiJ 1)11Jtat:PATBIClt J. WATDS, PH.D.,

Ceruor Librorum.

Jmprimatur :+W1LLlAlI CARDINAL O'CONNELL.

Archbilhop of B08ton.

February 26, 1919.

COPYJUGBT, 19 I 9BY !lEV. IL P. KARON

r.s.PLlInro •• p......

KO"WOOD '.A •• 'V'.'A

MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

TOONE OF mELAND'S MOST FEARLESS AND

POWERFUL ADVOCATES

HIS EMINENCE

~UlIiam ~atbinal $lD'~onndlARCHBISHOP OF BOSTON

PREFACE

THE following chapters appeared in thePilot during 1910 and 1911, as a seriesof papers on "Ancient Irish Paganism"

over the pen-name Gadelicus. The worksprincipally consulted in the preparation ofthem were the "Social History of Ireland " andthe "Irish Names of Places" by Dr. P. '-Y. Joyce;the "Irish Mythological Cycle" by De Jubain-ville; volumes four and five of the long-sincedefunct Ossianic Society; the" Literary Historyof Ireland" by Dr. Douglas Hyde; Keating's"History of Ireland"; and a great number ofGaelic texts published by the Gaelic Leagueand the Irish Texts Society, both of Dublin.Excursions have also been made into Britishand American Literature, as well as into Greekand Roman. The reader will discover thatsome of the topics are not treated in a veryserious vein. The temptation to treat them ina light vein proved irresistible. While these pa-pers were going through the Pilot, they werea source of much pleasure to many readers,

vii

viii PREFACEand we feel that they will continue to please,and, also, to enlighten. They give a fair ideaof the general character of the remnants of theancient Gaelic Literature that survive. Whenthe writer commenced them he did not quiteforesee that they would grow into a regularexposition of the Ancient Irish MythologicalSystem.

THE AUTHOR

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IINTRODUCTION. WERE THERE CHRISTIANS IN IRE-

LAND BEFORE ST. PATRICK'S TIME? I

CHAPTER IIIDOLATRY. CROMM CRUACH. KING TIGERNMAS.

CROMM DURH. SPRINKLING OF BLOOD ON FOUN-

DATIONS OF BUILDINGS. EMANIA. NO HUMAN

SACRIFICE IN ST. PATRICK'S TIME •.•....• 8

CHAPTER IIIIDOLATRY NOT VERY GENERAL. NO NATIONAL RELI-

GION. THE FAIRIES. OCURRY'S NOTE. WHAT

WERE THE FAIRlES? NOVEMBER EVE EXCURSIONS.FINN HacCUMAL'S "THUMB OF KNOWLEDGE." 14

CHAPTER IVQUAlUlEL8 AMONG THE FAIRlES. RELATIONS WITH

MORTALS. THE BANSHEE. TOM MOORE. 24

CHAPTER VPALACE OF CRUACHAN. VIRGIL'S HARPIES. WHIT-

TIER'S HAUNTED GLEN. MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEAR-

ANCIlS. OSSIAN AND TIR NA N-OG. THE FAIRIES

IN ANCIENT LITERATURE. ST. PATRICK AND Bl8

BI8BOPS TAKEN FOR FAIRIES •.....••.. isiJ:

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI

PLATO'SUNIVERSALITY OF BELIEF IN FAIRIES.

THEORY. ORIENTAL TYPES. MORAL CLEANLI-,,, ENNESS OF miSH MYTHOLOGY. SHELLEY S QUE

MAB." SHAKESPEARE'S FAIBIES, PUCK. MILTON'S.. COMUS." IRISH LANGUAGE AND CHRISTIANITY.SPENSER'S "FAERY QUEEN."

CHAPTER VII

TWO CLAssES OF GODS. PESSIMISTIC AND OPTIMISTICVIEWS. THE BOOK OF THE DUN COW.

CHAPTER VIII

86

45

THE ffiISH CALLED SCOTI AND mELAND SCOTIA. CALE-

DONIA CALLED SCOTIA MINOR. LANDING OF THEMlLESIANS. AMERGIN's DECISION. CONACLONVERsIFICATION, AMERGIN'S POEMS•...•.. 51

CIIAPTER IX

CONFLICT OF MlLESIAN VALOR AND TUATHA DEDANAAN MAGICAL ART. DONN! MILESIANS RE-

TIRE NINE WAVES. GREAT STORM. FINALLYTIlEY LAND. BA'l"rLEs FOUGHT. 56

CHAPTER XAlII:BGIN. THII GODS. AllERGIN AND

AMEBGIN'S PIIILosoPHY. HIs PRAYER.BAINVILI.J:'s COMMENTs. A WELsHAlIBRGIN AND 8l'. PATRICK •••.••

HESIOD.

DE JU-

POEM.

61

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XI

Xl

THE FAIRIES. BANBA, FOLA AND ERIU. WHY IRISH

MANUSCRIPT "BOOKS" NAMED AFTER PLACES,

ETC. A MANUSCRIPT REALLY A LIBRARY. IRE-

LAND'S LITERATURE IN ITS PRESERVATION, AN

INDICATION OF IRELAND'S DESTINY. OGHAM

CHARACTERS. BOOK OF BALLYMOTE. BANBA,

FOLA AND ERIU IN SUCCESSION ASK, EACH, THAT

THE ISLAND SHOULD BE NAMED AFTER HER.FATE OF DONN. 68

CHAPTER XIIAllERGIN; HIS CHARACTER AND OFFICE. ERIU'S

PROPHECY. DEATH OF BANBA, FOLA AND ERIU.

LUG AND GAMES OF TAILLTEN. PRACTICE OF

PUTTING A TERM TO THE LIVES OF THE GODS.

PAGAN STORIES HAVE CHRISTIAN REDACTIONS."LIR'S LONELY DAUGHTER." PAGANISM HAS

LEFT ITS MARK ON PLACE NAMES•. 74

CHAPTER XIIIEUHEMERISM. GODS THAT WERE ALWAYSSUCH, AND

MEN WHO AFTER DEATH BECAME GODS. MYTH-

OLOGICAL, HEROIC AND HISTORIC CYCLES EASILY

DISTINGUISHABLE IN IRISH mSTORY. GILLA

KEEVlN AND FLANN OF THE MONASTERYGREATEST

IRISH EUHEMERIZERS. SOME ACCOUNT OF THEIR

WORK. TIGERNACH•......... , 80

CHAPTER XIVTHE FAIRIES. DE DANAAN MEETING AT BRUG NA

BOINNE. DIGRESSION ON TAIN BO CUAILGNE.

xii CONTENTS

CUCULLAIN AND FERDIAD. "CONQUEST OF THESID." THE DAGDA. MANANNAN MAC LIR. POEM

OF KINAETH O'HARTIGAN. THE BULLS FIGHT.

O'CURRY's TRANSLATION OF THE ACCOUNT OF

THAT FIGHT ••••••••.••

CHAPTER XV

86

THE FAIRIES. DISTRIBUTION OF THE FAIRY PALACES.

THE DAGDA AND OENGUS. MAC !NT OC. GREEK

AND IlUSH MYTHOLOGICAL LEGENDS. FOOD OFTHE GODS. IMMORTALITY OF THE GOD8.

KNOWTlI, NEWGRANGE AND DOWTH. MONU-

MENTs OF THE CYCLOPS. CRUACHAN•.

CHAPTER XVI

98

THE HRUG ON THE BOYNE. THE 'lAIN REGARDED AS

ONE OF Tn GREAT EPIC STUDIES OF LITERATURE.THE STORY OF POLYPHEMUS. 'ULYSSES ACTS LIKE

AN IlUSHMAN •••.••••••.. , 98

CHAPTER XVIITHE HRUG HOBE CLOsELy DESClUBED. lONGS BURIED

THERE. ANCIENT BURIAL CEREMONIES. VENER-ATION OF TIlE ANCIENT IRISH FOR THE :MEMORY01' THEIR DEAD. BURIAL OF FlNOOLA AND HER

B8a.rBJ:Bs. FlNOOLA. THE IRISH PENELOPE •. 108

CHAPTER xvmA:M0'rBIla ACCOUNT OF TIlE DI8TBIBUTION OF THE

PAUlY PALA.CIl8. 08lGIN OF I'AIaY \ BlilLIEF.

ABOIaGlN.u. I'AI1UI:8 OR GODS. ACCJi:S8ION OF

CONTENTS XIlI

THE TUATHA DE DANAAN TO THEIR RANKS.

FAIRY PALACES. "THE AUTOCRAT OF THE

BREAKFAST TABLE" ON HOLES IN THE GROUND.

MANANNAN. BOW DERG. SOME OF THE SHEES.

KNOCK-MA. ROAD FROM HEADFORD TO TUAM.TUAM CATHEDRAL. 109

CHAPTER XIX

ELCMAR. MANANNAN. OENGUS. GOIBNIU. LUCH-

TINE AND CREIDNE. DE DANAAN ARTIFICERS.

STORY OF EITHNE. IRISH PAGANISM COMPARA-

TIVELY CLEAN 121

CHAPTER XX

INDIVIDUAL GODS. THE DAGDA. BRIGIT. THE LOVE

OF OENGUS FOR CAER. AILILL AND MEAVE.

NUPTIALS. MUSIC•.... 128

CHAPTER XXIDIANCECHT•

AIRELL.BUANANN.

GRIAN •..

ANA. .AINE. CLEENA.

184

CHAPTER xxnWAR FURIES. THE MORRIGAN. BADB, ETC. DEMONS

AT BATTLE OF MAGH RATH. FLED BRICREND.

FIGHT OF CHAMPIONS WITH GENITI GLINNI.

FINGER AND TOE NAlLS AS WEAPONS. 140

CHAPTER xxrnMANANNAN. FAND. EMER. THE FAIRY BRANCH.

MANANNAN AND CORMAC MAC ART... 148

xiv CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXIVTHE LEPRECHAUN. ANCIENT REFERENCES TO HIM.

MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF HIM. HOW HE TREATED

OLIVER CROMWELL .

CHAPTER XXV

159

THE POOKA. GIVES IDS NAME TO PLACES.

OF EU8 TEcrCKS•.•.••••.••

SOME167

CHAPTER XXVITHE POOKA NOT ALWAYS TO BLAME. ST. PATRICK'S

DIPLOMATIC TACT. GREEK, LATIN AND IRISH"HUMANlTIES." ....••....• ,

CHAPTER xxvnTHREE-FOLD CLASslFlCATION OF IRISH GODS. THE

IRISH DIVI. AED RUA» AND DONN. INSTANCES

IN ROMAN AND GREEK MYTHOLOGY. AQUATICMONBTERS. SNAKE STORY ABOUT ST. PATRICK.

CHAPTER xxvm

173

180

THE GOD, TERMINus. IRISH PILLAR STONES.

81'EAK1NG STONEs. THE LIA FAIL. VENERATIONOF FIRE AND WATER ••••••••••.•. 189

CIIAPTER XXIXWOBSllJp OF FIRE. THE GOD BAAL. THE BONFIRE.

THE ELEm:NTs. ELEMENTAL OATH. WEAPON-WORSIII1>. THE lBl8H ELYSIUM. IMMORTALITY.

METEMPsYCHOSlEl. ME'rAMOBPHOSlEl ••.•.. 194

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXX

xv

TURNING DEISIOL. ODD NUMBERS. GEASA. THE

EVIL EYE. THE ORDEAL...• 203

CHAPTER XXXIMULTIPLICITY OF IRISH GODS. JULIUS CAESAR'S

GAULISH AND BRITISH DRUIDS. IRISH DRmDS

AND THEm PRACTICES. MAGICALARTS. DIVINA-

ATION. KING DATHI. THE DRmD DUBHTACH•. 210

IRELAND'S FAIRY LORE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Were there Christians in Ireland before St.Patrick's time?

THE glorious St. Patrick," says CardinalNewman, "did a work so great thathe could not have a successor in it,

the sanctity and learning and zeal and charitywhich followed on his death being but theresult of the one impulse which he gave." Itseems impossible to pronounce a more compre-hensive eulogy on the character and enduringquality of St. Patrick's work than that con-tained in this one sentence. It covers thewhole ground and gives due credit. It squaresliterally with the facts. A very common asser-tion with St. Patrick's Day orators is that St.Patrick found Ireland universally pagan andleft it universally Christian. In this beautifulantithesis, rigorous truth suffers a little violencefrom the desire to secure rhetorical elegance.

1

2 IRELAND'S FAIRY LORE

St. Patrick could have no successor in his greatlife-work; but he had a predecessor; probablymore than one. Their success, however, wasso slight that it could not take away anythingfrom his glory. Efforts had been made beforehis arrival to Christianize the country, but theywere confined to particular localities. Palladius,who had been sent by the same Pope whoafterwards sent St. Patrick, set out with thehope of converting the whole island. He suc-ceeded in founding three little churches in theCounty Wicklow. Attempts have been madeto identify the sites of these churches. FatherShearman, in an article in the Kilkenny Archae-ological Journal for 187~-3,identifies these siteswith Tigroney, Killeen Cormac and Donard inWicklow, and Dr. P. W. Joyce says his identifi-cations are "probably" correct. Here is whatthe 1\lost Rev. Archbishop Healy of Tuam sayson this matter: "A competent local authority,the late Father Shearman, identifies Teach naRoman with Tigroney, an old church in theparish of Castle MacAdam, County Wicklow.The building has completely disappeared; butthe ancient cemetery still remains. Cell-fineShearman identifies with Killeen Cormac, nowan old churchyard three miles southwest of

CHAPTER I 3

Dunlavin; but, as might be expected afterthe ravages of the Danes, all traces of the rel-ics have completely disappeared. The thirdchurch, Dominica Arda, as it is called in theold Latin, Shearman locates in the parish nowcalled Donard, in the west of the CountyWicklow. We do not assent to Shearman'slocation of the last two churches, mainly becausewe think it improbable that Palladius and hisassociates, remaining for so short a time inthe country, penetrated the Wicklow mountainsso far to the west. We think all these sitesshould be sought for in the neighborhood ofthe town of Wicklow, where Palladius landed;but while the matter is still doubtful, we mayaccept the suggestions of Shearman, as not byany means certain, but as "probable."

Teach na Roman, Irish for house of theRomans, Cell-fine, church of the relics, andDomnach arda, or church of the heights, werethe churches which Palladius founded. Dom-nach, which is the Gaelic for Dominica, Sunday,was also used in ancient Irish to mean a church,and ard, high, is an adjective akin to the Latinarduus, difficult.

Domnach arda is noteworthy as the placewhere Sylvester and Solinus, the two holy


companions of Palladius, are buried, and wehave it on the authority of Colgan, who flour-ished in the seventeenth century, that theywere still held in great veneration there in histime ..

Palladius, disheartened, gave it all up andwent back to Britain, where he died soonafterwards. Many ancient Irish authorities saycharitably, and, for all we may ever know,justly, that it was not destined for him to bethe apostle of the Irish people; and the shortand troubled career of the zealous missionaryseems to bear out the statement. That therewere Christians in Ireland even before thecoming of Palladius is evident from the directtestimony of the Venerable Bede, and fromallusions contained in some very ancient nativetraditions, preserved in the Lives of St. Patrick,notably in the Tripartite Life, which, with thesingle exception, perhaps of St. Fiach's bio-graphical poem, is the most ancient extant lifeof the Saint. There is even a legend thatCormac MacA.rt, who died A. D. ~66, was aChristian; and, curiously enough, the lostSaltair, or psalter of Tara, of which he was thecompiler, or which was, at least compiled underhis direction, has led to a great controversy

CHAPTER I 5

among eminent Gaelic scholars as to why itwas called by the name of Psalter, which is un-mistakably a Christian word; some maintain-ingthat the compilation, coming down frompagan times, received its name in Christiantimes. If the legend about the compiler wereonce proven to be historic fact, the controversywould at once be settled. It may be that themoral excellence of this King has caused hismemory to come down to us through all thoseages with a halo of Christianity around it.

Regarding pre-Palladian Christianity we havealso the testimony of St. Prosper, the Chroniclerof Aquitaine, who lived at the time of the eventwhich he records. He tells us that in the year431, Pope Celestine sent Palladius "to theScots, believing in Christ, to be their firstbishop." It will be remembered that the Irishwere called Scots or Scoti even as late as thefifteenth century. It may be safe historicallyto surmise that the number of Christians musthave been fairly considerable and the prospectof native subjects for ordination to the sacredministry fairly good, to make the sending of abishop necessary. Now how did it happen thatChristianity, even in isolated little spots, existedin Ireland at this early time? Roman civiliza-


tion or Roman arms had never touched Ireland,and so this avenue of an accidental introductionof Christianity into Ireland by Christian soldiersin the Roman legions was precluded. It mustbe borne in mind, however, that at this remoteage, there were large numbers of Christians inthe neighboring island of Britain, and thatthere was much and frequent communicationbetween the two countries. It is even regardedas probable that there was a well establishedChurch in Britain as early as the third century.That Christianity had been preached in Britain,ages before, no one doubts. Under these cir-cumstances it was simply impossible for theancient Irish not to have had some knowledgeof Christ before Palladius or Patrick, and thisprocess of elimination makes the theory thatthey received it from Britain the only tenableone.

Notwithstanding all this, it does no seriousviolenceto truth to say that St. Patrick foundIreland pagan and left it Christian. The storyof Ireland's early Christianity has been oftentold and told well. Learned writers haveelucidated the extension of Christianity fromIreland to the Continent of Europe by St.Columhanus and his followers, as also its

CHAPTER I 7

diffusion in Scotland, Northern England, andeven in islands still farther to the North throughthe agency of St. Columbkille and his monks.

The following chapters on Ireland's peculiarform of ancient paganism may be found in-teresting. A few feeble survivals of the ancientpagan customs are still found in Ireland, harm-lessly and beautifully pervading innocent pas-times and customs of the present day. Theyare however beginning to fade away like thetwilight over Ireland's western mountains. Thetraces of them that remain are powerful in theirhuman appeal.

CHAPTER II

Idolatry. Cromm Cruach. King Tigernm~s.Cromm Dubh. Sprinkling of blood. Emanw.No human sacrifices in St. Patrick's time.

WE may begin with the most repul-sive form of the ancient paga~sm,and ask the question, were Idols

ever worshipped in Ireland? Some writers ofrepute say that the Irish never knelt to anidol. But the weight of historic testimonygoes to show that this is merely a pleasingdelusion. It would have been strange if theancient Irish had. fully escaped this abomina-tion. They would have been alone in thewhole wide world in this regard. On thecontrary we are told by St. Patrick in his"Confessions,"that up to the time of his com-ing, the Scots, that is the Irish, worshippedonlyidols and abominations; and in the TripartiteLife of our Apostle,we are told that Tara wasthe chief seat of "idlact ocus druidect," thatis, of idolatry and druidism. It also recordsmany instances of the overthrowand destruc-tion of idols by him as a part of his life-work.

8

CHAPTER II 9

The most famous of these idols was CrommCruach. It was erected on the plain of MaghSlecht in the County of Cavan and was sur-rounded by twelve minor gods. It was coveredwith silver and gold and the minor gods withbrass or bronze. Cromm Cruach is mentionedfrequently in the Book of Linster. There is nofact of ancient history better attested than hisexistence. The plain where he stood maymean the plain of genuflection or the plain ofslaughter, slecht being susceptible of eithermeaning, that is, indiscriminate slaughter orprofound adoration, and while it certainlyserved as a place where divine honors were givento an idol, it also had served as a scene ofslaughter. King Tigernmas and a whole hostof his people were killed in some mysteriousway while adoring this idol on a certain Samainor November Eve.

Cromm Cruach was the King idol of Erinand was supposed to exercise a kind of primacyover all other hand-made gods. The Dinn-senchus, a topographical tract, preserved inthe Bookof Linster, tells us that "until Patrick'sadvent it was the god of every people thatcolonized Ireland." Cromm Cruach with "hissub-gods twelve" was miraculously destroyed


by St. Patrick. It could have been throwndown like any other structure. It might havebeen overthrown by an earthquake, like theColossus of Rhodes, or destroyed during thenight of the "big wind";* but St. Patrick tookhis own way of doing all this, to show forththe power of God..

In the ancient Irish Literature, there IS

frequent reference to another idol. It wasCromm Dubh and he seems to have been nextin importance to Cromm Cruach. The peoplehave a distinct tradition of him. It is mostinteresting to hear them call the first Sundayin August domnac Cruim Duib, or CrommDubh's Sunday, as if he were one of the saintsof the Calendar. As a matter of fact theyunwittingly celebrate on that day the destruc-tion of this idol. The Ultonians looked toCerman Kelstach as their local deity, just asthe Connacians and Munsterites looked toCrommDubh.

It is a sure thing that idolatry never prevaileduniversally in Ireland at any time. Less repul-sive forms of paganism were widely spread.It must, however, be admitted on the authorityof the Tripartite that the highest in the land

• An anachronism. but we believe it excusable.

CHAPTER II 11

knelt before idols. That document tells usthat Leary the high King who greeted St.Patrick had offered divine worship to CrommCruach.

We have seen the statement made by serioushistorians that human sacrifices were offered tothese gods. Certainly not in St. Patrick'stime. There is no reference to them in hiswritings or in the works of his biographers.If this practice or any trace of it had existed inIreland then, there is little doubt that he orsome of the other early Christian writers wouldhave referred to it, as they all showed ananxiety to expose in detail the abominations ofpaganism, and show by contrast the beautyand glory of Christianity. There is, however,at least a show of evidence that at a periodmany centuries before St. Patrick's coming,human blood was spilt in sacrifice. The Dinn-senchus, referring to Cromm Cruach says,"To him they would kill their wretched piteousoffspring with much wailing and peril to pourout their blood around Cromm Cruach. Milkand honey they would ask of him speedily inreturn 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 man-slaughters, the plain is called Magh Slecht."This testimony is not taken seriously by anyof the great Gaelic scholars, because the docu-ment, from which it is taken, is completelyand absolutely legendary and mythological inits accounts of the origin of place names. Andit is in such a connection the above statementis found. The tract is generally correct ingiving the name of the place, but unreliable ingiving the historical reason of the name. Thelate Whitly Stokes, once the great Celticist ofOxford University, found a tradition in BritishIndia to the effect that in prehistoric timeshuman blood was sprinkled on the foundationson which great buildings were to be raised.The purpose was to bring the boon of longduration to the edifice. This superstition per-vaded the whole Aryan world. And evenCormac MacClllliTlaD, Archbishop of Casheland King of Munster, who died about the yearA. D. 908, tells us that the palace of Emania,the famous royal residence of Ulster, was socalled because human blood, which is in Greek"haima tt had been rinkled . f da ., sP on Its oun bons.This explanation, no doubt, is far-fetched, butit shows that the superstition prevailed.

CHAPTER II 13

In this connection also an interesting story isfound in the Book of Fermoy which, on accountof its classical and scriptural analogies, we givehere. Certain Irish druids recommended thata boy, distinguished by certain peculiar personalcharacteristics, be killed and his blood sprinkledon the door posts of Tara to remove a blight,which the crime of a certain woman had broughton corn and milk all over the country. Theboy was saved by a wonderfully beautiful cowthat had appeared at the last moment andwas slain in his stead. The blight ceased. InHomer you have the story of Iphigenia; in theBible, Isaac. What food for historical reflectiondoes it not give to find that, as in all the dis-tant Orient, so in ancient Ireland also, arefound such traces, distorted indeed, but, never-theless interesting, of the scenes and incidentsand mysteries arising from the intercourse ofthe Creator with primitive man. The Eastwas our cradle-land, the West evidently ourdestination.

CHAPTER ill

Idolatry not very general. No National religion.The Fairies. Who were the Jairies? Novem-ber Eve excursions. Finn MacCumal's"thumb oj Knowledge."

THE ancient Irish had an immensepantheon to select from. None ofthe gods enjoyed an unquestioned

supremacy like Zeus among the Greeks, orJupiter among the Romans. There was nowell defined and connected system of religion.Nevertheless the ancient Irish were a very reli-gious people. Each one worshipped whatevergod or goddess he chose, prayed in whateverway he liked and wherever he liked. Therewere no temples and not much prayer. Underthe slavery of paganism the Irishman was afree lance, following his own taste unquestion-ingly. Under the freedom and liberty of theGospel truth, he is the firmest supporter ofreligious or ecclesiastical authority and thestaunchest devotee of a beautiful, harmoniousand logical religious system. But let us come

14

CHAPTER III 15

to the Fairies; we want to introduce them.And now, gentle reader, we are only bringingback to your recollection a class of beings whoare, very likely, old acquaintances of yours.Perhaps you have seen them yourself, or haveseen somebody who saw them. You spentyour younger days in some country place orlittle town in Ireland and you remember dis-tinctly what a source of terror, and of mysteri-ous, indefinable awe these fairies were to you,and what an influence they had on your generalbehavior. Invisible themselves, they made youcareful and circumspect in many ways, par-ticularly if you were of an imaginative andnervous temperament. You little knew orthought that these very fairies were the objectof religious belief and worship in Ireland beforethe introduction of Christianity.

You yourself knew very well there were nosuch things as fairies. You did not believe inthem. Nevertheless a lurking fear that perhapsafter all they were all around you haunted you;and if, in the dusk of evening, when the twilighthad almost all faded away, you had to pass overCnoc-an-t-sio-dain * or go by the Sgeac Mor(large tree) that stood all alone on the top of

* Pronounced "Cnuck a teeyawn."

16 IRELAND'S FAIRY WRE

the little lonesome-looking hill, in spite of allyour efforts to brace yourself, a strange fear,enhanced by the awful silence prevailing, andan impulse to run for your life came upon you.But you would not be a coward. You wouldwalk at your accustomed pace. You would bebrave and manly, but it took an awful effort.Imagination played havoc with your betterknowledge and judgment, and beads of perspira-tion stood out in bold relief on your brow.You certainly would have run; but you wereafraid to let the fairies know you were afraid;and besides you knew they were a frolicsome,pranky little set, fond of a joke, and might givechase, and your last condition would be worsethan your first. At last, in sight of your owndoor, you breathed more freely, a new accessionof courage came to you, you felt you had asafe handicap for the run, you took to yourheels, made a dash for home, rushed in the door,put the family in a panic, and brought theimmediate conviction that you had "seen some-thing." Whether there were fairies or not youwere glad you were in-doors.

This incident. which is by no means allimagination, illustrates the mental attitude ofmany people towards the fairies, I should

CHAPTER III 17

say even yet, in some remote parts of thecountry.

Some writers speak of the tenacity of pagan-ism. No denizens of the ancient Irish Pan-theon can compare with the fairies in their holdon the Irish imagination, and in their persistencyin clinging to their rights on Irish soil.

Who were, or rather who are, the fairies?Let us begin the answer to this question by thenote from O'Curry's "Manuscript Materials ofAncient Irish History," where he explains theword Banshee: "The word 'beanside ' (banshee)literally, 'woman of the fairy mansions' meanta woman from the fairy mansions of the hills,or the land of immortality. In other words itmeant, according to the ancient legendarybelief, a woman of that Tuatha De Danaanrace which preceded the Milesians, and which,on their conquest by the latter, were believedto have retired from this life to enjoy an in-visible immortality in the hills, lakes, fountainsand islands of Erin where it was reported theywere to remain until the last judgment. Fromthis state of existence they were of old believedto be able to reappear at pleasure in the ordinaryforms of men and women. And this ancientbelief regarding the Tuatha De Danaan, whose


sudden disappearance from our ancient historyseems to have been only accounted for in thismanner, still lingers among the people of modernIreland in the form of the superstitious rever-ence for what they now call the fairies or goodpeople."

When one considers the immensity of theancient Irish Pantheon, composed, as it was, ofwar gods and war goddesses, demons of the air,sprites of the valley, common ghosts, spectresand goblins, leprecawns, banshees, fairies ofvarious kinds, one cannot help thinking thatthe mortal inhabitants were in constant dangerof being crowded or scared into the surroundingseas. It was certainly high time for St. Patrickto come and tell these people of the one trueGod. It was Father Tom Burke who said thatthe Irish had a wonderful way of realizing orvisualizing the unseen. This brings to mindthe admonition of St. Paul: "Let your conversa-tion be in heaven." Their conversation, theburden and trend of their thought was inheaven, even though a mistaken heaven.

No class of divinities received such widespreadworship as the fairies. Some thought that theretired Tuatha De Danaan constituted theentire fairy body. But the weight of authority

CHAPTER III 19goes to show that this is not so. These merelyjoined forces and cast in their lot with analready organized fairy kingdom. They werenot absorbed by this pre-existing body. Theyretained their own distinct peculiarities. Theyremained a class in themselves. They areoften described as gods or elves who had theirdwellings on earth. Some of them were mor-tal, others immortal. These owed their immor-tality to Mannanan MacLir's ale which theydrank copiously and to his swines' flesh whichthey ate with a relish. This particular dietwas an antidote against disease and decay anddeath. This ale is not brewed at the pres-ent day. The recipe must have been lost,ages gone by. Some of the fairies that weremortal lived to an immense age. Those wefind mentioned in the ancient Irish manu-scripts are men and women of ordinary stature,having their troubles among themselves, andtroubles with "mortals" too. They made loveto mortals and were loved in return. Theyfought against mortals and mortals foughtagainst them and often defeated them in spiteof their immense natural and acquired ad-vantages in war as in love.

Samain, or November Eve, must have been


a night of terror in Ancient Erin. The EctraNerai, or adventures of Nera, published byKuno Meyer in the Revue Celtique says that"demons appear on that night," and that the"shees of Erin are always open at Samain."

The Fe Fiada was. what made the fairiesinvisible. We do not know what this was;but it reminds us of the Tarnkappe, often calledthe Nehelkappe, which, in the Niehelungenlied,made Siegfried invisible when he donned it.The Fe Fiada was taken off on November Eve.The "good people" threw open their doorsthis night, kept open house and held highrevel. Whole hosts of them rushed out ofdoors also and roamed whithersoever theychose all over the country. Many of thesewere vicious and malevolent and hence themore prudent among the mortals remainedwithin doors. Most of the really good fairiesremained in the duns or shees. These werefavorably disposed towards mortals and wereknown to have treated them hospitably, accord-ing as the humor seized them. The shees werenever entirely deserted or left unguarded. Butif one got near enough he could .look into themand see their grandeur and treasures. Hecould not be quite sure that he was welcome to

CHAPTER III fll

inspect them very closely, or, in fact, to inspectthem at all. There was always more or lessrisk. For, if there was one thing more thananother the fairies insisted on, it was thata man should mind his own business; or, atleast, that he might not pry into their af-fairs however much he might want to extendhis uninvited solicitude to the affairs of mortalslike himself"

Finn MacCumal had an experience with afairy which we insert here in the language intowhich Professor O'Curry translated it from anold Irish text. "The history of Finn Mac-Cumal's thumb of Knowledge," says he, "asrelated in the ancient Irish tales, is a very wildone indeed; but it is so often alluded to thatI may as well state it here. It is shortly this:Upon a certain occasion this gallant warriorwas hunting near Slievenamon in the presentcounty of Tipperary; he was standing at aspring-well when a strange woman came sud-denly upon him, filled a silver tankard at thespring, . and immediately afterwards walkedaway with it. Finn followed her, unperceived,until she came to the side of the hill, when ~concealed door opened suddenly and she walked"in. Finn attempted to follow her farther but


the door was shut so quickly that he was onlyable to put his hand on the door post, with thethumb inside. It was with great difficultythat he was able to extricate the thumb, andhaving done so, he immediately thrust it,bruised as it was, into his mouth to ease thepain. No sooner had he done so than hefound himself possessed of the gift of foreseeingfuture events. This gift was not, we are told,always present, but only when he bruised orchewed his thumb." This was probably thereason why he never volunteered any informa.tion about the future. He had always to beasked for it.

The MacGniomarta Finn, or youthful ex.ploits of Finn, a very ancient little tract, givesa different version of this story. It says thatFinn went to the school of Finneigeas on theBoyne to study literature. Finn's name wasthen Demne. Finneigeas had been seven yearstrying to catch the salmon of the pool of Feic.It had been foretold that he would eat thissalmon and then that there would "be nothinghe would not know." The salmon was finallycaught and turned over to Demne to be cooked.Demne was strictly ordered not to eat a bite ofit. But in the act of cooking it, he burned his

CHAPTER III

thumb, which he forthwith put in his mouth toease the pain. He reported the incident toFinneigeas who at once changed his name fromDemne to Finn, that is the Fair, and declaredthat it was "his privilege to eat the fish andacquire the gift of prophecy which he himselfhad missed."

CHAPTER IV

Quarrels of the fairies. Irish Mythology.Friendly and matrimonial relations betweenfairies and mortals. The Banshee. Man.gan. Moore.

AN illustration of the quarrels of thefairies among themselves is give~ in

, the Rennes Dinnsenchus. A serIOUSquarrel had happened between two parties offer side, or fairy men. They decided to fightit out. They assumed the shapes of deer andmet on the plain of Moenmagh in Connaught.The battle that ensued was so terrific and thenumbers slain on either side so vast that hoofsand antlers enough were left to form severallarge fairy mounds.

Our readers will take this, as a matter ofcourse, for what it is, a fairy story. Ourancestors, when they were pagans, believed itto be an historical fact. Otherwise they wouldnot have taken it seriously, and their writerswould not have committed it to writing as apiere of serious history. It is not mere im-

u

CHAPTER IV 25

agination or Irish exaggeration. It is not, ofcourse, history to us. It is mythology, pureand simple.

All the great nations of antiquity, like Ireland,have their mythological and heroic, as well ashistorical periods. The admirable, the terrible,the horrible, the repulsive, as well as love andwar, figure in the Irish mythology as they doin the mythologies of ancient Greece andRome.

But to return to the fairies. 'We find them inconstant intercourse with men, sometimes tothe advantage, but more frequently to thedetriment of the latter. Fairies and mortalseven intermarried. It happened frequentlythat a man or woman had his or her leananside,* or fairy follower, which was in reality afairy lover.It is said of Fingin Mac Luchta, who was

King of South l\:lunster in the second century,that his leanan side used to visit him everySamain or November Eve, and take him to seethe fairy palaces and their treasures.

Ancient writers record innumerable instancesof such attachments. In the Sylva Gadelica,published by Standish Hayes O'Grady, it is

* Pronounced lanaWB shee.


recorded that Fachna, a King of IDster, had afer side, a fairy man or friend, who told himeven of things that were yet to happen.

By far the most frequent and familiar kindof leanan side was the bean side (banshee),whose wail was heard when her mortal protegewas about to die, or when some mortal afRictionwas about to visit the family over whose des-tinies she exerted a watchful and loving care.

What a wonderful kind of pagan guardianangel was she; or, rather, is she; for very manyIrish people do not find the courage or theheart to say or to believe that the last bansheehas yet disappeared.

In fact, until very recent times, and wemight safely say that even up to the present,in some places, there are many splendid familieswho would feel as if they had sustained somemysterious loss, or injury to their family pride,if they had to abandon definitely the lurkingbelief that this devoted sprite still loved them.

Tom Moore introduces the banshee in themelody in which he sings:

"How oft has the banshee cried!How oft has death untied

Bright links that glory wove,Sweet bonds entwined by love!

CHAPTER IV

Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth;Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth;

Long may the fair and braveSigh o'er the hero's grave."

27

But as Moore's special reference is to Ad-miral Nelson his introduction of the banshee isfar-fetched. Nelson was not an Irishman.

CHAPTER V

Cave or palace oj' Cruachan. Virgil's harpies.Whittier's" haunted glen." Mysterious disap.pearances. Nora Hopper's poem. Ossianand Tir na n-og.

THERE are many people who thinkthat, outside of the infernal regions,there is no hell-gate anywhere except

in the East River, near New York City. Thisis a mistake. On the banks of the Shannon,in the County of Roscommon, Ireland, stoodthe ancient palace of Cruachan, the residenceof the kings and queens of Connaught formany centuries.

Near this palace was a cave which figures inmany an ancient Togbail or siege story. Thecave is still there, of course, and traditions ofthose ancient fights linger round it. It wouldhave been hard to understand why great hostsof brave soldiers should have fought for thiscavern, if mythological history had not made itclear that this place was, itself, a residence,

is

CHAPTER V 29

and that fairies fought against fairies for it;and mortals frequently became mixed up inthose fights, sometimes fighting on their ownresponsibility to dispossess the fairies or to oustother mortals.

The cave of Cruachan figures principally inthat age when the mythological cycle was fastdisappearing and its dark shadows yielding tothe dawn of the heroic period.

The cave is, perhaps, best remembered as theabode of the most malignant of the fairy elvesor demons. It was called the hell-gate ofIreland because it was from it that, on Novem-ber Eve, the most terrifying and noxious ofthe spectral hosts, that made that night hideous,burst forth. Copper-red birds, three-headedvultures and other demons, terrible to behold,issued from it and, with their poisonous breath,blasted and blighted everything with whichthey came in contact.

This reminds us of Virgil's Harpies, which intheir flight corrupted the very atmosphere withtheir filth. To bring matters nearer home,that cave itself recalls the "Weird Gathering"of Whittier, that fearful assemblage of demons,witches, sorcerers and hideous spectres whichhe describes as gathering at the sound of the

80 mELAND'SFAmy 'LORE

blood-curdling, midnight trumpet, and comingtogether for an unholy purpose in that

"-- wild and haunted glenn,'Twixt Saugus and Naumkeag." *

We do not know exactly where that glen is;but we surmise that the poet only picked outsome definite cavern so as to give the picture inhis mind "a local habitation and a name" and,incidentally, without intending it, to give someundefined spot a very bad name.

As for the Irish fairies, even the " goodpeople" or benevolent elves made themselvesobjects of terror by their propensity to stealpeople away. They did this in various ways.Mysterious disappearances, whether for a timeor for all time, were as a general thing ac-counted for in this way.

Many of our readers will remember also thatmany people who died in Ireland, at leastapparently, and whom they had seen dead, didnot really die at all, but were carried away tothe nearest fairy mansion, a real fairy havingassumed the role of corpse for a blind and tosupply a wake and funeral.

This suspicion was deep and serious whena promising young person pined away.

• The Indian name for Salem.

CHAPTER V 31We believe, however, that this particular

relic or adjunct of the ancient pagan belief haspassed away. The tradition exists, notwith-standing, that the person thus carried awayfound life in fairyland indescribably pleasantand hence the concluding lines in Nora Hopper'sbeautiful little poem on the "Girl from Faery-land" :

"For half my heart's in Faeryland.And half is here on earth,

And half I'm spoiled for sorrow,And half I'm strange to mirth,

And my feet are wild for dancing,And my neighbor's feet are slow-

Why did J"OU take me, Gentle Folk?Why did you let me go? "

We find the same tradition spun out into adelightful Gaelic poem of 740 lines by MichaelComyn of Clare about the year 1750. Thepoem is called "Tir na n-og," or "The Land ofthe Youth" - that is, of perpetual youth-and tells how Ossian, the famous Irish poet andhero of the third century, went away willinglywith "Niam of the Golden Hair" to thatblissful land and lived there in happy wedlockwith her for over two hundred years; whenfinally becoming anxious to know what hadbecome of the Feni or heroes he had left, and

3~ IRELAND'S FAIRY WRE

particularly of his father Finn, he came toIreland on a milk white steed and was told byall the people he met and questioned that Finnand the Feni had passed away ages before.

Accidentally touching mother earth, againstwhich he had been particularly cautioned, thefairy bloom of youth left him, and he becamesuddenly afflicted with all the decreptitude ofhis enormous age. A great anachronism is

, solved and he is made a contemporary of St.Patrick; and a semblance of foundation infact, or at least in poetic fancy, is given to thequaint and beautiful and at times humorousdialogues between the saint and "the helpless,hopeless, blind, old man."

One of the reasons, if not the only reason,for the composition of Tir na n-og was toexplain away this anachronism, which the"Ossianic poems," magnificent as they are,had created, by making Ossian and St. Patrickengage in dialogue. From this point of view itis a most beautiful literary contrivance.

The Ossianic poems, to which we refer, areof comparatively modern date, but founded onthe ancient legends and tales.

The extent to which religious worship wasgiven to the fairies in ancient times is very well

CHAPTER V 88

attested by the fact that in modern Irelandseventy-two townlands have the word "shee"as a prefix or affix to their names. The fairieswere called the " good people," "na daoinemaite" to propitiate them. The latter dayhold of this belief on the popular fancy is duemore to its poetry than to its philosophy.It is no violent transition, however, to passfrom a belief in the banshee to a belief in aguardian angel. In St. Fiac's metrical life ofSt. Patrick there is a phrase worthy of con-sideration. It refers to the people as "tuataadorta side"; a people adoring the "shee" orfairies. Windisch in his "lrische Texte," has,instead of this reading, "tuata adorta idla,"substituting "idols" for " shee." This poemwas written during St. Patrick's own lifetime.Its author was bishop of Sletty. In theTripartite Life of our Apostle there is a passagewhich runs thus: Patrick went afterwards tothe fountain, i.e., Clibech, on the slopes ofCruachan at sunrise. Leary MacNeill's twodaughters, Eithne the Fair, and Feidelm thered went early to the fountain as they werewont to, when they found the synod of clericsat the well, with white garments and theirbooks before them. They wondered at the

34 IRELAl\D'S FAIRY LORE

appearance of the clerics and imagined theywere "fire-side" or phantoms. They ques-tioned Patrick: "Whence are you and whitherhave you come? Is it from the 'side' (shee)?Are you gods?" The passage goes on to relatethe conversation of the maidens, their questionshaving given the Saint an excellent opportunityto enlighten their enquiring minds about theone true God. How natural it was that thestrange and unexpected habiliments and generalmake-up of the Christian bishops caused thepagan maidens to take them for fairies. Itgives us a new idea of this belief as it existed inthe fifth century. So solidly was it establishedthat it has taken fifteen hundred years toeradicate it completely.

As to the etymology of the word "side" or"shee," Dr. Todd, in his "Life of St. Patrick"says, "It is doubtful whether the word is cognatewith the Latin 'sedes,' a seat or habitation, orwhether it comes from the Celtic 'side,' a blastof wind." We connect it with the 'sedes.' Itis not that the Irish borrowed the word fromthe Latin. The Latin may have borrowed itfrom the Irish. " Shee" is rarely, if ever,employed in the modern language for a blastof wind. Instead, Sinean, a modification of it,

CHAPTER V 35

is used. The word " shee" originally appliedto the fairies themselves. Colgan says, "Fan-tastical spirits are by the Irish called 'side,'because they are seen, as it were, to come out ofbeautiful hills to infest people, and hence thevulgar (common) belief that they reside incertain subterraneous habitations within thesehills, and these habitations and sometimes thehills themselves are called by the Irish 'side.'''

We beg our readers to observe that the "d"in this word is silent. The" d" and the final" "h h h ".". I "8" b fe s ow t at t e 1 IS ong. e ore aslender vowel has an "sh" sound; hence thepronunciation "shee." Any simplification ofthe spelling of Irish words by eliminating whatseem to be unnecessary letters would make anattempt to get at their etymology extremelydifficult.

CHAPTER VI

Universality of the belief in fairies. Plato'stheory. Oriental types. Moral cleanliness ofIrish Mythology. Shelley's Queen Mab.Shakespeare's fairies; Puck. Milton's Comus.Irish language and Christianity. Spencer'sFaery Queen.

THERE was no nation of antiquitythat had not a fairy belief of somekind. '" e find fairies and demons in

Hesiod and Plato. We find them in the Perisof the Orientals. We find them in the ruraldistricts of Greece and Rome. The Romans hadtheir Lares to preside over their homes andlands; and their Penates, whose functions werealmost identical with those of their Lares. TheirManes were mostly the spirits of their dead andsometimes also the word was applied to theabode of the dead. Plato thought that thecrimes of men lived after them in palpable ortangible shape; and these, in his opinion, werethe Manes, which tormented the shaded ofthose that had committed them.

36

CHAPTER VI 37

As to the Oriental types of fairies, who hasnot read with astonishment of some Arabiangenie developing from a huge column of smoke,released from. condensation in a little shrine orcasket of some kind, and where is the one whosememory could lose all trace of the little men,a foot and a half in height, appearing beforethe court in enchanted palaces, carrying bars ofiron, forty feet long, across their shoulders, andknocking their enemies far into the hereafterwith a blow from one of those terrible weapons?

The Aryan world had its distinctive pantheon.It was grave and sombre and terrible. 'Whenit reached Ireland it became invested with apoetical fascination. It was also cleansed, con-siderably, from the voluptuousness that haddefiled it in its eastern home. It becamethoroughly Irish and soon comprised within itswalls the great Tuatha De Danaan race. Weknow the primitive fairies only as a class orkingdom. We know the Tuatha De Danaanfairies by the names of their chiefs or leaders.

One of the most remarkable things about themythological literature of Ireland is its com-parative moral cleanliness. We sometimes meetwith a primitiveness of expression with whichwe can hardly quarrel at this distance of time.


There are also, as shown by De Jubainville, afew, very few cases of sexual crime; but insteadof being laughed at or condoned, as they wouldbe by Homer's gods, they are made the cause ofrelentless strife and sometimes of desolatingwars.

This alone would show that Irish mythologywas clean in itself and that it did not, as someclaim, owe its purification to the zeal of thesaints of later days, who were largely thetranscribers of its records.

The unexpurgated editions of Shakespearealone, and even of the Catholic Dryden, con-tain more impure suggestiveness than is to befound in all of Ireland's pagan literature.

These productions of modern times are athousand times more of a menace and a dangerto weak human nature; and as for Shelley'steachings of free love and of other doctrinesthat naturally go with this, and are intrinsicallysubversive of all social order, you seek in vainfor anything like them in the pagan literatureof Ireland.

Of Shakespeare and Dryden we speak withprofound respect and with deep reverence fortheir genius and we feel that if they werewriting in our times they would, in delicate

CHAPTER VI 39

matters, have accommodated their phraseologyto our more refined ears and keener moralsensibilities.

Mention of Shelley brings to mind the disap-pointment a man feels when he first goes toread "Queen Mab." It is a grand poem,sublime in conception, rich and powerful inexpression. At least that is our recollection ofit. But to one who retains a more or lesslaudable respect for the clean mythology ofancient Ireland, it seems a little less than asacrilege to introduce the hazy and venerablefairy queen of antiquity and make her theprophetess of a socialism of the rankest kind,inveighing against "King" and "Priest," and intheir persons, against all constituted authority,and against all the powers that go to keepsociety together.

Queen Mab takes with her in her airy chariot,and carries even beyond the orbits of theplanets of our solar system, to her fairy palacein the ether of inconceivable distance, a tempo-rarily disembodied spirit which she indoctrinates,reaching a climax in what we shall call a bitterdenunciation of the institution of marriage.We call it by this name, because to adhere tooclosely to the diction of the original would be


all the more offensive to ordinarily refined andmodest ears by the power and majesty andclearness of its expression.

With Shakespeare's fairies, almost everybodyis acquainted. There is Ariel, the trusty, and

.Oberon and Titania, both benevolent andmagnificent sprites. And Puck; what shall wesay of him? He is undoubtedly the pookabrought into Ireland by the Danes; but, perhaps,the Danes brought a Pooka into England too.This is our opinion, and we wish they had lefthim there. The Irish pooka is far more villain-ous than his English brother. His chief diver-sion consists in scaring people out of theirwits, and all for the pure deviltry of it.

We shall allow an Englishman, Charles Lamb,to describe the tricks of the English pooka."Puck," says Lamb "(or, as he was sometimescalled, 'Robin Goodfellow') was a shrewd andknavish sprite, that used to play comicalpranks in the neighboring villages; sometimesgetting into the dairies and skimming themilk; sometimes plunging his light and airyform into the butter churn, and while he wasdancing his fantastic shape in the churn, invain the dairy-maid would labor to change hercream into butter: nor had the village swains

CHAPTER VI 41

any better success; whenever Puck chose toplay his freaks in the brewing copper, the alewas sure to be spoiled.

"When a few good neighbors were met todrink. some comfortable ale together, Puckwould jump into the bowl of ale in the likenessof a roasted crab, and when some old goodywas going to drink, he would bob against herlips and spill the ale over her withered chin;and presently after when the same old dame wasgravely seating herself to tell her neighbors asad and melancholy story, Puck would slip herthree-legged stool from under her, and downtoppled the poor old woman, and then the oldgossips would hold their sides and laugh at her,and swear they never wasted a merrier hour."

We remember to have seen Milton's Comussomewhere referred to as a fay or fairy of theMiddle Ages; and if the blind old Puritan bardpresented to the world this sprite whose purposein life seemed to have been to lure to a doomworse than death any maidens who happenedto be lost in the woods, he made up for theoffensive obtrusion, to some extent, by in-troducing Sabrina, the real fay or fairy of thebenevolent kind, the nymph who gave herservices to the rescuing of such hapless mortals.

4~ IRELAND'S FAIRY LORE

We find it difficult to determine when theword" fairy" was introduced into the Englishlanguage. But we know that it came throughthe Fr~nch. "Feer" means to enchant, andthe noun "fee" means fay or fairy, a class ofbeings which are represented as being, as ageneral thing, extraordinarily beautiful. Likethe muses and graces and nymphs of ancientclassic literature, there is a poetical fascinationabout them, and they lend a charming characterto medieval romance.

One might suppose that the fairies andspirits of Shakespeare might have been sug-gested by the fairies of Ireland; but it is farmore probable that they are the traces orrelics of the great mythology left all over theface of Europe by the great Celtic migrationwhich started from Scythia, or more remotelyfrom Asia, on the southwest bank of the Indus,and reached its "Ultima Thule" in Ireland andin the highlands of Scotland, in both of whichplaces its most distinctive traditions are foundto-day.

Where the Irish language is most prevalentas a spoken language is where the fairy tradi-tions exist most clearly; and this, notwithstand-ing the fact that that language became per-

CHAPTER VI 43

meated and pervaded by the spirit of Chris-tianity to such an extent that in the presenceof a calamity that might be thought to be offairy origin, the sign of the cross is at oncemade, and the sacred names of Jesus and Maryinvoked.

To such an extent was the Irish languagebound up with Christianity that the interestsof the one became the interests of the other;they were both subjected to the same commonproscription; and we can say there is no doubtwhatever that that tongue, differentiating theCatholic Irishman from the English-speakingProtestant, was a powerful human agency inthe hands of Providence to help divine gracein preserving the faith in Ireland.

But we came near forgetting to state thatthe French "fees" were the " fata" of LowLatin and of the Italian, and are supposed tohave been suggested by the "Parcae" or"Fates" of ancient Rome. The Irish fairiesare largely of the same genus, but are so distinc-tively Irish that they form a class in themselves.They spoke the Irish language as the Catholicsdid, and some of the most interesting andamusing stories of the peasantry in GaelicIreland, even now, represent the fairies as good


Catholics, particularly averse to swearing andprofanity. Why the fairy traditions, - we hateto call them superstitions - among the un-lettered are co-existent and co-extensive withIrish as a spoken language is a psychologicalfact that we cannot undertake to explain here.

There is hardly a doubt but that it was inIreland Shelley got his Queen Mab, for it wasthere she was queen; and if there is anybodywho does not know where Spencer got hisnotions of the "Faery Queen," let him rememberthat Queen Elizabeth, in her plantation ofMunster, gave that poet something over threethousand acres in that fertile province; thathe lived there and that after the publication ofhis poem, or of some considerable portions ofit, he was given an annual pension of fiftypounds, an enormous revenue for those times.

The fact is, it was not an Irish Fairy QueenSpencer portrayed at all, but an English one;that one was Elizabeth herself. His brilliantimagination enriches her character with all thevirtues, and endows her person with all thecharms of the ideal fairy queen. He em-bellishes the Court of St. James with treasuresstolen from the fairy mansions of Ireland.

CHAPTER VII

Fairy belief in ninth and succeeding centuries.Two classes of gods. Pessimistic and op-timistic views of fairies. Evils they couldinflict. The Book of the Dun Cow.

RATHER than dwell any further hereon middle age and modern concep-

. tions of the fairies, we retire againinto the mists of antiquity and ransack afew more references made to them in ourancient literature. In the tale of the" Sick Bedof Cuculain," in the "Book of the Dun Cow"(Libur na h-Uidre), we find the following:-"For the demoniac power was great before thefaith; and such was its greatness that thedemons used to corporeally tempt the people,and they used to show them delights andsecrets such as how they might become im-mortal. And it was to these phantoms theignorant used to apply the name Sidhe (Shee)."

The passage we quoted from the TripartiteLife some time ago gives an idea of the fairybelief that prevailed in the fifth centuIJ". This

45


present citation shows what it was in theninth, tenth and eleventh centuries; but theidea it gives of the "good people" is entirelytoo gloomy. The " Sick Bed of Cuculain"was published in the Atlantis,. and o'Curry,editing it in that magazine, was so influencedby its reference to the "Shee" and their de-moniac power as to get the same pessimisticnotion of them. In Appendix No. 21, page504, of his "Manuscript Materials of AncientIrish History," he says: "Of the fir-shee, fairymen, and the ben-shee, or man-shee, fairywomen, there were, however, two classes. Oneof these was supposed to consist of demons,who took on themselves human bodies of menor women, and by making love to the sons anddaughters of men, and revealing to themdelusive views of a glorious prospective im-mortality, seduced them into a fatal union bywhich they were forever lost from God.

"The second class consisted of the TuathaDe Danaan, a people said to have been devotedaltogether to the practices of Druidism and theBlack Art. This people in fact were thepossessors of Erin at the coming of the MilesianColony; and having been conquered by theMilesians, and disdaining to live in subjection

CHAPTER VII 47to a more material and less spiritual powerthan their own, their chiefs were imagined tohave put on the garb of a heathen immortality,and selecting for themselves the most beautifulsituations of hills, lakes, islands, etc., throughoutthe land, to have built for themselves, or causedto spring up, splendid halls in the midst ofthose chosen situations, into which they entered,drawing a veil of magic around them to hidethem from mortal eyes, but through which theyhad power to see all that was passing on earth.

"These immortal mortals were then believednot only to take husbands and wives fromamongst the sons and daughters of men, butalso to give and receive mutual assistance intheir battles and wars respectively."It is clear that O'Curry thought the aboriginal

fairies to have been demons in the darkest senseof the word, and that the passage in "Book ofthe Dun Cow" represented them as such; whilethe Tuatha De Danaan accession to the fairykingdom might be considered to have broughtconsiderable human goodness with it.

The pessimistic idea was probably inducedby the Christian clergy in their zealous desireto detach the people from a superstition thatwas evidently clinging to them.


The idea of the "shee" given by the writerof the Tripartite is thoroughly bright andoptimistic; there is no reason for supposingthat he ever thought of distinguishing betweenthe two classes of fairies, if, indeed, he knewanything about these divisions.

The idea, however, we have found handeddown to us from antiquity is that whether thesebeings are benevolent or otherwise, intercoursewith them was regarded as boding evil tomortals. Very little good has been known toresult from it. They were dreaded ratherthan loved. And the deference shown them wasintended to propitiate them, or avert the evilthey might do.

They could make themselves visible to some,while remaining invisible to all others standingaround, just as Pallas Athene talked withAchilles and was seen by him, while none of theother Greeks in his company saw her at all;or just as Prospero in the "Tempest" takesprecautions not to have his daughter Mirandasee him talking with Ariel, because he knowsshe cannot see the sprite, and that she would,therefore, think her father was talking tohimself.

It is this sense of the presence of the fairies

CHAPTER VII 49

and the thought that they might be eaves-dropping that made people speak of them withdeference.

The manifold evil they could do is mentionedin such ancient documents as the "SeanchusMor," and the story of the Voyage of Bran.They could cause a blight of the crops or strikecattle with disease. Even to this day, whencattle or human beings, by depredation or inany other way, desecrate a haunted liss orfairy fort, and get sick afterwards, their mis-fortune is attributed to fairy vengeance, nomatter how clear the natural cause of themalady may be.

And there has been a race of impostors whoprofited financially by encouraging this super-stition among the people. They pretended tohave learned from the "good people," them-selves, ways and means of counteracting theeffects of fairy malignity, and these ways andmeans were as weird and uncanny as anythingever concocted by Shakespeare's witches.

"The Book of the Dun Cow," so called be-cause written on the hide of a brown cow, wascompiled about the year 1100. Its contents arePagan and Christian, historical and romantic,but principally romantic. It has also some


gloomy pieces, such as the history of the pagancemeteries, and the elegy on Saint Columbkille,supposed to have been written by DallanForgail, his contemporary and friend.

The eleventh century compiler interlined thiselegy with a gloss, explaining the words thenobsolete. The gloss itself is now obsolete.Its presence, however, gives the poem greatphilological importance.

The whole compilation has been published infacsimile by the Royal Irish Academy withpreface and description of contents. The Liburna h-Uidre has the distinction of being one ofthose books for which a battle was fought.It was "forcibly" taken from the men of Con-naught, into whose hands it had fallen "inransom for O'Doherty."

This is another evidence of the high valueset on learning and on books by the ancientIrish.

CHAPTER VIII

The Irish called Scoti and Ireland Scotia.Caledonia called Scotia Minor. Irish andErse languages. Landing of the Milesiansin Ireland. Amergin's decision.

ON page 175 of the fifth volume of thepublications of the long since de-funct Ossianic Society, we find Por-

phyrus, the platonic philosopher; Claudian,the Latin poet of the fourth century; Ethicus,the Cosmographer; Saint Prosper, who diedA.D. 466; Orosius, the Spanish historian, whoflourished in the beginning of the fifth century;Gildas Britanicus in the sixth century, andSaint Isodore and Venerable Bede in the seventh;and Saint Donatus, Bishop of Fiesoli who diedA.D. 840, all referred to as calling the IrishScoti and Ireland Scotia, or saying, as Ethicusdid, that Ireland was inhabited by the Scoti.

And we know from Roden's "Insel derHeiligen" that the Irish were called Scots evenas late as the fifteenth century, in several citiesof Germany, Belgium, France and Switzerland

51


where "Schottenkloester" or Irish monasterieshad been founded, and were stilI largely suppliedwith religious from Ireland. And of course weknow very well that the great John DunsScotus, and the lesser lights Scotus Erigenaand Marianus Scotus were so called in theMiddle Ages to distinguish their nationality.

It was about the eleventh century, accordingto many eminent authorities, that the namebecame fixed on Scotland, or Caledonia, whichthen, and for a long time after, was known asScotia Minor, on account of the predominantinfluence obtained by Ireland there throughher colonies.

At that time the Gaelic language of Scotlandand the Gaelic of Ireland were identical. Nowthe Erse, or Scotch, is a dialect of the Irish.And, anterior to that time, the Scotch Gaelic hasno literature of its own as distinct from theancient Irish literature.

The Milesians, or original Scots, had muchtrouble in effecting a landing in Ireland. Com-ing from Spain where they had been for ages,they approached the Irish coast, to find themagical arts of the Tuatha De Danaan in fulloperation to prevent their landing. Now theisland is made invisible; now it is seen, but

CHAPTER VIII 53

only as a thin long ridge of land almost sub-merged; and, somehow, impossible to approach.

Finally, however, they were able to anchortheir ships at the mouth of the river Slaney inB.C. 3505.

Ireland at the time was governed by threeTuatha De Danaan kings, MacCoill, MacCechtand MacGreine; and their queens were respec-tively Eire, Fodla and Banba, each of whomgave her name to Ireland; but the name, Eire,is that which sticks, to the present day. Theother two names are beautiful, indeed, buthave almost ever been relegated to the fields ofromance and poetry.

The Milesians accomplished little or nothingfrom their location at the mouth of the Slaney.They were driven out to sea by a magicalstorm, and we next hear of them landing atInver Skene or Kenmare Bay. They marchednorth to Drumcain, which was afterwards calledTara, met the three kings there and demandedthat they surrender the sovereignty of Irelandor fight for it.

The De Danaan kings pretended to havebeen taken by surprise, and complained thatthat was not a fair and square way of wagingwar or demanding surrender. They wanted at


least three days to consider whether they wouldgive up the island and leave it, or submit tothe Milesian yoke, or raise an army and givebattle; and in the interval they wanted theinvaders to leave the island altogether.

Amergin, one of the sons of 1\1iled,and chiefbrehon and bard of the colony, was appealed toas to the justice of the claims of the De Danaan,and the appeal came from the De Danaanthemselves. As we are getting this informationfrom the introduction to Amergin's poems inthe Books of Lecan and Ballymote, we preferto give some of the dialogue.

"We," said MacCoill, son of Cearmad, "willabide by the decision of Amergin, your ownbrehon, and should he pronounce a false judg-ment it is certain that he will be killed by us."

So sure were they that injustice would notpass unpunished.

"Pronounce the judgment, Amergin," saidEber Donn, the Milesian.

"I will," said Amergin, "let them have theisland."

"What direction shall we take?" said EberDonn.

"We are to set out nine waves to sea," saidAmergin.

CHAPTER VIII 55

" That," says the scribe, "was the firstjudgment pronounced by the Milesians inIreland."

Amergin delivered this judgment in a poem ofeight verses. By means of a gloss interlinedby a later scribe, Owen Connellan of the Queen'sCollege, Cork, about the middle of the lastcentury, was able to translate or rather, as hehimself expresses it, to interpret, this mostinteresting and curious relic of antiquity. Hereis his translation:

"The men whom we found dwelling in theland, to them is possession due by right. It is,therefore, your duty to set out to sea over ninegreen waves; and if you shall be able to landagain in spite of them, you are to engage themin battle, and I adjudge to you the land whereinyou found them living. I adjudge to you theland in which you found them dwelling, by theright of battle. But although you may desirethe land which these people possess, yet yoursis the duty to show them justice. I forbid youfrom injustice to those you have found in theland, however you may desire to obtain it."

CHAPTER IX

Contest of M ilesian valor with Danaan magicalart. Donn. Aranan. Milesians nine wavesout to 8ea. Great 8torm raised. Digressionto Amergin's poems and ancient Irish metre.Milesians, after several losses, land. Battlesoj Slieve Mish and Taillte.

THE Milesians were much disappoin~edat Amergin's decision. "If my adVIcewere taken," said Dorm, the son of

Miled, "the matter would be decided by battle;for if it be in the power of the Druids of theTuathe Da Danaan, we never shall be able toregain Erin."

The Milesians had no fear in open battle, butagainst Druidical enchantment they had mis-givings about being able to land. It was acontest of valor against the resources of magicalillusion and power.

"The Book of Ballymote" and the "GreatBook of Lecan" give Amergin's poems, with anintroduction. From the introduction we learnthat "The Milesians then departed from Tara

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CHAPTER IX 57

southward and arrived at Inver Fele (the mouthof the River Feal, or Cashin on the Shannonin the County of Kerry) and Inver Skena(the Bay of Kenmare) where their ships wereat anchor, and they set out over nine wavesto sea.

"The Druids and Files of Erin then chantedincantations, by which they raised such astorm as caused everything that was at thebottom of the sea to be raised to its surface,and by the violence of the storm the fleet wasdriven from the coast far westward to sea andwas separated."

"This is a Druidic wind" said Dorm, theson of Miled."It is," responded Amergin, "if it does not

blow above the masthead."Whereupon Aranan, the youngest of the sons

of Miled, went up the mast to ascertain thefact, but was thrown therefrom, and while inthe act of falling he said that the wind did notprevail beyond the masthead.

He (Aranan) was the pilot of Dorm's shipand was the pupil of Amergin.

"It was deceitful in our soothsayers," saidDorm, "not to have prevented this magicwind."


"There was no deception," replied Amergin,and standing up he said as follows: -

" Ailim iat l1creanl1,Ermac muir motac,Motac sliab sreatac," etc.

The poem is in the Conaclon Versification,in which the last word of each line is the firstword of the next. This metre seems to havebeen peculiar to ancient Ireland, and mighteasily seem to us to be a kind of verbal jugglery;although it may have been justly regarded ashighly artistic for the remote age to which it isascribed.

As a matter of fact the ancient Irish bardwas supposed to deliver his verses at very shortnotice, if not spontaneously, as we see Amergindoing here.

This poem of Amergin's is a prayer that theMilesians may regain the land of Erin "whosemountains are great and extensive; whosestreams are clear and numerous; whose woodsabound with various fruits; whose rivers andwaterfalls are large and beautiful; whose lakesare broad and widely spread; which abounds infountains on elevated grounds." "May wegain power and dominion over its tribes," he

CHAPTER IX 59

continues. "l\lay we have kings of our ownruling at Tara," etc.

It is remarkable that the Milesians concludedthat the storm that dispersed them was a magicalone, because it did not blow above the mast-head, because, as they thought, there wasnothing to destroy above that point; whereasif it were a natural tempest, it would fill thesurrounding air without any regard to whatit might, or might not, destroy. It is remark-able also that this piece of shrewdness is trans-mitted to us with such circumstantial detailthrough a period of perhaps 3000 years or more.

The Milesian fleet was wrecked along therocky coast. Remnants of it landed in suchwidely separated places as the coast of Kerryand the mouth of the Boyne. Terrific battleswere fought at Sleive Mish in Kerry and atTaillte in :Meath. In both of them the :Mile-sians were victorious. Although only three ofthe sons of Miled and a correspondingly reducednumber of their people had landed they wereable to overthrow the Tuatha De Danaan andtake possession of the island.

The annalists give the year A.M. 3500 as thedate of the first attempt of the Milesians tocapture the island, and the year 3501 as the


date of its subjugation; so that there musthave been about one year's warfare. l\lacCoill,MacCeacht and MacGreine, the De Danaankings who had governed Ireland in rotation,the period of the sovereignty of each being oneyear in his turn, were killed in the battles;and what disposition more worthy of themselvescould the chivalrous Milesians have made ofthe three queens Eire, Banba and Fola thanto send them into the fairy mansions of theisland they would not leave?

CHAPTER X

Amergin. The Gods. Amergin and llesiod.The philosophy of Amergin's poems. A mer-gin's poetical prayer on landing in Ireland.De Jubainville's comments. An analogousWelsh poem. Scotus Erigena. 0' Molloy onConaclon. Amergin and St. Patrick.

BEFORE looking into the councils of theTuatha De Danaan, after they were con-quered by the Milesians, and noticing

the plans they made for their future, it willbe well to give a little more attention to thepoems of Amergin, associated as these are withthe very beginnings of the Milesian history ofIreland.It was on the first of May the Milesians

began their conquest. This day was sacred toBeltene. Beltene was one of the names of thegod of death, the god who gave life and alsotook it away.

Amergin felt profoundly that his people'sfight was against gods in the persons of theTuatha De Danaan; and his four extant poemsderive all their force and character and tone

61


from that conviction. He believes with Hesiodthat matter precedes the gods, that they arenot independent of it, that science or generalknowledge which may have come from the godsmay be used to overthrow them, that the greatphenomena of visible nature are above them,and may also be turned against them.

He identifies science with its object, regardsit as Being itself, of which the forces of natureand all sensible being are but visible manifesta-tions. "Thus it is that the file, who is thevisible embodiment of science in human form,is not only man but eagle, vulture, tree, plant,sword or spear."

Amergin glorifies this science by which hehopes to overthrow the gods; and he identifieshimself with it and with everything to whichit is extended. 'When he speaks, he speaks forsome undefined power back of all the gods.His philosophy is regarded as pantheistic andhe speaks for God in all his poems.

In the poem or prayer he recited on firstlanding in Ireland, he says:

"1 am the wind which blows over the sea;I am the wave of the ocean;I am the murmur of the billows.I am the ox of the seven comba~. ,

CHAPTER X

I am the vulture upon the rock;I am a tear of the sun;I am the fairest of plants;I am a wild boar in valor;I am a salmon in the water;I am a lake in the plain;

63

I am a word of science;I am the spear-point that gives battle;I am the God who creates in the head the fire (of

thought).Who is it that enlightens the assembly on the mountain,

if not I?Who telleth the ages of the moon, if not I?Who showeth the place where the sun goes to rest, if

not I?Who can direct you to where the waters run clearest,

if not I?Who can bring the fish from its recesses in the sea,

as I can?Who can cause the fish to approach to the shore, as

I can?Who can change the hills, mountains or promontories,

as I can?"

The phrases "if not I" and "as I can," aresupplied from explanatory glosses. The poet'sreasoning is something like this: "God does allthese things; God is all these things; they areinseparable, I might say, indistinguishable fromhim; they are but the manifestations of him inaction, they are identical with him, as I am;


if they are ascribable to him they are ascribableto me, because I am but one more externalevidence of him."

And then comes the higher, the special claim,h A. "I d f' "w en mergrn says: am a wor 0 SCIence.

"The file," says De Jubainville, "is the wordof science, he is the God who gives to man thefire of thought; and as science is not distinctfrom its object, as God and nature are but one,the being of the file is mingled with the windsand the waves, with wild animals and with thewarrior's arms."

An analogous poem is found in a Welsh manu-script of the fourteenth century. It is ascribedto the poet Taliesin. Amergin says, "I am atear of the sun." Taliesin says, "I have beena tear in the air." Amergin says, "I am thevulture upon the rock." The Welsh bard says,"I have been an eagle;" and so on, whereverAmergin says "I am" the Welsh man says "Ihave been," thus substituting the idea ofsuccessive metamorphoses for what De Jubain-ville styles the vigorous pantheism of Irishphilosophy.If De Jubainville had said Celtic, and not

Irish, in this connection we would be inclinedto find no fault. But we have good reason to

CHAPTER X 65

think that he regards the ancient Celtic pan-theism as tainting Irish philosophy to a very un-desirable extent even in early Christian times.

The particular poem of Amergin that we havebeen analyzing is not in Conaclon. O'Molloy,who wrote his Grammatica Latino-Hibernicain Rome, and published it there in 1677, tellsus that Conaclon is the most difficult species ofcomposition under the canopy of heaven.

Nevertheless, what depths of philosophyAmergin was able to cram into that sententiousand monotonous metrical style! :Mere transla-tion was not enough to develop the meaningof such verse; it had to be interpreted in thelight of every circumstance that threw, orcould throw, any light on it.

Two other poems of Amergin are extant. Inone of them, in Conaclon, already noticed,and beginning" ailim iat n-Erend," he invokesthe earth and the sea, mountains, woods,rivers and lakes. It is"an invocation addressedto Ireland deified.

In the other poem, not in Conaclon, the seais mentioned first, but the earth is next referredto as a divinity that it would not be well toslight. He appeals to the "fish-abounding sea,""to the fruitful earth," "to the irruption of

66 IRELAL"'TD'SFAIRY LORE

fish," "to the fish under the waves," and theobject of the appeal, as we are left to gatherfrom the circumstances and from the tenor ofthe poems, is to get all these forces to aid hispeople in their fight against the Tuatha DeDanaan gods. His prayer is heard and thegods are overthrown.

Who can contemplate those appeals of Amer~gin, made at the very dawn of our history,without being reminded of the "Lorica" ofSaint Patrick, sung on his way to Tara; perhaps,over a thousand years later on?

Amergin appeals to the elements for aid.Saint Patrick appeals to Christ to protect himfrom the elements, and to turn all their powersand properties to his advantage.

How pathetic is the figure of Amergin, stand-ing away back in the "cloudland," appealingto the forces that are anterior to all the gods,appealing over their shoulders to a higher power,and in the helplessness of heathenism con-founding this power with visible nature andher forces and laws! What could it all havebeen but the feeling away down in the depthsof his soul that back of all these gods there wasOne in whose hands they were all but commonclay!

CHAPTER X 67

From the old Celtic philosophy of Amergin,how easy is the transition to the true philosophy!The one is suggested in the other. This oldCeltic philosophy was the kind that wouldyield at once to the "Kindly Light" of Chris-tianity. It was made in the designs of Provi-dence, a preparation for it.

CHAPTER XI

The Fairies. Banba, Fola and Eriu. WhyIrish manuscript books named after places,etc. A manuscript really a library. Ire-land's literature, in its preservation, an indica-tion of Ireland's destiny. Ogham characters.Book of Ballymote. Banba, Fola and Eriuin succession ask each that the island shouldbe named after her. Fate of Donn.

OUR readers may be curious by thistime to know why the old Irishbooks or manuscripts, we have been

citing, were called by such peculiar names.It was the habit of the old Irish writers orscribes to state four circumstances in particularabout the books they were "'Titing or copying.The copyist made no alteration in these cir-cumstances, if he found them already stated inthe work he was copying, but merely added hisown name as scribe or compiler, with any newcircumstances that had arisen in connectionwith the compilation and which he consideredworthy of notice.

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CHAPTER XI 69

These circumstances were the place in whichthe book was written or compiled, the date ofits compilation, the name of the author and theoccasion or circumstances that led to its beingundertaken. This continued to be the customof those who wrote the Gaelic language, evendown to the time of the Four Masters.

Sometimes compilations are named after thecompilers as well as after the place. The" An-nals" now known as the "Annals of Ulster"were formerly better known as the "Annals ofSenait MacManus," and the "Annals of theFour Masters "are sometimes called the" Annalsof Donega1."

These huge tomes or 'Books' are not confinedto anyone subject, but include a vast variety ofsubjects, having no connection with each otherat all, beyond the fact that they are bound upin one great manuscript. They are throwntogether promiscuously. You find a love storyor a courtship, or a voyage or a vision in thesame parchment with a pitched battle or atreatise on medicineor astronomy. The" Book"is really a library.

When one considers the patience and carewith which these books werecopiedand re-copiedand the high appreciation in which they were


held, the thought becomes irresistible thatAlmighty God Himself had, by a special provi-dence, decreed that Ireland should not beentirely divested of the internal evidence shebore of the mighty influence she was destinedto wield in the civilization of the world.

The "Book of Ballymote" is peculiarly valu-able as containing a grammatical tract and a keyto the Ogham cypher-writing. It has also manytranslations and adaptations from the Greekand Roman classics, genealogies of saints andother hagiological and much biblical matter.

A book-collector named O'Donnell bought itfrom one of its last private owners, a mannamed McDonough. The price paid was 140milch cows. McDonough parted with the bookwillingly. Nevertheless he seems to have re-gretted having to part with it. Either that, orthe scribe thought the price too high: for hesays that "although the book is good, buyinga book from McDonough is a purchase from achurl."

The Gaelic text of this great book whichbelongs now to the Royal Irish Academy wouldmake WOOpages of such a work as the "Annalsof the Four Masters," large quarto.

"The Book of Lecan," compiled by a member

CHAPTER XI 71

of the famous literary family of the MacFirbisesin the County Sligo in A.D. 1417, is very muchlike the "Book of Ballymote" in its contents.Nearly everyone of these great collections in-cludes a copy of the "Libur-Gabala," or "Bookof Invasions."

In this latter, we find a more detailed accountof Banba, Fola and Eriu, or Eire, as the wordis now spelled. These were the Tuatha DeDanaan goddess-queens. The Libur tells usthat the Milesians had to fight against demons;and says that these demons were the TuathaDe Danaan.

Some copies of this book represent the con-tending forces as having fought the battle ofSleive Mish, in Kerry, on the occasion of thefirst landing of the Milesians, before the ap-pearance at Tara and consequently beforetheir temporary retirement from the island."\Vhilemarching northward to Tara after thisbattle, we are told, they met first Queen Banbaand she told them that if it was to conquerIreland they had come, their expedition wasnot just.

"It is for that indeed we came," said Amergin."Then," said Banba, "grant me at least onefavor, that the island be called by my name."


"It shall be so," said Amergin. But the islanddid not bear her name very long; for proceedinga little farther, they met Fola and she askedthe same favor and Amergin granted it.

Ireland did not long enjoy Fola's nameeither; for, at Usnech, the Central point ofIreland, they met Eire. She was the only oneof the three who gave them a cordial greeting."Welcome, warriors," said she, "you are comefrom afar. This island will belong to you forall time, and from here to the farthest Eastthere is none better; no race will be so perfectas yours." "It is not to you," cried EberDonn, the eldest of the sons of Miled, "thatwe owe any thanks, but to our gods and ourown prowess." "What I announce has noconcern for you," said Eire, "you shall notenjoy this island; it will not belong to anydescendants of yours." She then begged thatthe island be called after her and Amergingranted the request.

After the grudging reception given the warriorsby Banba and Fola it might appear surprisingand even startling to find Eire giving thema cordial welcome. But, then,. her name wasto last forever, associated with them and withtheir destinies. In song and story it was to

CHAPTER XI 73become one of the most beautiful names in theworld. She welcomed the Milesians as herown, as the race over whom she was to be thepresiding divinity.

As the Greeks gloried in the name of Hellenes,given them after their god, Hellen, so theMilesians gloried in the name of Eireanaig,taken from that De Danaan goddess away backin the mythological ages.

CHAPTER XII

Amergin; his character and office; Eire's proph-ecy. Death of Banba, Fola and Eire. Lugand the games of Taillten. Practice of puttinga term to the lives of the gods. Pagan storieshave Christian redactions. "Lir's lonelydaughter." Paganism has left its mark onplace names.

AMERGIN was the eldest son of Miled.He was the ollam, or man of alllearning, as well as brehon, or judge

and counsellor, to the whole colony. It isvery likely that he was also their druid orpriest. He was certainly their file or poet;a kind of primeval poet-laureate, and in thiscapacity he incited them to battle by his songs,encouraged them by his appeals for the favorof the unseen powers, celebrated their prowesswhen they were victorious, and recited elegiesfor them when they were dead. As theirollam, he was the depositary of their highestwisdom and knowledge, the one who preserved

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CHAPTER XII 75

their genealogies, and to the old family treeadded each new ramification.

At first all these offices were centred in oneman; but in the course of time, rigorous lineswere drawn to distinguish them; and we findthat the three great, general offices of Druid,brehon and file came each to have its ownrepresentative. Strict precautions were takento prevent the interference of anyone of thesepersonages in the functions of the others.

Donn was next to Amergin in age, and, fromthe prominence given him in the ancient tales,it is clear that he was the commander-in-chiefof the expedition. Eire's prophecy regardinghim came true. In the course of the magicstorm he and his whole crew were lost. Thesand hills on which his ship was wrecked onthe western coast of Munster still bear hisname, and the tradition of the catastrophe isvivid in the minds of the people of that place.

The most ancient copies of the Libur Gabala,that we still have, go back to the twelfth cen-tury. These tell us that Banba, Fola and Eirewere killed with their husbands at the battle ofTailltinn. This ancient place in the County ofMeath is Anglicized Telltown. Its ancientname came from the goddess Taillti who was

76 mELAND'S FAmy WRE

the foster-mother of Lug, one of the greatestof the Tuatha De Danaan gods. In his affec-tion for her, Lug had games and great festivitiescelebrated here, beginning on the first of Augustof each year.

On this account, August is to this day calledMi Na Lugnasa, or the month of the Lugnas;lugnas meaning Lug's gathering. The aonachTailltinn, or Fair of Taillti, always brought anenormous concourse of people together in ancientErin. It is impossible to read much of theancient Irish literature without noticing thegreat frequency of the occurrence of the nameLug (Loo) or Lugaid (Looey).

'With regard to the death of the three goddessqueens, it is to be observed that the practice ofputting a term to the lives of the gods wasintroduced into Ireland in Christian times.The early Christian converts, in their zeal,wanted to put every thought of the ancientpaganism out of the minds of the people, andthey thought that one of the best ways to do.this would be to destroy the ancient pantheonand reduce the gods to the level of ordinarymen and women.

The Fomorians~ or African pirates, weregods. The Tuatha De Danaan were gods;and there is no doubt but that all the Milesian

CHAPTER XII 77

chiefs would have reached us as gods, were itnot for this process. 'Vith all respect for theancient Christians, we think it regrettable thatthe ancient pagan tales were tampered with.They could do no harm. Perhaps we ought tobe thankful that they were spared to us at all.

To convert them from pagan to Christianclassics was impossible. Their Christian redac-tors appreciated them as literature, and asreflecting the peculiar character of the ancientIrish mind, when it rested on religion; andtherefore they would not, if they could, expur-gate the paganism out of them altogether.Besides, these pagan tales were comparativelyclean as far as the moral conduct of their heroeswas concerned.

A very great number of these stories haveChristian redactions. The story is generallytold in the old pagan way, but new develop-ments are added, by which the hero or heroine,or a whole group of these, is brought down toSaint Patrick's time, and made to receivebaptism, and then die.

It is in this way that Finoola, "Lir's LonelyDaughter," and her equally ill-fated brothers,Aod, Conn and Fiacra, are made to live atleast nine hundred years, and that "Eithne


the Fair" after living fifteen hundred yearswith her fairy companions, is at last made tostray away from them, so that she, like theChildren of Lir, received baptism and Christianburial from Saint Patrick or some one of hisdisciples.

As already indicated these Christian redac-tions of the old tales were intended to eradicatepaganism, and to make the tales themselvesconform to Christian ideas.

Paganism has disappeared, but its tracesremain; and as Christianity is written in theIrish language all over the face of the old land,in the names of places, so is the ancient paganismwritten there, also, indelibly.

"'nen the archaeologist goes to explain aplace name he will find very frequently thathis explanation, to be intelligible, will take onthe very form of an old myth or pagan fable.The Tuatha De Danaan, whether they weregods or men, left their footprints, not on theshifting sands, but on the hard bed-rock of theIrish topographical nomenclature.

The Christian redactors of the pagan tales,and many of the annalists, tell us that the godsdied. Nevertheless these gods lived on in thepopular imagination and acted as the tutelary

CHAPTER XII 79

deities of the districts in which they wereburied.

This superstition, if indeed it ought to betaken seriously enough to be called a supersti-tion, suggests a beautiful Christian reflection.Wonderful things have happened, and arealways happening, where the bodies of thesaints are laid. The typical Irish mind, whetherpagan or Christian, had always an exquisitesense of the fitness of things.

CHAPTER XIII

Euhemerism. Gods that were always such, andmen who after death became gods. M ytho-logical, heroic and historic cycles easily distin-guishable in Irish history. Cilla Keevin andFlann of the Monastery greatest IrishEuhemerists. Some account of their :work.Tigernach.

AT the court of Cassander in Mace-donia, in the early part of the thirdcentury before Christ, there lived a

Greek writer named Euhemerus. He wrote abook to prove that the ancient myths were allgenuine historical facts, and to show that thegods were all, originally, men who had distin-guished themselves in war, or in beneficence totheir fellowmen, and who, in consequence, weregratefully regarded as gods after their death,and considered worthy of divine honors.

This writer's success in reducing gods to thelevel of men was only partial. Every classicalscholar knows that the Greek mythology stillstands apparently intact, and that there is very

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CHAPTER XIll 81

little confusion there between gods and men.One never has to ask which is which. Butamong those who received divine honors aftertheir death he probably wrought some havoc.There is a certain grim humor in the reportedconduct of the Roman tax collectors operatingin Greece after this country had become subjectto Rome. They exempted from taxation alllands belonging to the immortal gods or in anyway sacred to them; but refused to regard asimmortal gods those who became gods only aftertheir death.

The process of making the gods out to beordinary men is called euhemerising, afterEuhemerus. Many of the ancient Christianwriters of Ireland did very much of this kind ofwork, and in this way threw much obscurityon the lines of demarcation between the mytho-logic and the heroic or human. They canhardly be considered a help to the historian.

One would imagine they would rather confusehim. The Irish euhemerists never tried toexplain away the entire system of mythology.This would have been impossible, and theattempt unworthy of thinking men. But theyinjured that system a little, by puncturing ithere and there, thus causing confusion. It


seems to be a new thing in the world to havethe mythological, heroic and historic cyclesdistinguished at all in Irish history; and thefact that these cycles are now distinctly markedis due to the work of the great Celtic scholarsof the last seventy years. It is quite naturalthat this should be so.

Formerly when the Irish historian told ussome impossible story as a piece of Irish history,we laughed at him, or we thought how puerile,or silly our fathers were to accept such stuff ashistory. But now when the profound anddiscriminating Celtist tells us the same story,and shows us where it fits like a mosaic in onemagnificent whole, in one grand system ofmythological lore, we no longer laugh; we takeit seriously.

We stand in amazement in the presence of afact that has at last dawned on us that as adistinct race, we appeared on the horizon ofhistory in very much the same fashion as allthe other great races that have accomplishedgreat things and fulfilled evident destinies inthis world.

Among the great races, it was only in thecase of the Jews that God, for His own wisepurposes, kept the remotest antiquity as clear,

CHAPTER XIII 83

historically, as the present day . No" cloud-land" in the divinely inspired history of theancient world.

According to De Jubainville, the writers whowrought the most destruction in the IrishPantheon were Giolla Caomghein, pronouncedapproximately Gilla Keevin, and Flann Maini-streach, both of the eleventh century. In anyage or country the erudition and work of thesemen would have commanded respect. The syn-chronisms of Flann of the Monastery go backto the remotest ages, and are referred to inhighly commendatory language by such writersas Usher, Ware, Lynch, better known as "Cam-brensis eversus," O'Flaherty and CharlesO'Connor.

There can be no doubt about the value of acommendation from Archbishop Usher, or FatherLynch, or, in fact, from anyone of these men.Charles O'Connor (of Ballyinagar) has notbeen always a great success in his translationsfrom old Irish. Flann was connected in someway with the Monastery of Monasterboice,and the weight of evidence is to the effect thathe was not in Sacred Orders. His synchronismsform an excellent abridgment of universalhistory down to his own time.


He synchronizes the Kings of the Medes,Persians, Assyrians, Greeks and the emperors,and previous rulers, of the Romans with theIrish Kings; and, in places, relieves this dryrecord with scraps of valuable informationregarding the countries or the kings. Flann ofthe Monastery died, A.D. 1050; so says O'Curry.Douglas Hyde tells us that" the greatest scholar,chronologist, and poet of this period (Clontarfto Norman Invasion) is unquestionably FlannMainistreach who died in 1056."

Giolla Caomghein's work is very much likethat of Flann Maiuistreach. He wrote a greatchronological poem "giving the annals of alltime from the beginning of the world down tohis own period." He also synchronizes Easternwith Irish rulers. He died in 107~. He is alsothe translator into Gaelic of Nennius' history ofthe Britons, a work of the eighth century.

The works of Giolla Caomghein are extant;but the synchronisms of Flann have sufferedfrom the friction of time, and are only found ina scattered and imperfect way, bound up withother ancient manuscripts. Tigernach, the mostbrilliant and learned annalist of the eleventhcentury, has made much use of them.

By way of comparison of these two men

CHAPTER XIII 85

O'Curry says: * "It is to be observed thatFlann was the predecessor of Tigernach; andwithout in the least, derogating from the wellearned reputation of that annalist, enough ofthe works of Flann remain to show that hewas a scholar of fully equal learning, and ahistoric investigator of the highest merit."

Again we are forgetting the fairies; but wefeel perfectly justified in turning aside occa-sionally to give a short account of the greatmortals who either built up or tore down theirmansions. In our next chapter we shall beginto give an account of the great Tuatha DeDanaan gathering at the famous Brugh on theBoyne.

* In his "Manuscript Materials :0£ Ancient IrishHistory."

CHAPTER XIV,-The Fairies. De Danaan meeting at Bmg na

Boinne. Digression on Tain Bo Cuailgne.Cucullain and Ferdiad. "Conquest of theSid." The Dagda.' Manannan MacLir.Poem of Kinaeth o'Hartigan. The Bullsfight. O'Curry's translation of the account ofthat fight.

AFTER their defeat at Taillti, theTuatha De Danaan set about recon-structing themselves. Their chiefs

held a great meeting to determine preciselywhat they should do. The place where themeeting was held was the Brugh on the Boyne.Brugh means a fairy palace; at the present daythe form "bruighin," * which is a grammaticalinflection of it and is pronounced "breen," ismore generally used. In those parts of thecountry still most haunted by fairies, the word"side," for their palaces, is very generallysupplanted by "breen."

We may take occasion here to notice the TainBo Cuailgne or Cattle Spoil of Cooley. Not-withstanding the serio-comic name of this story

• Often written bruighean.86

CHAPTER XIV 87

it is the greatest of the Irish Epic tales. As aresult of the raid on Donn, the famous brownsteer of Cualgne in Ulster, with the object ofbringing him to Connaught to add him to thepossessions of Queen :Meave, and thus establishher supremacy in wealth over her husband,Ailill, who was the proud owner of the no lessfamous Finnbheannach, or white horned bull,the King of Ulster, Conor MacNessa, becomesinvolved in a protracted war with Meave andher Munster allies. This war develops theheroes Cucullain and Ferdiad and a host ofothers, and astonishes the reader with the keensense of manly honor and soldierly chivalry inthe heart of anyone in ancient Erin who had thecourage to call himself a man. Even in theirpaganism death had no terrors for these heroes,but a breach of chivalrous honor or a failure tostand by their plighted word was the one thing,under heaven, they dreaded.

Anyone reading Mrs. Hutton's English versionof this wonderful story or 'Vindisch's Germanversion is forced to the conclusion that all themiddle ages did for chivalry was to Christianizeit and exalt its motive to the supernatural.But, of course, it is Christianity alone thatcould do this.


Attached to this semi-historic tale is a shorttract called the conquest, or the seizure, of the"sid"; "Gabail Int Sida," meaning literally thecapturing of the fairy palaces. The tract is ex-tant and a copy of it in the" Book of Leinster"has escaped euhemerization. There is a Chris-tian redaction of it, but we shall first consult thethoroughly pagan version.

In this version the principal part in thecapturing and subsequent distribution of thefairy palaces is ascribed to the Dagda who was,in the Tuatha De Danaan world, what Zeus wasto the Greeks and Jupiter to the Romans.His name is interpreted by De Jubainville asthe "good god," and if that interpretation becorrect, it would be written "Deag-dia" inmodern Irish; deag being one of the four orfive adjectives that come before the noun towhich they refer.

His name does not imply that there was a"bad god" as such, but was given him as areward for great services done for his people.There is no certain proof of a positive paganManichaeism having prevailed among the an-cient Irish.

The Dagda retained great influence evenamong the victorious Milesians, who were not

CHAPTER XIV 89

entirely able to free themselves from certaindisabilities inflicted by the De Danaan, untilthey succeeded in making a treaty of peacewith him. By this treaty they were enabledto gather the corn of their fields and to getand drink the milk of their cows. Both thesefoodstuffs had been blighted by the incantationsof the Tuatha Da Danaan.

The pagan version of the "Gabail Int Sida"also makes the Dagda the leading figure in thedeliberations at Brug Na Boinne, the palace ofthe Boyne, but the Christian redactions of thetale give the greater prominence to 1\lanannanMacLir.

The Dagda is made by the pagan story toreserve this famous palace to himself anddistribute the various other underground sidsor sidi to the numerous chiefs of the Tuatha DeDanaan, after they and their people had decidednot to leave Ireland but to retire into this kindof invisible immortality.

A poem attributed to Kinaeth O'Hartigan ofthe tenth century represents the Dagda asoccupying this same palace even before theMilesian occupation of the country. He haddwelt there with his goddess-queen Boana,after whom the famous river is named, and who


is really nothing more or less than the Boynedeified.

Here we again digress. We may as well tellour readers something about the bulls wementioned in our references to the Tain. Wemay not have so graceful an opportunity soonagain. The reader knows very well, in advance,that the bulls fought. We cannot improve onO'Curry's description of it.

In his analysis of the great story as found byhim in manuscript form, and after dilating onMeave's satisfaction at having obtained posses-sion of the Donn and punished her old foe,Conor MacNessa, O'Curry continues: - "Thiswild tale, however, does not end here; for itgravely informs us that when Donn Cuailgnefound himself in a strange country, and amongstrange herds, he raised such a loud bellowingas had never before been heard in the provinceof Connaught; that on hearing those unusualsounds, Ailill's bull, the Finnbheannach, orWhite-horned, knew that some strange andformidable foe had entered his territory; andthat he immediately advanced at full speedto the point from which they issued, where hesoon arrived in the presence of his noble enemy.

"The sight of each other was the signal of

CHAPTER XIV 91

battle. In the poetic language of the tale, theprovince rang with the echoes of their roaring,the sky was darkened by the sods of earth theythrew up with their feet, and from the foamthat flew from their mouths; fainthearted men,women and children hid themselves in caves,caverns and clefts of the rocks; whilst eventhe most veteran warriors but dared to viewthe combat from the neighboring hills andemllences.

"The Firmbheannach at length gave way andretreated towards a certain pass which openedinto the plain in which the battle raged, andwhere sixteen warriors bolder than the resthad planted themselves; but so rapid was theretreat and the pursuit that not only were allthese trampled to the ground, but they wereburied several feet in it. The Dorm Cuailgne,at last, coming up with his opponent, raisedhim on his horns, ran off with him, passed thegates of Meave's palace, tossing and shakinghim as he went, until at last he shattered himto pieces, dropping his disjointed members ashe went along.

"And wherever a part fell that place retainedthe name of that joint ever after. And thusit was (we are told) that Ath Luain, now Ath-


lone, which was before called Ath Mor or theGreat Ford, received its present name from theFinnbheannach's luan, or loin, having beendropped there.

"The Donn Cuailgne, after having shakenhis enemy in this manner from his horns,returned into his own country, but in such afrenzied state of excitement that all fled every-where at his approach. He faced directly tohis old home; but the people of the baile orhamlet fled and hid themselves behind a hugemass of rock, which his madness transformedinto the shape of another bull; so that comingwith all his force against it he dashed out hisbrains and was killed." We doubt very muchif there is in the whole range of the world'sliterature anything to compare with this instrenuosity.

CHAPTER XV

The Fairies. Distribution of the fairy palaces.The Dagda and Oengus. Mac Int Dc. Greekand Irish mythological legends. Food of thegods. Immortality of the gods. Knowth,N ewgrange and Dowth. Monuments of theCyclops. Cruachan.

THE Conquest of the Sid tells us thatalthough the Dagda kept the palace ofthe Boyne for himself, it was for ages

after known as the Sid Maic Jnt Oc, or fairymansion of the Son of the Young.

This Mac Jnt Oc was Oengus, the son of theDagda himself and of Boand, and was so calledbecause his parents as well, of course, as him-self, were supposed to enjoy perpetual youth orimmortality.

How the Brug came to bear his name isexplained by an ancient legend. When thedistribution of the " sides" was going on, hewas absent. He was at the home of the godMidir to receive an education. His father, inthe confusion and hurry of work and business,had forgotten all about him.

9S


When Oengus returned and found that hisfather had no sid left for him, he was surprisedand indignant. As a last resort he asked to beallowed to remain over night in the Brug.

The Dagda graciously assented, saying thatto the night he could also add the day, meaningof course the next day. The next day towardsevening Oengus discovered that he was expectedto leave after the expiration of the day and thenight.

Although the legend does not say so directly,it is clear that he was finally ordered to decamp.This he stoutly refused to do, claiming that asthe palace was given him a day and a nightit was thereby ceded to him in perpetuity, asall time is made up of days and nights.

His father was evidently unprepared for thislogic. He had no argument to overcome it,and so he admitted the justice of his son'sclaim, and allowed him to hold Brug na Boinnein his own name, which the delighted youth didindefinitely.

A most wonderful place indeed was thispalace. Three trees grew there and were alwaysladen with fruit, reminding one of the gardensof the Hesperides, beyond the sunset where thegolden apples grew for the gods of ancient

CHAPTER XV 95

Greece; reminding one also of the garden ofPhoebus, at the ends of the earth where Nighthas her home and where the vault of the heavensbegins.It is remarkable indeed how the Irish mytho-

logical legend, by placing fruit trees at thecouch of the Dagda, at the Brug on the Boyne,reminds one of the Greek legend that alsoplaces trees at the couch of Zeus in the gardensof the gods.

What can we see in it all but a vestige, as itis a distortion, of the Biblical description of theGarden of Eden?

In the palace of the Boyne are also threeswine, one living and the other killed andready to eat; and alongside this a jar of ex-cellent ale. The swine were the ambrosia andthe ale the nectar of the gods of ancient Erin.

No one who tasted of these viands could everdie and they were no sooner eaten than theyreproduced themselves, so that the store ofprovisions, apparently small, lasted indefinitelyand fed an indefinite number of gods.It is clearly seen that the pagan version of

the Conquest of the Sid teaches the immor-tality of the gods without restriction or reserva-tion. It was in later days in manuscripts of


the eleventh century and in Christian redactionsof other tales as well as of the Sid itself thatthe Tuatha De Danaan are represented asdying and receiving burial at the Brug on theBoyne.

There are three remarkable mounds on thebanks of the Boyne and all three bear evidence ofhaving been artificially constructed. They arethe heights of Knowth, Newgrange and Dowth.

Newgrange is identified as the ancient Brugna Boinne where the Euhemerists, or Christianexterminators of the gods, have buried theDagda and Lug and Ogma and all the greatchiefs of the Tuatha De Danaan.

This eminence is unquestionably artificial.It covers two acres and contains one of thelargest funeral chambers in western Europe.It is near the place where the battle of theBoyne was fought. This veritable Irish Cata-comb was, with Knowth and Dowth, used as aburial ground even in the remotest times.

De Jubainville thinks that all three moundswere raised for this purpose by some colonythat antedated far the coming of the Milesians.This would bring the date of their constructionback to Tuatha De Danaan times and evenfarther back still.

CHAPTER XV 97

He finds a parallel instance in Greek mythol-ogy and tells us that "the Greeks attributedtheir prehistoric monuments to the Cyclopswho were originally mythological beings."

The monuments raised by the Cyclops, how-ever, were not of earth or loam, but enormousmasses of unhewn stone, of which specimensare still to be seen at Mycenae in Greece andalso in several places in Italy.

The theory at present about these is that theywere built by the Pelasgians, but that on accountof their grandeur they were anciently attributedto the fabulous or mythological race of Cyclops.

In historic pre-Christian times the high Kingsof Ireland were buried at Cruachan in Con-naught on the banks of the Shannon; but forthe first four centuries of the Christian era theywere buried at the Brug on the Boyne.

The first high King of the Milesian race tobe buried there was Crimthan MacNair, andhe very probably owed this distinction to thefact that his wife was of the Tuatha De Danaanrace and a fairy.

CHAPTER XVI

The Brug on the Boyne. The Tain regarded asone of the great epic studies of literature.The story of Polyphemus. Ulysses acts likean Irishman.

INour examination of the records thatthrow light on the pagan religion of theancient Irish, we have had occasion to

refer frequently to the "Tain Bo Cualigne."We wish to state our belief here that that storyis destined to receive universal recognition asone of the great epics of the world.

That it is worthy to be so regarded, thetreatment it has received at the hands ofcompetent French and German scholars leavesno doubt. The whole English-speaking worldis now fast, falling into line with the nations ofcontinental Europe in according it its rightfulplace.

Henry Adams Bellows in an oration, deliveredat Harvard, June ~9, 1910, during the com-mencement exercises, dilated on the reasonwhy so many of the names of the authors ofsome of the great masterpieces of medieval

98

CHAPTER XVI 99

literature are lost to us, and, in the course ofhis remarks, said: "Chretienne de Troyes weknow, and Wolfram Von Essenbach, Caedmon,Bemart de Ventadorn and Snorri Sturluzon;but of the men who gave us the Niebelungenlied,the Chanson de Roland, the ballads of the Cid,the Beowulf, the Tain, or the Eddic poems, weknow practically nothing."

We quote this passage because it is the firstwe have seen in which an American scholar ofhigh standing places the Tain where it ought tobe, among the great epic studies of literature,and because it is an indication of the hold thatthe cultivation of Celtic studies is sure to takein this country.

As we had occasion to mention the Cyclops,we may as well tell a story that lingers in ourmemory about Polyphemus, who was one ofthe most remarkable of them. He lived aloneon an island.

Ulysses, King of Ithaca, coming home fromthe Siege of Troy, landed on that island, fellinto the hands of the one-eyed giant, and wasshut up by him in his cave, with his sheep.There was no means of escape, as the door wastoo heavy to be thrown open by ordinary humanpower.


Ulysses discovered that Polyphemus himselfslept in that cave, and remembering that hehad only one eye, which was located in thecentre of his forehead, thought he could makeshort work of that eye and crowd out his light.While Polyphemus was snoring after anenormous meal, the wandering Greek heated agreat spit he had found in the cave, and, plung-ing it into the upturned eye of the giant, com-pletely destroyed his sight.

He darted away, and during the night in thegreat cave, eluded all the efforts of the gropingPolyphemus to get his hands on him. Nextmorning the giant resorted to his last strategicmove, which he thought would ballie the in-genuity of his wily captive.

He threw back the enormous rock from thedoor, and, as he let the sheep out, one by one,felt of each carefully, knowing that Ulysseswould hit upon some astute plan to escapewhile the door was open.

But he only felt of the backs and necks ofthe sheep, not having the least idea that hisprisoner would escape under their feet. This,however, was what happened.

Burying his hands deep in the wool of theunderbody of an enormous animal and prac-

CHAPTER XVI 101

tically dragging himself along on his back, asthe animal moved, Ulysses made his escape.

Once outside, he took to his boat, and when,as he thought, at a safe distance, yelled backat his former captor and told him in unex-purgated language what he thought of him.

The latter, in rage and disappointment, torea piece off the mountain and threw it in thedirection the voice came from. It struck un-comfortably near Ulysses, raising mountainouswaves that nearly swamped him.

But he would not be daunted. He yelledagain and another piece of the mountain camehis way and raised dangerous waves again.

He kept up the good work, nevertheless, andkept the giant busy for some time; but thedanger for Ulysses was growing less and thegiant's aim was growing poorer, and at last hehad to put his hand to his ear in an effort tolocate the voice that was growing feebler ashis tormentor was getting more and more outof range.

This story is to be found in Homer's Odyssey.It is suggested to us by De Jubainville's par-allelisms between the Irish and the Greeksystem of mythology.

And our only excuse for giving it here is the


impression that has remained with us sincewe first read it; that there must have been aCeltic strain in Ulysses. One would thinkthat, like a cunning Greek, he would have beenglad to get away quietly, taking no more risksand courting no further danger.

But the fact that he yelled back and yelledagain and kept it up as long as there was apossible chance of being heard and adding freshfuel to the wrath of the enormous Cyclopeanmonster - sustains, we believe, our contention.

CHAPTER XVII

The Brug rrwre closely described. Kings buriedthere. Ancient burial ceremonies. Venera-tion of the ancient Irish for the merrwry oftheir dead. Burial of Finoola and herbrothers. Finoola, the Irish Penelope.

THE ancient cemetery of the Brugh lieson the northern bank of the Boyne,and extends about three miles along

its course. It consists of about twenty burialmounds of various sizes. These cover artificialcaves or chambers, containing shallow saucer-shaped stone coffins or sarcophagi, in whichthe bodies of the dead were deposited.

This continuous ridge or height includes thethree distinct mounds of Newgrange, Knowthand Dowth; but Newgrange, as already indi-cated, is identified as the Brugh proper, thefamous fairy palace. Many modern writersrob the whole place of much of its poetry bycalling it the burial place of the De Danaans;and some say that to this system of cemeteriesbelonged the ancient mound now called .Mill-

108

104 mELAND'S FAIRY LORE

mount in the town of Drogheda, situated onthe southern bank of the river.

The caves or chambers these mounds coverare supported by pillars, and the great stonesthat form their sides and roofs are ornamentedwith carvings of various designs such as spirals,lozenges, circles and so forth. There is anabsence of Christian ornamentation, whichshows they were not used as cemeteries in Chris-tian times.

The field where Newgrange stands is nowcalled Broo, or Bro Park, thus perpetuatingthe ancient name of the fairy palace of OengusMac-in-t-Og..

But it is not to be supposed that all theburials of kings either before the time of Christor after, took place within these caves. Manywere interred outside on the slopes and in thesurrounding country. This, however, cannot beproved to a certainty.It is merely the opinion of many who have

made a deep study of the place. No humanbones are found to support the theory. Thehuman bone does not last so long. It sooncrumbles to dust. It has not the power of theskeleton of the Irish elk or of the geologicalmastodon to resist the friction of time.

CHAPTER XVII 105

These reflections bring to mind a thoughtthat we must not pass by - the tenderness ofthe regard in which the ancient pagan Irishheld the memory of their dead, and the sacredsolemnity of the ceremonies with which theyplaced the dead body in the grave.

In this particular, as in many others, theirpagan ritual was a beautiful preparation forthe Christian, not, however, because it waspagan, but because it was human; and thestatement that the human heart is naturallyChristian has been a truism since it was utteredseventeen hundred years ago.

No matter how pagan the ancient Irish storyis, if it tells of a burial, the funeral ceremoniesare sure to be described. The reader will find:"togad a lic os a leacht, ocus fearad a cluitcecaointe," "his flagstone or tomb was raised overhis grave and his ceremonies (literally, games)of lamentation were celebrated."

One cannot help seeing in this ancient customsomething analogous to the beautiful moderncustom of sounding taps at the grave of asoldier. The "cluitce caointe," or tribute oflamentation, was the noblest effort of the poorhuman heart, striving to give expression to itspurest feelings on the solemn occasion of death.


It was the best that human nature could do,till the Requiem :Mass and the Pie Jesu, theChristian Cluitce Caointe, came and satisfiedits holiest aspirations.

Another of the ancient ceremonies was thewriting of the name of the deceased in Oghamletters on a pillar stone at the grave. ThisOgham writing or cipher would probably haveremained forever a sealed book were it not thata key to it was found in the ancient Book ofBallymote.

Very often warriors falling in battle askedthat a "cairn" or heap of stones be placedover their graves, and, if dying far away fromhonored parents, requested that these shouldbe told they died with a name untarnishedby the slightest blemish, or even suspicion ofcowardice.

The veneration of the ancient Irish for thememory of their dead is further illustrated bythe fact that from the wreckage of ancient Irishmanuscripts there is preserved, in the "Bookof the Dun Cow," a tract called "Senchas NaRelec," or the" History of the Cemeteries."It is concerned with the history of the pagan

cemeteries only.As an example of a pagan burial, christianized

CHAPTER XVII 107

by the redactor of the ancient pagan story, wetranslate the following paragraph from thestory of the Children of Lir.

After the misfortunes and many metamor-phoses and miseries they had undergone for aperiod of nine hundred years, the Christianredactor, who brings them down to St. Patrick'stime, tells us that "they were baptized, andthey died and were buried and Fiachra andConn were placed at either side of Finoola, andAod before her face, as Finoola had ordered,and their tombstone was raised over theirgrave, and their Ogham names were written,and their lamentation rites were performed,and heaven was gained for their souls."

Finoola, Tom Moore's "Lir's lonely daugh-ter," is in Irish, Fionnghuala, meaning the fair-shouldered. She was the eldest of the four,and we doubt if there is in literature a morecharming character, as seen in her self-sacrificeand solicitude - truly motherly - for her threeyounger brothers and her care of them in theircommon misfortune. If Chateaubriand tookPenelope for the highest type of marital fidelitythat pagan literature could advance, he certainlywould have taken Finoola, if hc had known thebeautiful story, for the highest tJ'pe that pagan


literature actually did portray, of the bestqualities associated with single womanhood.

To show Mannanan presiding over the gather-ing at Brug na Boinne and distributing thesids; to prove our assertion that there werepreviously existing fairies, and that the TuathaDe Danaan became associated with them, is atask that still confronts us.

CHAPTER XVIII

Another account of the distribution of the fairypalaces. Origin of fairy belief. Aboriginalfairies ar gods. Accession of Tuatha DeDanaan to their ranks. Fairy palaces. "TheAutocrat of the Breakfast Table" on holes inthe ground. M anannan. Bow Derg. Someof the Shees. Knock-Ma. Road from Head-fard to Tuam. Tuam Cathedral.

INthe Christian redactions of the Conquestof the Sid, the Dagda is left out of sightaltogether in the account of the distribution

of the fairy palaces. The implication is thathe was dead before this happened. Hence wehave two versions of the story, agreeing sub-stantially, but differing in matters of detail.

There is another tract bearing on the same sub-ject, and preserved in the "Book of Leinster."It bears the strange name of "Mesca Ulad orIntoxication of Ulster." It gives the credit ofthe distribution to Amergin.

He divided Ireland between the conquerorsand the conquered. "And he," the Mesca

109


says, "gave the part of Erin that was under.ground to the Tuatha De Danaan and the otherpart to his own 'corporeal' people, the sons ofMiled, after which the De Danaans went intohills and fairy palaces."

There is another version of the same tractthat agrees with the" Conquest." This versionsays, "the Tuatha De Danaan went into fairypalaces (sidbrugaib) so that they spoke with'Side' under ground."

There are other ancient stories such as the"Sick Bed ofCuculain" that represent the TuathaDe Danaan as visiting the palaces of previouslyexisting gods. These were evidently the localgods of the aboriginal inhabitants, the tutelarydeities of races that preceded the Tuatha DeDanaan in Ireland, and which, we venture tosay, antedated even what we now know as themythological period or cycle.

We can never know how far back into theexistence of peopled Ireland this fairy beliefextends. It is an astounding thing that abelief going so far back into the past shouldhave existed as a harmless superstition until sorecently in some places, and should seemdestined to exist as an interesting tradition forages to come. It is one of the evidences of the

CHAPTER XVIII 111

tenacity of paganism and of the conservativecharacter of the Irish as a race.

As for the association of the De Danaan withthe "Shee" and the distinct existence of the"Shee," or aboriginal fairies, before the DeDanaan retirement, the passages we have quotedgive ample evidence.

In the story of the Children of Lir we aremade acquainted with Bow Derg, the TuathaDe Danaan King, and we see his two sons ridingalong at the head of the Marcra Side, or fairycavalcade, which, we are told, are their ownpeople. And in the "Senchas Na Relec" we aretold that it was the Siabra that killed CormacMac Art, and that "it was the Tuatha DeDanaan that were called Siabra." The Siabrawere the most undesirable class of the fairies.

But we are not to understand that the TuathaDe Danaan were associated with this classalone. They distributed themselves among allclasses, and imparted to the original deities ahuman interest, which, otherwise, they neverwould have acquired.

Otherwise, in fact, we never would haveheard of them. They were at least broughtnearer human kind by the accession to theirranks of beings, which, although regarded as


gods, were nevertheless invested in popularfancy with human shapes and human passions.

The Siabra was a contemptible fairy, and one,could hardly show greater disappointment atthe conduct of a boy or girl, than by addressingthe one or the other as "you little sheevra."

In the "Book of Fermoy" there is a tractwhich tells us that after losing two disastrousbattles, the Tuatha De Danaan met at the Brugon the Boyne, that Manannan presided at themeeting, that Bodb (pronounced Bough) wasmade King to preside over their future destinies,and that they retired into the palaces so oftenmentioned, which were really holes in the ground,or caverns within mounds, distributed amongthem by Manannan.

"The Book of Fermoy" does not call themholes in the ground, but of course they couldbe nothing else to mortal eyes. To the Sheeand Tuatha De Danaan occupants they werepalaces ablaze with light, and glittering withgems and gold. Some of them were underlakes and wells and even under the sea. Thefairies had ways of their own by which theywere able to endow any kind of place withpreternatural beauty.

We do not associate anything very desirable

CHAPTER XVIII 113

with holes in the ground; and we are, as ageneral thing, liable to shrink from the thoughtof beings that appear only in the dark. Weare considering holes in the ground as residencesor places of refuge, and are reminded by themof the following passage from the "Autocratof the Breakfast Table": *

"Did you never, in walking in the fields,come across a large flat stone, which had lain,nobody knows how long, just where you foundit, with the grass forming a little hedge, as itwere, all around it, close to its edges, - andhave you not, in obedience to a kind of feelingthat told you it had been lying there longenough, insinuated your stick or your foot oryour fingers under its edge and turned it over,as a housewife turns a cake, when she saysto herself, 'it's done brown enough by thistime'?

"What an odd revelation and what an unfore-seen and unpleasant surprise to a small com-munity, the very existence of which you hadnot suspected, until the sudden dismay andscattering among its members produced byyour turning the old stone over!

"Blades of grass flattened down, colorless,* By Oliver Wendell Holmes.


matted together, as if they had been bleachedand ironed; hideous, crawling creatures, someof them coleopterous or horneyshelled, - turtle-bugs one wants to call them; some of themsofter, but cunningly spread out and compressedlike Lepine watches (Nature never loses acrack or a crevice, mind you, or a joint in atavern bedstead, but she always has one of herflat-pattern, live timekeepers to slide into it);black, glossy crickets, with their long filamentssticking out like the whips of four-horse stage-coaches; motionless, slug-like creatures, younglarvae, perhaps more horrible in their pulpystillness than even in the infernal wriggle ofmaturity!

"But no sooner is the stone turned and thewholesome light of day let upon 1;-hiscom-pressed and blinded community of creepingthings, than all of them which enjoy the luxuryof legs - and some of them have a good many- rush around wildly, butting each other andeverything in their way, and end in a generalstampede for underground retreats from theregion poisoned by sunshine."

We do not quote this scene, for that is whatit really is, to disparage the fairies or theirchosen places of residence; but merely to

CHAPTER XVIII 115

illustrate one of the reasons why we do notquite like them. Who, after lifting that largeflat stone, would think of lighting a cigar oreating his dinner without having previouslywashed his hands carefully?

And who would not feel like keeping awayfrom any mound or hill, if he had any reasonto think, that at any time of the night, strangebeings might issue from it to conciliate hisfavor or play tricks on him?

The "Mesca Ulad," from which we havequoted, is a tract, the very existence of whichseems to be a slander on a whole province ofsober and respectable people. It is a story ofthe meeting of the Ulster men at a feast atthe palace of Emania.

When they became heated with feasting,they arose from the table and set out in a bodyto settle an old dispute with Curoi MacDaire,King of West Munster, whose palace, TeamhairLuachra, in Kerry, they burned to the ground.The Mesca is classed among the historical tales.

Although Bow Derg was made King of theTuatha De Danaan, Manannan still remainedtheir chief counsellor. He assigned to eachchief the mansion he and his tribe were tooccupy. Many of these places are still pointed


out as fairy haunts. The names they bearmake it impossible to disassociate them from the"Shee."

Some of them are named after Bow or Bodbhimself, but his principal residence or thegreat Sid-Buidbe seems to have been situatedon the shore of Lough Derg, near Portumna,in the County Galway. Rafwee in the samecounty is nothing more or less than the rathor fort of Bow; as Bodb, under grammaticalinflection gets the sound of "wee." Knockavo,near Strabane in County Tyrone, is explainedin a similar way as the Hill of Bodb.

Other places are named after Bugh (Boo)the daughter of this King, as for instance,Canbo, in Roscommon, which is written CeannBuga, or Bugh's head, by MacFirbis. Sothoroughly have the "Shee" impressed them-selves on the language and topography ofIreland that almost any hill one meets is liableto be called a shee-awn, and sometimes Zion orSion, and the traveller is liable to think thatthe Mount Sion, pointed out to him, may be aname borrowed from the Hebrew.

A little to the east of the village of Slane onthe Boyne is Sid Truim, which was placed byM",umnan under the guardianship of the God

CHAPTER XVIII 117

Midir, but the legends connected with it arenow forgotten. Sid Neannta near Lanesboroughin Roscommon is now known as Mullaghshee,anglicized Fairymount. *

But there is a mountain five miles southwestof Tuam, called Knock-Ma, which some trans-late as Hill of the Plain. We are of the opinionthat its right name is Knock-Meave or Meave'sHill.

There is no legend known to us which saysthat Meave, who flourished as queen of Con-naught at the time of Christ, retired into theFairy Kingdom; but there are legends whichshow that such powerful fairies as the Dagdasought her assistance in matters of great im-portance, although, to do so, he had to remainalive for ages after the euhemerists had attendedhis funeral.

She and the fairies were very much and veryoften interested in each other and consequentlyour opinion that this hill is named after her isvery probably well founded. Besides it is thetradition held by the people of the vicinity,and they ought to know. The hill had beenassigned to the famous Finvara by l\tfanannan.

The fairies are very powerful there still.* Dr. Joyre's Irish Names of Places.


On the northeastern slope of this hill, or rathermountain, there are thick woods, and after adrizzling rain, when the sun comes out, thesummit of the mountain is enveloped in a heavymist. The people say this is when the fairiesare distilling their "potheen," although it doesnot quite appear whether the mist is smokefrom the concealed distilleries or whether thebelief is not founded on the fact that its presenceobscures or hides the smoke, thus giving thefairies an opportunity to pursue their laborsundetected.

On the road from Headford to Tuam, whenpassing by this steep elevation to the right,one would never know what blast of windwould bring a host of fairies, bearing right downupon him. This, of course, is particularly soat night; and in the pale moonlight one wouldbe especially uneasy, and could not help castingfurtive glances up the mountain side, to see ifthey were coming.

On a dark night one would not be so apt tothink he would see them, but he would not besurprised at any time to hear them. Youwould pray, good reader, and pray ferventlytoo, until you got past that mountain thatfor ages has stood there in solitary grandeur

CHAPTER XVIII 119

and concealed within its unexplored recessesthe hosts of the gods of ancient Erin.

You would not pray to them; but you wouldpray to be kept safe from them; and on a moon-light night when the very moonlight itselfgives an appearance of weirdness and calm, butawful, dignity to such a scene, and the silenceitself has an element of terror in it, you wouldthank your stars when you got where you couldsee the plain all around you again on both sidesof the road; but still every fresh breeze wouldmake your heart beat faster, and renew theuncanny fears.

We were told by a young man who used totake long walks to the top of that mountainthat, ascending it from the southwestern side,where there are little or no woods, but here andthere large stone cairns, and pits choked up withthickets, he, at one time, started a hare.

Can't one imagine the despair, the haste, thepanic with which he darted around, lookingfor a small stone, found it, and, in a fractionof a second, sent it whizzing through the airafter the fleeing leveret and had the breathlesssatisfaction of seeing him dodge it. But oh,the after-thought.

Perhaps that hare was not a hare at all, but a


fairy in disguise. The thought brings out thecold perspiration on the face of the young savage.He says a devout prayer; but never feels entirelysecure until the next morning when he wakes upand finds that the fairies have not stolen him.

From this Olympus of the West one looks tothe northeast and gets a grand view of themagnificent Cathedral of Tuam. Its nobletower surmounted by eight pinnacles, the vastprofusion of these and of other architecturalornamentation all over its cruciform roof, makeit a beautiful structure. Not only is it a thingof beauty, but its whole make-up gives one asense of dignity and majesty. It is a veritableTe Deum Laudamus in stone. And well itmight be; commenced, as it was, in 1828 andfinished in 1836, just as Ireland had emergedfrom the Penal Laws.

There they stand, five miles apart, each alonein its grandeur, and that grandeur enhancedby the comparative insignificance of everythingelse around; there they stand in-very significantjuxtaposition and contrast, the pagan Olympusof the remote past and the grand Cathedral ofthe Ancient See of Saint Jarlath, the disciple ofSaint Benignus, who was himself the beloveddisciple of Saint Patrick.

CHAPTER XIX

Elcmar. M anannan. Oengus. Goibniu. Luch-tine and Creidne. De Danaan artificers.Story of Eithne. Irish Paganism compara-tively clean.

THE Christian redactions of the "Sid"say that the Brug on the Boyne, in-stead of being appropriated by the

Dagda, was given to Elcmar, the foster-father ofOengus, but that Oengus, assisted by Manan-nan, soon ousted Elcmar, took possession andis living there ever since.

He is, of course, invisible, having on the FeFiada, which, the Christian redactions insist,is the gift of Manannan. The swine the godsate 'were also particularly his property, and arealways associated with his name, while the alethey drank was called the ale of Goibniu, thesmith.

Just exactly how these two things cameabout we cannot clearly understand. The prep-aration of the beverage was undoubtedly en-trusted to Goibniu. He was a kind of kitchen

IiI

122 IRELAND'S FAmy LORE

god, somewhat like Hephaestus, who is men-tioned in the first book of the Iliad, and whowas a smith also and served the gods with drink.There is an old story called the "Fled Goibniu"or "Feast of Goibniu." It describes a jollificationat which the gods were all "ic 01" or drinking.

There is no evidence that anything moresubstantial than drink was consumed at thisfeast. The beverage used is, in other textscalled «lind," which is the ancient form of themodern "leann" or "lionn," which means ale.This drink, with the swine's flesh, conferredimmortality on the consumers.

We may observe that although there are many"fleds" or "feasts" in ancient Irish literature,the ancient Irish, whether gods or people, hadno Bacchus and no Bacchanalian orgies. Itcannot be denied that they were always readyfor a fight; and if the hero was not recognizedat the festive board by the "hero's portion" inquantity and quality there would be trouble,right there and then, and nothing but bloodwould atone for the insult.

It was not that the hero wanted better thingsthan any of the others. But he was so jealousof his prestige and of the position he had gainedby his prowess that he was unwilling to forfeit

CHAPTER XIX 123

any part of the recognition that the code ofhonor of those times had accorded him.

The pagan Irish served the god of war andcombat, but there was no Venus in their pan-theon. They were sports to the heart's core,but their sport was clean.

The modern word corresponding with Goibniuis, Goba, pronounced "gow," a smith. Goibniuwas smith to the Tuatha De Danaan; Luchtinewas their carpenter and Creidne, their brazier.The way these three would manufacture abattle spear and finish it out would astonishmodern artificers. 'Vith three strokes of hishammer Goibniu fashioned out the spear headand at the third stroke it was perfect. Withthree chippings Luchtine fitted out the spearhandle and at the third chipping it was perfect,and Creidne, the brazier, turned out the rivetswith equal rapidity and finish.

Then Goibniu picked up the head with hispinchers and cast it at the lintel of the door,and it stuck there fast, with the socket pro-truding; and Luchtine at once threw thehandle at the head and it stuck in the socket,a perfect fit; and Creidne, holding the rivets inhis hands, cast them as fast as he could throwthem, one by one, and they stuck in the holes


made for them in the spear head and went fastinto the wood of the handle.

They did this work with astonishing celerity;and it was largely owing to their quicknessand dexterity that the Tuatha De Danaan wereable to triumph over the Fomorians at thesecond battle of Moytura.

Before we leave Brug na Boinne we shalltake a last look into its chambers, and, as itsfairy splendors are hidden from our view andwe see nothing but darkness, we shall have thesatisfaction of seeing the first faint ray ofChristianity that the Christian redactor of itsancient story lets in upon its gloom. Curcogwas the daughter of Manannan.

She lived at the Brug. Eithne was thedaughter of the steward of Elcmar. She alsocontinued to live at the Brug after her father'smaster had been obliged to cede the palace toOengus. She acted as lady-in-waiting to Cur-cog..

One day it was discovered that she took nonourishment at all, and as the loss of appetitecontinued, her health became impaired andfinally she began to pine away. Manannansoon discovered the cause of her melancholy.A slight had been cast upon her by a neighboring

CHAPTER XIX 1~5

Tuatha De Danaan chief, and she resented itso bitterly that her guardian demon fled andwas replaced by an angel sent by the true God.From that moment she ceased to partake of theenchanted ale and the magic swine; but herlife was miraculously sustained by the trueGod. Soon, however, this miracle was renderedunnecessary. Oengus and Manannan made avoyage to India and brought back two cowsthat gave an inexhaustible supply of milk.India, being a land of righteousness, had nothingin it of the demoniac character, that tainted thefood of the De Danaans.

The cows were placed at the disposal ofEithne. She milked them, herself, and lived forages on their milk. Those events are calculatedto have happened in the eleventh centurybefore Christ. About fifteen hundred yearsafterwards, Curcog, and her maidens, Eithneamong them, went to bathe in the Boyne.

When they returned it was discovered thatEithne was not with them. While disrobingfor the bath, she had taken off the Fe Fiada orveil of invisibility. Her companions had be-come invisible to her, and she sought in vainfor the enchanted road that led to the palace.She wandered along the river banks for some

1~6 IRELAND'S FAIRY LORE

time, not knowing where she was, and bewilderedat the wonderful change that had come overher.

She was no longer a fairy, but had become anordinary woman. She came upon a walledgarden in which there was a house, and at thedoor of the house sat a man, clothed in a robe,such as she had never before seen. The housewas a church and the man a priest. He heardsuch account as she could give of herself, re-ceived her kindly and brought her to SaintPatrick. He instructed and baptized her.

Sometime afterwards she was kneeling inthis same little church near the banks of theBoyne, when suddenly she heard a great clamorand great lamentation outside. She could seeno one, but she could distinguish the voices.

It was Oengus and Curcog and the maidensfrom the Brug, seeking her, and lamenting heras lost forever to them. As they were invisibleto her, she was invisible to them on account ofthe influence of Christianity. Nevertheless,they brought back old memories, some pleasantand some unpleasant.

She swooned away; and on recovering con-sciousness it was discovered that an incurabledisease had fallen upon her. We cannot help

CHAPTER XIX 127surmising that it was consumption. It is asingular fact that "eitinne" is the Irish wordfor phthisis or "decline." We do not know itsetymology. The disease may have been socalled by the Irish after her.

At last Saint Patrick himself. administeredthe last sacraments to her, and she died in hispresence. She was buried in the little churchof the priest who had first received her, andthat church was afterwards called "Cill Eithne'schurch" easily anglicized Killine or Killiney.

Such is a synposis of the concluding part ofone of the Christian redactions of the famouspagan story of the "Conquest of the Sid."

CHAPTER XX

Individual Gods. The Dagda. Brigit. The loveof Oengus for Caer. Ailill and Meave. Nup-tials. Music.

SOfar we have been discussing the godsor fairies collectively. We now proceedto give individual attention to those of

them we know by name. A great deal of thishas been anticipated, especially in the case ofthe Dagda, Manannan and Bodb Berg.

The Dagda and other gods may be identifiedwith the deities of Greek, Iranian and Indianmythology. But this is not surprising, as theIrish people are of oriental origin. It is notwithin our scope to develop or verify thisidentification. Enough to say that the depar-tures and differentiations that have occurred inthe case of particular gods are what had to beexpected from the well-known fact that storiesthat have nothing more than human vigilanceto protect them are pretty sure to gain or loseas they travel.

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CHAPTER XX 129

A study of mythology clearly points to OneGod, just as a study of philology points to oneoriginal language.

We have already indicated the position ofthe Dagda in the Irish pantheon. He wasthe supreme ruler. He was still more distin-guished in his posterity. Dana, the "motherof the gods," was his daughter. She was alsoknown by the name of Brigit or Brigid. Thisword is connected with the old Irish word"b h" d h S . "b ih" darg an t e anscrlt r, an conveysthe idea of power, increase, vigor. The modernequivalent is "brig," which means strength orenergy. This goddess was known under slightlydifferent names throughout, the entire Celticworld.

There was a Gaulish or Gaelic general namedBrennos, who burned Rome four hundredyears before Christ; and there was anothergeneral, of the same name, who capturedDelphi, the innermost sanctuary of Greece,about a hundred years later.

Their names are supposed by many scholarsto be variants of the name Brigit; and it isquite probable that Brigantia (Braganza), thecity founded in Spain by the Milesians on theirway to Ireland, was named primarily after her.


It was from its towers that Breogan is said tohave seen the "Island of Destiny" or Inisfail.

Cormac's Glossary says of this goddess:-"This is Brigit, the female sage, or woman ofwisdom, that is Brigit, the goddess whom poetsadored, because her protecting care was verygreat and very famous." Cormac interpretsher name as "fiery arrow," but this is regardedas fanciful. Strangely enough her two sistersbore the same name.

One of them was the goddess of doctors andmedicine, and the other the goddess of smithsand smith-work. According to the same author-ity, their father, the Dagda, "had the perfectionof the human science." He was "Mac-nan-uile n-dan," the son or disciple of all theSCIences.

According to the pagan stories that havenot been tampered with, his wife was Boan,with whom he lived at the famous Brug. Ac-cording to other stories he was married to awoman who was known by the three names ofBreg, Meng and Meabal, meaning respectively" alie, guile and disgrace." Whether these nameswere given to Roan or to some previous or suc-ceeding wife, we do not know; but they seemto indicate that his married life was not happy.

CHAPTER XX 131

He himself was a benevolent god, but per-haps he married some Irish Xanthippe to tryhis patience. The euhemerists say he reignedover Ireland eighty years, as King of the DeDanaan.

There is a story that keeps him alive downto the time of Christ. It runs thus:-

His son Oengus had become enamored of abeautiful woman he had seen in a vision. Shehad played music the like of which he hadnever heard. It surpassed even the "Ceolshee" * to which he was accustomed. Not beingable to discover where she dwelt, he fell sick.A search of the kingdom was made, but to noavail, although the search lasted a whole year.

At last by the advice of a cuIming physician,the Dagda "who was King of the 'Shee' ofIreland," was consulted.

"Why have you sent for me?" said he.Thereupon Boan explained to him the cause

of their son's malady."What can I do for the lad?" said he."I know no more about that than you do,"

said she.Then the physician spoke up and as the

result of his advice, Boob, King of the Munster• Ceo! shee-fairy music.


Shee, and vassal of the Dagda, was given ayear in which to find the missing lady. Cele-brated throughout all Ireland for his science,this king or god was successful in his search.

But new difficulties developed. It was byno means certain that the father of the ladywould give her up. She lived in Connaught;and the Dagda had to secure the aid of Aililland Meave, joint rulers of that Kingdom, toinduce Ethal Anubal, her father, to give her inmarriage to Oengus.

At first the Connaught sovereigns refused tointerfere, saying they had no jurisdiction overthe king of the local fairies. But when hos-tilities finally broke out, they - mortals asthey were - joined forces with the Dagda inbesieging the enchanted palace of Ethal Anubal.He and sixty others were taken prisoners andcarried to Cruachan in Connaught. Even thenhe would not consent to give up his daughter;but he explained that she had as much poweras he had, and that on the first of Novembershe would be on a certain lake in the form of aswan, with a hundred and fifty other maidens,similarly metamorphosed.

The Dagda and Anuhal became reconciled.Oengus went to the lake indicated, called out

CHAPTER XX 133

Caer, the name of the girl, and received aresponse, made known his suit and was accepted.He, too, was changed into a swan and in thatform they flew to the palace on the Boyne,where they sang such sweet music that all whoheard it fell asleep and did not wake up forthree days.

We may remark here that ancient Irish musicwas divided into three great classes accordingto the effects it produced. There was the" suantraige" that caused sleep, the "goltraige"that caused lamentation or grief, the "gean-traige" that caused merriment and laughter.

This story, which is an example of the thor-oughly pagan class of stories, is called the"Aislinge Oengusso" or Vision of Oengus, andhas been published in the Revue Celtique.

The name of Brigit, daughter of the Dagda,is splendidly perpetuated in Christian Irelandin the great Abbess of Kildare.

CHAPTER XXI

Diancecht. Buanann. Ana. Aine. Cleena.A ibell. Grian.

ONLY a cursory account can be givenof the gods that are now less known.It will help, in some measure, to

rescue them from total oblivion. The fact thattheir names are mentioned and some account ofthem given in inaccessible manuscripts, orequally inaccessible printed volumes, does notmean that the average reader would ever hearof them or attain to anything like a completeknowledge of the religious character of theancient Irish mind.

To understand the rapid and thorough con-version of the Irish people to Christianity oneshould know what that was from which theywere converted. To understand their unin-terrupted loyalty to the Vicar of Christ, it isnecessary to study the conservatism and con-stancy with which they clung to such religiousideas as they could have gleaned from naturebefore the light of Christianity illumined their

1M

CHAPTER XXI 135

way. This constancy and conservatism was asolid foundation for the superstructure of divinegrace.

Our chapters on the ancient paganism wouldbe incomplete without a mention of the godswe know by name; but we must pass by for thepresent, the many legends connected with them.

One of the best known of these gods wasDiancecht, the mighty physician and god ofmedicine. We have seen that there was also agoddess of medicine, Brigit.

And in this connection it will not be out ofplace to touch on a fact not widely knownabout the cultivation of medical knowledge bythe ancient Irish. "Laege" is the Scandinavianword for physician at the present day, and"Liag" is the Irish word corresponding. It iswell known that the early Germanic races orTeutons borrowed words from the older Celtic.

The grammar of their language was alreadyformed when they met the Celts, but, althoughthe structure was pretty well filled in theyhad room here and there for a brick fromCeltic yards. These loan words were takenprincipally from the technical language as wellas from the current language of polite life, civilgovernment and war, and from the phraseology

136 mELAND'S FAIRY WRE

of the learned professions. It was thus thatthe Danish and Norwegian word for physiciancame to be really Celtic.

Taylor, in his "Origin of the Aryans," tells usthat these loan words, referring to " laege" andothers, "can hardly be later than the time ofthe Gaulish empire founded by Ambicatus inthe sixth century before Christ."

The family name Lee is derived from Liag,a physician. The Irish word for" doctor," mostgenerally in use at the present day, is "doctur"or "doctuir," a corruption of the English word.

The same inexorable law was in operation.The ancient Germans borrowed from the morecultured Gaels; and during the days of enforcedilliteracy, the Irish language was obliged toborrow some words from the English. Laegestill goes current in Denmark and Norway.

Diancecht, the Irish Aesculapius, was brother, to Goibniu, Creidne and Luchtine.

Then there was Buanaan, "the good mother,"and Ana, identified with Dana or Danu, other-wise known as Brigit, the mother of the godsBrian, Iucharba and Iuchar. As Danu andDana, she was worshipped in Munster as thegoddess of plenty. She is commemorated in"Da Chich Danaine," "the two paps of

CHAPTER XXI 137

Danaan," a mountain near Killarney. Thename is suggestive of the maternal nutritivefunction.

Then there was Aine, who gave her name toKnockainy hill and village in the countyLimerick. She ruled, and still rules, thatdistrict as fairy queen and banshee. In thesecond century of our era, she cut off the ear ofAilill Oluim, King of Munster. It was on thisaccount he was called Oluim, from "0," an ear,and "10m," bare; bare of one ear.

Two others who were at the same time fairyqueens and banshees were Cleena and Aibell, orAibinn. Cleena was the powerful ruler of thefairies of South Munster.

The Dinnsenchus tells us that she was aforeigner from fairyland, and that she wasdrowned in Glandore harbor in South Cock.At the spot where the accident happened thereare cliffs rising up from the sea; and from f:hecaverns in these, a loud melancholy roar issuesat times, and is supposed to be the ocean'sexpression of its grief for Cleena's tragic death.

It was often noticed, also, that this roarpresaged the death of a Munster King. Thesurge that lashes these cliffs has been calledfrom time immemorial, tOllllaCleena, or Cleena's

188 IRELAND'S FAffiY WRE

waves. Cleena lived on as a fairy and hasstill a magnificent palace at the center of agreat pile of rocks five miles from Mallow.

Aibell is the fairy goddess that presides overNorth Munster. Her name is sometimes writtenAoibinn, which means "Happy," and is con-sidered by some to mean also "BeautifuL" Herchief occupation among mortals seems to havebeen to take care of the O'Briens. Her effortsto dissuade certain members of Brian Boru'sfamily from going to certain death at Clontarfwere a credit to her devotedness as a banshee.Her palace, two miles north of Killaloe, isgenerally called Craglea, or the gray rock,but is also known as Crageevil or Aibell's rock.

Although it was a peculiarly suitable homefor her, she is probably no longer there. Itwas situated in a deep and silent valley, butwhen the woods that covered it were cut down,she is said to have left it in a huff. Tobereevil,or Aibell's well, still springs from the side ofthe mountain that faces her erstwhile palace.

Another famous queen, "Grian of the brightcheeks," holds her court at the top of PallasGreen Hill in Tipperary. Grian is the Irishfor sun. So, if she is not named after the sun,the sun is named after her.

CHAPTER XXI 189

Slieve-na-m-ban,* as its name implies, IS afeminine Olympus, too.

When we think of "Cleena's wave" and thebeautiful legend connected with it; when wethink of anyone or all of these beautiful,though pagan, associations, connected withevery mountain and hill and beauty-spot ofour motherland, we cannot help wonderingwhy "Tommy Little," otherwise known asTom Moore, should have gone to India t tolook for poetical inspiration, when his owncountry, from a thousand fountains and athousand heights, richer than Parnassus, wasgiving out that inspiration in inexhaustibledraughts, as if craving to be noticed, andlooking for consolation to the genius that Godhad given to so many of her children.

The Melodies, of course, redeemed him alittle.

* The mountain of the women.t Tom Moore himself in "Lalla Rookh" calls the

topography of that poem, in a general way, India.

CHAPTER XXII

War Furies. The Morrigan. Bculb, etc. De-1fWnS at Battle of Magh Rath. Fled Bricrend.Fight of champions with geniti Glinni. Fingerand toe nails as weapons.

THERE were war furies in the ancientIrish pantheon. The names of a fewof these goddesses have reached us.

There was Ana or Anan, but she must notbe confounded with the benevolent goddessof that name; and there was Macha who mustnot be confounded with the foundress of Emania.There was the Morrigan or great queen, aname very much in evidence, and there wasthe Badb, pronounced "Bweeve," which seemsto have been a generic name for them all.

They were all "bweeves." The bweeve usedto appear in the form of a carrion crow orvulture over the place where slaughter wasgoing on, as in a terrible battle. And hence inall Ireland and in parts of Scotland and Wales,that bird is still regarded with superstitioushorror. The very sight of it brings to mind

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CHAPTER XXII 141

the dim tradition of the gruesome part playedin the battles of ancient Erin by the blood-thirsty war goblins. The word "bweeve " isstill used in Ireland for a scolding woman.

The badb also took the form of a loathsomehag, joyful when the women of Ireland weresad. Her delight consisted in the battle carnagethat made them widows. One shudders tothink of her, as he would at the thought of thewitches in Macbeth or Meg Merriles in "GuyMannering. "

At the battle of Clontarf she appeared inthe form of a lean, nimble hag, hovering in theclouds over the contending armies, hopping onthe ground or perched on the swords and spear-points of the warriors. Her shriek was heardin anticipation of battle, and her foul form seensating herself with the blood of the slain.

Whitley Stokes describes her in the RevueCeltique as "a big-mouthed, swarthy, swift,sooty woman, lame, and squinting with herleft eye." Aed, King of Oriell, in the secondcentury, had a shield called the Dubgilla, orblack servant. It was the "feeder of ravens,"and was so called because it was hardly everwithout a war fury, perched on its rim.

The accounts of these deities that have come

14~ IRELAND'S FAffiY LORE

down to us are very confused. But the follow-ing passage from the "Battle of Magh Rath".gives a good idea of their activities. DescribingSuibne, who was about to engage in battle, thisseventh-century narrative says that "fits ofgiddiness came over him at the horrors, grimnessand rapidity of the Gaels.... Huge, horrible,aerial phantoms rose up, so that they were incursed, commingling crowds, tormenting him;and in dense, rustling, clamorous, left-turninghordes, without ceasing; and in dismal, regular,aerial, storm-shrieking, hovering fiendlike hosts,constantly in motion, shrieking and howling asthey hovered above both armies, in everydirection, to cow and dismay cowards and softyouths, but to invigorate and mightily rousechampions and warriors; so that from theuproar of the battle, the frantic pranks of thedemons, and the clashing of arms, the sound ofthe heavy blows reverberating on the points ofheroic spears, and keen edges of swords, andthe war-like borders of broad shields, the noblehero Suibne was filled and intoxicated withtremor, horror, panic, dismay, fickleness, un-steadiness, fear, flightiness, giddiness, terror

• Published with a translation by Dr. O'Donovan,for the Irisb Archreological Society in 1842.

CHAPTER XXII 143

and imbecility; so that there was not a jointof a member of him from foot to head whichwas not turned into a confused, trembling massfrom the effect of fear and the panic of dismay."

"His legs trembled as if shaken by the forceof a storm. His arms and various edgedweapons fell from him, the power of his handshaving been weakened and relaxed around themand made incapable of holding them. Thedoors of his hearing were quickened and openedby the horrors of lunacy; the vigor of his brain,in the cavities of his head, was destroyed bythe din of conflict; his speech became falteringfrom the giddiness of imbecility; his very soulfluttered with hallucination, and with manyand various phantasms; for the soul was theroot and true basis of fear itself.

"He might be compared then to a salmon ina weir, or to a bird caught in the close prisonof a cage. But the person to whom thesehorrid phantasms and spectres of flight andfleeing presented themselves had never beforebeen a coward or a lunatic without valor;but he was thus confounded because he hadbeen cursed by St. Ronan and denounced bythe great saints of Erin, because he had violatedtheir guarantee (or sanctuary) and slain an


ecclesiastical student of their people over theconsecrated trench, that iSt a puret clear-bottomed springt over which the shrine andCommunion of the Lord was placed for thenobles and arch-chieftains of Erin, and for allthe people in generalt before the commencementof the battle."

The battle of Magh Rath took place inA.D. 637t and the account of it from which theabove is translated is one of the most ancienthistorical tales we possess, as its languageshows. It was fought between Domnal, Kingof Tara, and Congal Claon, King of Ulster, whohad many foreigners on his side.

The curse, referred to in this talet was prob-ably an excommunication. This iSt of course,the only reasonable explanation of it. It isinteresting to note how the writer regards thechange in Suibne as a divine visitation, andhow he brings in the demons of ancient Erin asinstruments in the hands of Providence.

Besides the Bweeves, there were many otherclasses or species of war demons. There were"geniti glinni" or sprites of the valley;Bocanachst or male, and Bananachst or female,goblins; and Demna Aeir, or demons of the air.When a battle was ragingt they shrieked all

CHAPTER XXII 145

around the scene of slaughter or howled withdelight in their distant haunts.

At the "Fled Dun na n-ged"*or "Feast ofthe Ford of Geese" two of these demons,described as a man and woman from hell, ap-peared and were received hospitably as strangers,ate up all that was on the tables or withinreach, and caused the quarrel that led to thegreat battle of Moyrath or Magh Rath.

Some of these demons sided with Cuculain inone of his attacks on Meave's army, and her menwere so terrified "that they dashed against thepoints of one another's spears and weapons andone hundred warriors dropped dead with terror."

In the "Fled Bricrend," "Feast of Bricriu"published in his Irische Texte by Windisch, weare told that when a dispute arose as to whichof the three heroes Laegaire, Conall Cearnachor Cuculain should get the "champion's bit"as his right, they were sent, one by one, bydecision of Samera, to attack a colony of genitiglinni that infested a neighboring valley. Lae-gaire started the fight, got the worst of it,escaped without his armor or arms, and withhis clothes tom in tatters.

• Published with a translation by Dr. O'Donovan.Under same cover with Magh Bath in 184i.


Conall Cearnach tried next, was put toflight, saved his sword, but left his spear andshield with the victors. Cuculain was next,and the redoubtable champion came near goingdown, but, incited by his charioteer, he con-tinued the conflict, as if determined to fightto the death. He came off victorious, butwith his clothes all torn, and his body bruisedand scratched in many places.It was the most terrible fight he was ever in;

but the valley ran red with the blood of thegoblins before he got through with them.The reason of the peculiar injuries inflicted inthese fights was that these furies fought withtheir toe nails, finger nails and teeth. The toenails and finger nails were allowed to grow forpurposes of offence and defence.

We remember to have read in an Irish wonder-tale, of a champion, fighting a "hag" or she-demon and finding his spear too short for herfinger nails. Seeing that by fighting at longrange he could accomplish nothing, and thatclose quarters meant certain death, he tookr~fuge behind a tree, hoping to jab at hisassailant from either side of that oak trunk,three hundred years old. But to his surpriseand dismay, she drove her finger nails through

CHAPTER XXII 147that tree with perfect ease, driving him fromhis vantage ground. We remember with satis-faction that he finally won out in this apparentlyignoble contest, but how he did it, we do notremember.

CHAPTER XXIII

Manannan. Fand. Emer. The Fairy Branch.Manannan and CormacMacAri.

NONE of the ancient Irish gods cancompare with Manannan in popular

. remembrance and esteem. Many oldIrishmen remember him better than theyremember their great-grandfathers. He is sur-named "MacLir," which means "Son of theSea"; and although it was well known thathis dwelling place was in the ocean, either atthe surface or at the bottom, no one everdiscovered its precise location.

Bran, the son of Febal, was one of the famousvoyagers of ancient Erin. On one of thesevoyages, when two days and two nights out onthe sea, he saw a chariot coming over thesurface of the waters and bearing right downon him. He hailed it and enquired who wasits occupant, and Manannan answered that hewas its occupant; and in the course of theconversation declared that the sea was to him"a happy plain with profusion of flowers, seenfrom the chariot of two wheels."

148

CHAPTER XXIII 149

This legend is beautifully and somewhatamusingly preserved in Christian Ireland. St.Scutin used to go to Rome every day andcome back the next day. The way he did itwas by walking over the ocean or skimmingover it like the wind. One day while thus onhis way to the Eternal City, he met St. Finbarof Cork, coming back to Ireland in a ship.

St. Scutin is somewhat better known by hisLatin name Scotinus.

The good St. Finbar accosted Scotinus andasked him why he travelled in that peculiarway, why didn't he go in a ship? Scotinusanswered and said that to him it was not thesea at all but a "vast shamrock-bearing plain,"and in proof of his assertion, he stooped downand picked up a bunch of flowers and threwthem to Finbar. The latter, still maintainingthat it was the sea, stooped down and pickedup a salmon and threw it to Scotinus.*

How the controversy was settled, or whetherit was ever settled at all, we do not know.Insignificant and fabulous as the little storyis, it does its own little service in illustrating,in the midst of the enormous mass of other

• See Dr. Joyre's Social History of Ireland, Chap.,Paganism.


evidence, how completely wrapped up theChristian Irish mind was in the thought ofRome, and how perseveringly and faithfullythe face of early Christian Ireland, as of Irelandat all times, was turned toward the Centre ofUnity.

As for Manannan, anyone travelling alongthe Irish coasts may even yet see his "white-maned steeds." Of course, they are apt to betaken for the "white-caps" that appear onthe crests of the waves in a storm. But thisis all a mistake. When the night is dark anda storm raging, all the voyager, or the manstanding on the shore, has to do is to look outover the tossing sea, and although he may notsee Manannan himself, he will see that thatgod is in his glory on such a night, and he willsee his steeds careering with a certain wildregularity over the face of the deep.

One of the islands of the pagan heaven isdescribed as "an isle around which sea-horsesglisten."

Manannan differed a little from the rest ofthe fairies in physical construction. He hadthree legs; and, with these, when on land, herolled along like a wheel, and with such speedthat he easily "caught up with the wind that

CHAPTER XXIII 151

was ahead of him, while the wind that was backof him never caught up with him." Hissingular anatomy is still commemorated in thethree-legged figure that is stamped on theManx half-penny.

He was the Irish Neptune. Neptune carrieda trident, which, we suppose, was a kind ofsceptre, not shaped exactly like a fork, but withthe prongs forming the apices of an equilateraltriangle. Manannan dispensed with the useof a trident, as he was built in that shapehimself. Cormac MacCullinan was a Euhe-merist of the first class.In his Glossary he makes Manannan a mere

man. He describes him as a celebrated mer-chant who abode in the Isle of Mann, and hadthe distinction of being the best pilot in thewest of Europe. "He used to know by studyingthe sky," continues the Glossary, "the periodwhich would be the :fine weather and the badweather, and when each of these two timeswould change. Hence the Irish and the Britonscalled him the "God of the Sea," and alsoMacLir, i.e., 'Son of the Sea,' and from thename of Manannan the 'Isle of Mann' is socalled."

The "Coir Anman," however, which is a


much later authority, says that. it was theIsle of Mann that gave its name to Manannan.He was king of this island and hence the figureon the coin.

One of his names was Oirbsen, and LoughCorrib in Galway was anciently called LocOirbsen, because he was drowned there. Still,like all the gods who suffered death at thequill-points of the Euhemerists, he lived on.We find him in the Heroic Cycle involved inthe entanglements of human love, and wecannot say that his conduct was -quite worthyof a god.

He repudiates his faithful wife, Fand, andshe, in revenge, makes love to Cuculain, who isalready married to the beautiful and chasteEmer. There is trouble for a while, but atlast Manannan becomes reconciled to Fand,and the cloud that hung over the happiness ofCuculain and Emer was also dissipated. It isnot unlike many a modem romance, exceptthat, when the unmitigated paganism of itsbackground is considered, it must be admittedto be much cleaner.

Manannan gets mixed up in human affairsagain in the Ossianic Cycle. Cormac Mac-Art, who was high king of Ireland in A.D. !t66,

CHAPTER XXIII 153

is put down in the Annals of Tigernach ashaving been absent or missing on one occasionfor seven months. How it happened is recordedin an old story entitled "Toruigeacht CraoibeChormaic Mhic Airt," or "Seeking of theBranch of Cormac MacAirt." It was one ofManannan's tricks.

One day that Cormac was looking out froma window of his palace at Tara, then calledLiathdruim, he saw a handsome young man inthe "faitce" or plain adjoining the palace.The youth held in his hand a most beautifulbranch on which nine golden apples were hang-ing. When the branch was shaken, these applesbeat against each other and produced music sostrange and sweet that all who heard it forgotall pain and sorrow at once and were lulled tosleep.

Cormac took a great liking for the fairybranch and went out and asked the youngman if it belonged to him.

"It does indeed," said the young man."Wilt thou sell it?" said Cormac."I will," said the young man. "I never

have anything that I would not sell.""What is thy price?" said Cormac. "I will

give thee anything thou thinkest right."


And the young man replied: "Thy wife,thy son and thy daughter."

"I will give them to thee," said the king.The youth went over to the palace with

Cormac, who told his fa~ily about the bargain.They had admired the branch and its musicalqualities very much, but when they heard theprice that was paid for it, their expostulationsand lamentations were very great indeed. Butat the sound of the chimes from the goldenapples they forgot it all and went to sleep.

The news of their contemplated departure forFairyland, or some strange country, passed overIreland and caused universal grief, as they werevery popular. But the fairy music from the goldenapples drowned all sorrow in peaceful slumber.

Soon Eithne, Cairbre and Ailbhe went awaywith the stranger. The branch and the applesremained with Cormac. After one year hadpassed he longed to see his wife and children.He set out in the direction in which he hadseen them going. Soon a "ceo draoideacta"or fog of enchantment and invisibility envelopedhim, although he was totally unaware of itspresence. He was under fairy influence andsaw many things in his journeyings that wereutterly incomprehensible to him.

CHAPTER XXIII 155

At last he came to a house, which, on invita-tion of the "woman of the house," he entered.She took him for a distinguished stranger "ofthe men of the world," and called for her lordand master who was a tall and handsome man.In fact they were both tall and handsome anddressed in garments of many colors. Thecouple said it was an unseemly hour for travelon foot, and so invited Cormac to enjoy theirhospitality until the morning.

The man went out and carried in on his backa huge pig, and in his hand a log. He threwthe pig and the log on the floor and dividedeach into four equal portions."N " .dhe" t kow, sal e to ormac, you a e a

quarter of the log and make a fire with it, andtake a quarter of the pig and put it on the fireand then tell us a story and if the story be atrue one the meat will be cooked when it is alltold." But Cormac maintained that it wasnot his place, in that presence, to tell the firststory, that his host should begin, that the ladyshould come next, and that the third storywould be his turn.

Manannan admitted his claim and proceededto tell that he had seven of these pigs, andthat with them he could feed the whole world;


for all he had to do after one of them waseaten was to gather its bones and put them backin the sty and the next morning he would findthe pig entire. His story was a true one andthe first quarter of the pig was cooked.

Then the second quarter was put on and hiswife related that she had seven white cowsand that with the milk of these cows she couldfill all the men of the world "if they were onthe plain drinking it." The story was trueand the second quarter of the pig was cooked."If your stories be true," said Cormac, "thou,

indeed, art Manannan and she is your wife,for no one upon the face of the earth possessesthose treasure but only Manannan, for it wasto Tir Tairngire (The Land of Promise) hewent to seek that woman and he got thoseseven cows with her." Manannan admittedhis identity and. asked for Cormac's story.The third quarter of the pig was put on thefire, and Cormac went on to relate how he hadbartered away his wife, his son and his daughterfor the fairy branch.

"If what thou sayst be true," said Manannan,"thou art Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of thehundred battles." "Truly I am," said Cormacand it is in search of these three I am now."

CHAPTER XXIII 157That story was true and the quarter of the

pig was cooked. Cormac, however, refusedto eat in a company of only three, and whenasked if he would eat if three others wereadded, he said he would if he liked them.

Thereupon his wife, son and daughter werebrought in, and Manannan admitted that itwas he who had carried them away and thathis object was to bring Cormac himself to thathouse. Great was the joy of Cormac.

After the host had explained to him themeaning of the different wonders he had seenin his travels, Cormac and his wife, Eithne, andhis son Cairbre, and his daughter Ailbhe satdown to the table and ate heartily. Before themwas a tablecloth on which appeared instantlyany kind of food they thought of or desired.

And Manannan, putting his hand in hispocket, pulled out a goblet, and explained tothem that if a lie were told in the presence ofthat goblet it would break into four pieces, butif the truth were told it would come togetheragain, perfectly whole.

"Let that be proved," said Cormac."It shall be done," said Manannan."This woman that I took from thee has had

another husband since I brought her with me."


The cup went to pieces."Verily my husband hath lied," said Man-

annan's wife.This was true and the cup was restored to

its original self and looked as if nothing hadever happened to it.

Mter affectionate greetings with Manannan,and pledges of eternal friendship, Cormac andhis family retired to their respective couches,and when they woke up they found themselvesin Liathdruim with the musical branch, thebountiful tablecloth, and the sensitive cup intheir possession.

The language in which we find this tale ismodernized from a tenth-century text. DeJubainville, who is not a cynic and hardly eversneers, says: "I can hardly recognize as ancientthe passage referring to the fidelity of Cormac'swife. Celtic paganism is not so chaste." Wewould respectfully remark on this that the veryfact that it cannot be proven unchaste is initself quite an argument that Celtic mythology,or at least Irish mythology, was very com-paratively clean.

CHAPTER XXIV

The Leprechaun. Ancient references to him.Modern conceptions of him.

THERE are very few references to theluchrupan in our ancient literature;but there are some, and they are

enough to show that he has a prescriptiveright to exist and thrive on Irish soil, and thathe is not a creation of medieval or modernimagination. l\fodern fiction has, indeed, takenliberties with his person and habits, which hewould certainly resent if his dignity as a godand a proper sense of personal security had notmade him decide to keep himself in retirement.He differs from the other gods in his absolutephysical helplessness when in the grasp of amortal. "lu " is the Irish for "least" andchrupan is for "corpan," a little body; hencehis name" a wee little body."

We :findhis name generally spelled leprecawn,lurrigawn, and sometimes clooricawn, lurriga-dane, luppercadane, and loughryman, which areall corruptions of luchorpan.

Ili9


We find a reference to him in "Libur na H-Uidre." It gives him a human pedigree. Ittells us that "luchrupans, and Fomorians andgoat-heads and every sort of ill-shaped menwere descended from Ham."

A colony of leprecawns lived in a beautifulcountry, under Lough Rury, now DundrumBay, in County Down. Fergus MacLeide,as we are told in an ancient tale, captured theirking. The little monarch ransomed himself bypresenting Fergus with a pair of shoes that gavehim the power to dive into the water as oftenas he pleased and remain under the surface aslong as he wished.It is on this incident, probably, the tradition

is founded that the luchorpan is shoemaker tothe fairies; and that if he is caught he willbuy his freedom by showing his captor whereto find a " crock of gold." This seems tohave been, in the minds of the story tellers, theacme of good luck.

The leprecawn is not malicious. But if ill-treated, he'll take his revenge, like the otherfairies; he'll wither the corn, set fire to thehouse or snip the hair off the head of his tor-mentor. This is the, punishment he generallymetes out to women, whenever one is found

CHAPTER XXIV 161

courageous enough to bother him. He is verysmall; but Miss Hull, in her "Cuculain Saga,".calling him a "brat," is entirely wrong. Thisis no translation of his name. He comes by hisname legitimately, and would not be a truescion of the ancient and honorable race ofleprecawns if he wasn't small.

The ancient accounts make him about sixinches tall. He is well proportioned, and verystrong for his size. A knock on the head fromhis hammer is something one would neverforget. He has been known to cut a thistle intwo, with one blow from his sword, but he rarelycarries this.

Notwithstanding what the "Libur na h-Uidre"says about his stature, we are strongly of theopinion that it makes him more diminutivethan he really is. From our general readingwe feel that we can add at least three inchesmore to his height.

We believe there is not an Irishman livingthat has not at some time or another, thoughtof him; and we believe, furthermore, thatthere is not an Irishman living who would notlike to catch him. But that is where all thetrouble comes in. And even if you did catchhim, good reader, you would have to keep your


eyes fixed on him till you had the money; for,if you blinked, he was gone and your suddenhopes of sudden wealth would have vanishedwith him. He has disappointed many men.

"Oh, how many times," says Henry Giles,the famous lecturer of sixty or seventy yearsago, " oh, how many times, in those goldendays of youth which are given once to the mostwretched, and are never given twice to themost blessed, have I looked for that miniatureSon of the Last, - watched for his red capamidst the green grass of the hill-side - spiedaround to catch the thumb-sized treasure-knower, that I might have guineas to buy booksto my heart's content, or wealth enough to go,like Aladdin, and ask for the Caliph's daughter.But I must honestly confess that, though noone ever looked more diligently than I did fora leprechaun, I never found one." Such hasbeen the experience of many others. We nevermet anyone who saw him, but we have metpeople who knew for certain about others whohad either seen him or heard him, tapping awayat a shoe-heel. We often thought of him.ourselves in our strollings about the hills andvalleys of old Ireland, and wondered if wereally would have the courage to grab him if

CHAPTER XXIV 168

we saw him. There is something so uncannyand unearthly in chasing this elusive littlebeing that one would hardly consider it adelightful pastime, even with enormous wealthin view.

There is hardly a doubt but that some peoplehave been a little more fortunate than Mr.Giles. They have seen him, captured him,made an effort to secure the treasure, but,as far as we know, they all lost. In fact, hehas often been caught, but in every instancehe has proved more than a match for themortal who caught him.

Except in the case of Fergus Mac-Leide, inancient times, he has never yet been in anypredicament that he has not been able to getaway from, by the resources of his own cunningnature.

He could not, of course, have thrived so longon Irish soil without some of his tricks becomingknown, and it is well to caution mortals againstthese. Sometimes when in the grasp of acourageous person he has been known to makethe best of the situation by looking cheerfuland pretending that he is the one really favored.He directs his delighted captor to the placewhere the " crock of gold" is hidden, and


in the course of a most pleasant series of ques-tions and answers, and in a most off-handedand matter-of-fact way, offers the unsuspectingmortal a pinch of snuff. This poor fellow'sthoughts are all on the money. Completelyoff his guard, he takes the snuff, to keep thelittle fellow in good humor, but does not takehis eyes off his captive while taking it. Butwhen he has drawn it up into his nostrils, hesneezes and the little fellow vanishes. If thethick-witted mortal could only have sneezedwithout blinking, he could have held on to hisprey and come into the possession of millions.But he misses his opportunity and realizes thathe was dealing with no fool.If anybody asked our opinion as to which we

considered the more profitable pursuit, thechase of leprecawns or the chase of skunks,we would unhesitatingly decide in favor of thelatter. As a matter of fact, the accumulationof enormous wealth has been, perhaps in more .cases than one, started in this way. Besides,the leprecawn is not an American product,and, even in Ireland the quest of him hasalways proven to be a very unpromisingindustry.

It is said that when you get near enough to

CHAPTER XXIV 165

him, you will notice that his face bears all theevidence of his extreme old age. But, of course,he has the power to give it the appearance ofall the bloom of youth when he wishes to do so.

Modern writers have told stories about him,which he has not taken the pains to contradict.They have made insinuations of intemperanceand open charges of impertinence against him.He has been known, according to them, to showa predilection for loitering around houses whichwere possessed of well-stocked wine cellars.

Oliver Cromwell, with a party of his officers,came upon such a house somewhere nearDrogheda. They were delighted to discoverthat there were several casks of excellent winein the cellar. But that cellar had been thehaunt for centuries of a certain leprecawn,who had made himself quite at home with thatancient family. He knew what Cromwell andhis officers would first make for; and so hecontrived to remove the wine from the casksand replace it with salt water.

Cromwell looked at the casks. They werefair to behold, and the saliva Howed from hismolars. Soon, in rage and disappointment, heswore, as only Cromwell could swear. He hadtasted salt water instead of wine.


"Oh, is that yourself, you wonderful saint?"said a thin little voice. "I am ashamed tohear your saint-ship swearing."

The great man looked around and saw thediminutive figure sitting on a cask, his chinresting on his clenched fists and his little eyesglaring defiance.

"Fire at him and defy Satan," shoutedCromwell.

"Fire away, Flanagan," said the little fellow,"but even if you put your own red nose to thetouch-hole, you'd miss fire, and now, you olddepredator, if it isn't a rude question, might abody make bold to ask how much the paintingof your nose cost? I have been a thousandyears in the world and so fine a nose as that Ihave never looked at before. I didn't thinkyou'd have the face to show such a nose in thiscountry."

Cromwell turned his eyes toward heaven andprayed, but the leprecawn had no fear of himor his prayers, but told him to get out or thathe would make an honest and merciful manout of him, and thus put an end to his power.•

• This scene is adapted from Hall's PicturesqueIreland.

CHAPTER XXV

The Pooka. Gives his name to plMes. Someof his tricks.

Noapparition of the night inspiredmore terror than the pooka. Heis capricious; and some say he is

malignant; but we have never heard that hismalignity ever went any further than giving ascare his victim never forgot. And most of thetime one would imagine, from the nature of hispranks, that he indulged in them for his ownamusement simply. We have not seen himreferred to as a god particularly, but as he iscertainly not quite human, being able to makehimself visible or invisible at will, he seems tohave conquered a place for himself in the Irishpagan pantheon.

He is supposed to have been imported by theDanes. Whether this be so or not his name isassociated with so many places in Ireland thatit would seem as if the Irish, from time im-memorial, had a pooka of their own.

167


We do not know, and it is probable that wenever can find out~ when those places got thosenames. One of the best known of them isPollaphooka, or the pooka's Hole in CountyWicklow. It is a wild chasm where the Liffeyfalls over a ledge of rock into a deep pool orcavern. Then there is a Puckstown near Ar-taine in County Dublin; and Boheraphooka,or the pooka's road, not far from Roscrea, inthe County Tipperary. This road has such abad name that if one is passing over it at nighthe is sure to be seized with a violent fit of pietyand devotion, even if, in times when no dangerthreatens, he never says his prayers at all.If people dreaded the arch-enemy of man's

salvation half as much as they dread the pookathey would fare much better in many ways..

Then there is Carrigaphooka, or the pooka'srock, near Macroom. On the top of this rockstands the ruin of the ancient castle of a greatfamily of the MacCarthys. The place is distin-guished also as the scene of the first attempt ataviation, although the fact does not seem tobe known to our modern birdmen.

It was from this spot that Daniel O'Rourkestarted out on his voyage to the moon on theback of an eagle.

CHAPTER XXV 169

All over the country there are such names asthese, and such names also as Ahaphooka, orthe pooka's ford, and Lissaphooka and rath-pooka or the pooka's fort. All this goes toshow how clearly and extensively the pookahas left his footprints on the sands of time inIreland.

Shakespeare has immortalized him m Englandand has indicated his habits and powers whenhe makes him describe himself as .. a merrywanderer of the night," who "can put a girdleround about the earth in forty minutes," andCharles Lamb, whom we quoted in a formerchapter, describes his tricks more minutely.

It would be impossible to give a full accountof all the tricks of the Irish pooka. His villanousversatility and resourcefulness are marvellous.We shall be content with giving a translationof an account of him we find in "Siomsa anGeimre," a little book giving stories and gamesthat beguile the long winter nights in WestConnaught.

"There are few townlands in Ireland," thisbook tells us, "that have not a hill, a valley ora cliff which takes its name from the pooka;but what kind of being or animal he is, few, veryfew indeed, know. Some poet has said that


the pooka has existed from the time of theFlood and that he changes his form many timesand in many ways; that he is a cat or a dog atnight, and that he is no sooner in that formthan in the shape of an old white horse."It is the habit of the pooka to give a ride to

anyone he catches out late at night. He hastwo ways of doing this. When he is in humanshape, he contrives to lift the traveller on tohis back by a wrestling trick, known only tohimself. The unfortunate wayfarer begins hisride with his head down, his face to the pooka'sback, his legs doubled over the pooka's shouldersand his shins held tight one in each hand of thegoblin; and in this way he is carried with awfulspeed over hills and valleys, lakes and lakelets,up and down hills, and when he is exhaustedand thoroughly frightened, he is set down andlet go on his way again.

"The other way is when he makes a horse ofhimself. He comes up behind the unsuspectingwayfarer, thrusts his head between the latter'slegs, throws him up on his back, and suddenlyassuming unusual height, leaves his humanbutt the alternative of holding on like a boldrider or sliding down and taking a chance ofbreaking his bones. As a general thing the

CHAPTER XXV 171rider holds on with a death-grip and off goesthe pooka whithersoever he pleases, and thegreater his speed, the tighter the grip of therider on his mane.

"The pooka does not always have it his ownway, though. Once in a while, a man comesalong to whom this free ride is a joy ride indeed.

"There was once a merchant who came toConnemara before roads were built there, andhe came on horse-back. He found a lodging,as there were one and twenty welcomes forthe traveller, and the princely' hospitality ofthe people of 'Vest Connaught was known farand near. He let his horse out through thefields and went to sleep. When he had sleptenough, he got up, ate his breakfast and dressedhimself for travel. He knew by the stars thatit was earlier than he had at first supposed,and he thought it would be better to be gettingthe journey over him. He went looking forhis horse; but whom should he meet but thepooka! This fellow lifted him up on his back,and started out at a brisk trot, which he soonincreased to a gallop. He went like the windthrough bogs, swamps and fields, over hills andglens and across rivers, and was about to letthe rider down, when all of a sudden he changed


his mind and made a sudden dash for the bankof a great river and was about to leap across it,when it dawned on the rider for the first timethat he had his spurs on. With a powerfuleffort he drove these to the quick in his mysteri-ous steed. The latter trembled, seeminglyparalyzed by the unexpected shock. When hegot himself together he begged of the rider topull the spikes out of his sides and that hewould let him down. The latter complied, andin a twinkle the pooka was on the other side ofthe river.

"The merchant was sorry he let him go soeasy. He tried to coax him back, hoping to breakhim of some of his tricks. He called to himaloud, saying he had something nice to tell him.

" 'Have you got those spikes on yet?' returnedthe pooka. 'I have, indeed,' said the man.'If you have,' said the pooka, 'stay where youare. 1 will not go near you till you take themoff. 1 am through with you now, but if 1 catchyou another time when you haven't got thespikes on, you will learn a few things or I'lllose a fall by it.'"

This goblin's name is indifferently spelledpooka or pooca, but always puca in the Irishlanguage, and puck in Shakespeare.

CHAPTER XXVI

The pooka not always to blame. St. Patrick'sdiplomatic tact. Greek, Latin and Irish "hu-manities."

TI'Irish pooka is bad enough, but heis not to blame for half the thingslaid to his charge. A case in point is

the air trip of Daniel O'Rourke.An excellent description or report of it was

written by William Maginn. Daniel, aftercertain experiences, found himself alone on a" dissolute" island. How to get out of thereand get home was the problem that confrontedhim. An eagle appeared, and, to Daniel'sastonishment, talked to him "like a Christian,"and offered to fly him home.

Dan had some misgivings, but he acceptedthe offer. Instead of bringing him home, theeagle carried him up to the moon and left himthere, saying she was glad to get even with himas he had robbed her nest a few months before.

Dan was mystified, chagrined and disap-pointed. He did not want to betray his feelingsfully; and so he cursed the eagle vigorously in

178


Irish, thinking that she would not understandhim.

He knew well that he had robbed the nest,but how the eagle found out that it was he thatdid it, he could not understand. But there hewas, left alone hanging on to the moon.

Soon a door opened; and it creaked andgrated as if it had not been opened before for athousand years. The "Man in the Moon"appeared and looked at Dan. He evidentlyresented the intrusion. He was not accus-tomed to visitors, and felt he did not know howto take them. He had, all his life, been monarchof all he surveyed, and did not know but thatthis Irishman might have some designs on hissovereignty. He thought to himself that anIrishman who would fly to the moon would beenterprising and adventurous enough to attemptanything. So he kicked Dan out, or rather off,and the latter proceeded towards the earth ina series of somersaults, reminding one somewhatof chained lightning. The poor fellow wasabout to despair of ever reaching Ireland insafety, when he met a flock of wild geese, flyingalong under the generalship of a gander fromhis own bog. He knew that gander well, andthe gander knew him and spoke to him, and

CHAPTER XXVI 175

asked him to hang on to his leg, and that hewould take him to the earth safe and sound.

Dan said something to himself in Irish, butthe gander did not understand. On accountof his experience with the eagle, he distrustedthat gander very much. "But there was nohelp," says Dan, "so I caught the gander bythe leg and away I and the other geese flewafter him as fast as hops."

Soon, however, he discovered that the geesewere flying to Arabia; and so he prevailed onthe gander to drop him some place where hecould reach the earth without breaking hisbones.If we remember rightly he fell into the sea.

Mter some more adventures he woke up at thefoot of Carrigaphooca, dreaming that he hadbeen tossed about on the crest of a great wave.

As a matter of fact, his poor, disgusted, butdevoted wife had been soussing him with coldwater during the whole course of his trip.

Why he went to sleep at the base of thishaunted rock anyone may conjecture; andalthough there were reasons enough to accountfor his wild and hazardous trip, it would not doto let the pooka go without his share of theblame ..


The poor pooka! Even though he is thor-oughly unpopular, it is good to have him toblame things on. The Irish made a mistake innot bringing him with them to this country.He could have had lots of fun here, and madethe acquaintance of more people than he everknew in Denmark, England and Ireland.

Besides the pooka there is a great number ofapparitions recorded, not so much in Irishbooks, or even in Irish folk stories, as in Irishplace names. Tell the traveller in Ireland thenames of certain places, and if, by any chance,he sees through the etymology of these names,he will be apt to tell you that he "would rathernot" stay in any of them that night, as heremembers he has some business to transactelsewhere. These apparitions are called bydifferent names. The Latin word " effigies"was found by Zeuss glossed by the word "delb,"the ancient form of the modern "dealb," ashape, a form, a phantom, something evanes-cent. Cillin na n-dealb, or the little church ofthe phantoms, in Tipperary, is named after anold churchyard which was particularly haunted.

Fua is another name for phantom, and it isfound incorporated in the name of Glennawooin Fermanagh, and in many other such names.

CHAPTER XXVI 177Tais, pronounced thash, is also often used

for spectre, and is found in such names asTobar a' Taise or "The well of the ghost."

A most hideous class of spectre is the Dulla-ghan. He haunts cemeteries, but does notdishonor the dead. He may be seen carryinghis head in his hands or under his arm. Infact, one may meet whole troops of them,walking along in irregular formation, tossingtheir heads from one to another, as if inplayfulness.*

Tom Moore, somewhere in "Lalla Rookh,"introduces us to a somewhat similar belief inthe East, where souls are said to watch inloving vigilance at the graves of the bodies fromwhich they have been released.

Taken altogether it is hard to find a countrywhere ancient paganism or mythology has lefta more indelible impression than in Ireland.The very face of the country seems to be onegreat voice, speaking of. its remote past; andall this, notwithstanding its grand, indestructibleand pure Christianity.

With the well-known reservation that everycomparison limps, we may say that as theApostles "buried the synagogue with honor,"

* Dr. P. W. Joyce: "Irish Names of Places."


St. Patrick buried the ancient Irish pagamsmwith honor also.

The change he brought about was not aviolence to the feelings of the people. Theysaw its reasonable and heaven-sent nature, asthey went along; and hence, humanly speaking,the stability and lasting character of the struc-ture our glorious apostle built. The more onethinks of him, and of the work he did, andhow he went about that work, the more one isimpressed not only with his ability and forceful-ness as a missionary, but also with his perfecttact and Christian prudence.

The great diplomat, in the best sense of theword, speaks in every paragraph, and in everyline of his "Confessions." He was truly anotherSt. Paul in personality as in achievement. Hewas the very man to face a great and difficultproblem.

He approached the people with preconceivedrespect, and although he destroyed their ancientbeliefs and pagan practices he made no effort toobliterate these things forever as historic tradi-tions.

He allowed these "humanities" to live on;and as a matter of fact, is not Europe indebtedto the "humanities" of Greece and Rome for

CHAPTER XXVI 179

its education, and very largely for the languagein its mouth?

The literature in which ancient Ireland stilllives is ~ndeed literature of the purest kind, ifliterature be what Brother Azarias defines itto be. "What, then, constitutes literature? "says he. "Two things: first, the subject treatedof must be such as appeals to our commonhumanity; second, the subject must be treatedin such a style that the reading of it givesgeneral pleasure."

CHAPTER XXVII

Threefold classification of Irish gods. The IrishDivi. Aed Ruad and Doon. Instances inRoman and Greek mythology. Aquatic mon-sters. Snake stm-y about St. Patrick

IRISHmythology did not begin with thedisappearance of the Tuatha De Danaan.The "shees," into which these retired, are

represented as previously existing, and not asresidences built up or excavated for their specialaccommodation. Besides, we are told, theyconversed with "shees," that is, with theinhabitants of the shees, under the ground.Some of the Milesians were also adopted intothe Pantheon, as we see in the case of AedRuad, the father of Macha, the foundress ofEmania. He was drowned in the waterfall atBallyshannon, which was on that accountcalled "Eas-Aeda Ruaid," or "Aed Ruad'swaterfall," now shortened to "Assaroe." Hewas buried in the mound over the cataract,now called Mullaghshee; but this was a burialin appearance only. He has reigned over that

180

CHAPTER XXVII 181

district as fairy king for the past two thousandyears.

And then we have the conspicuous exampleof Dorm, who was drowned in the magic stormraised by the Tuatha De Danaan to preventthe Milesians from landing. But this drowningwas simply his passage to Olympus. From thetop of Knock-fierna he rules as king over thefairies of the great Limerick plain. AndrewMac Curtin, a poet of Munster, addresses apoem to him, begging for admission to hisshee; and his great anxiety to be heard isevident from the lines in which he says:

,"Munar hodar tu 0 trom gut na

taoide,No mur hh-fuarais has mar each a

Doinn ghill. "

"Unless thou art deaf from the heavyvoice of the tide,

Or unless you died like every oneelse, 0 fair Donn."

There was another poet, Doncad Ruad MacConmara (Red Denis MacNamara), who, how-ever, saw Dorm down in the infernal regions.Red Denis was born in Clare about the beginningof the eighteenth century. In a serio-comic,heroic poem on his own adventures he tells us


how Eevill, the North Munster banshee, broughthim down to Hades, where they found Conanof the ancient Fenians, and not Charon, incharge of the ferry-boat across the Styx. Conanmade no attempt to disguise himself. Such anattempt would have been useless.

Denis recognized him at once from thecircumstance that he wore "an ewe's blackfleece around his back for clothing." This wasan article of clothing that Conan, for somereason that we now forget, had been unable toseparate himself from in this life, and it seemshe carried it with him to the infernal regions.He was not glad to see Eevill. He hurled avolley of abusive language at her for her im-pudence in bringing that poor mortal gawkdown to that fearful place. She, however,appeased him and he ferried them across.

Red Denis saw Cerberus and has since puthimself on record to show that Virgil was rightin what he had said about that dog. It wasCerberus himself that was there, sure enough,and no other dog. Denis, and even the banshee,were frightened at the appearance of thiscanine. There was no need of a sign for themto look out for the dog. But how were theyto get by? Conan, who was showing them

CHAPTER XXVII 183

around, solved this problem. He seized thedog by the throat and held him up in the air- such air as there was in that place - whilethey ran by and in through the gate.

The poet was much interested in the splendidrepresentation the "Clann Gadelus," or "chil-dren of the original Gael," and even the TuathaDe Danaan, had down there. "lien he cameto Dorm, of the sons of Miled, he exclaimed tohis fair companion:

An "bh-feicirse Donn, sa lann arfaobhar,

Ag teilgeann Ceann a n-gabal aceile;"

"Do you see Donn and his blade,keen-edged,

Tossing heads in a heap together? "

Besides Aed Ruad and Dorm, there can beno doubt but that many other names of deifiedMilesians would have reached us, if the eu-hemerists had not done their work so well indepleting the Pantheon. Aed Ruad and Donnbelong to the class of gods that ancient Romecalled "Divi." Every classical scholar knowsthat there was in Greece and Rome a sharpline of demarcation drawn between those who


had been always gods and those that wereadopted as such after their death.

Horace tells us that Romulus was admittedto the skies in spite of the opposition of Juno,who hated the race of Aeneas to which hebelonged. She only relented after receiving apromise that neither god nor man should everattempt the rebuilding of Troy.

The apotheosis of the Emperor Augustus inthe odes of Horace, is well known, and from thepoetical view-point must be admitted to bevery beautiful. "Augustus purpureo bibit orenectar," says the poet, placing his idol amongthe gods, drinking the nectar of immortalitywith empurpled lips; and before that he hadsaid, "Praesens Divus habebitur Augustus,""Soon Augustus shall be considered a divus,"or adopted god.

It is well known that the later Roman Em-perors thought themselves gods. No moreflagrant expression of pride, or, perhaps, ofmore or less responsible blasphemy, ever pro-ceeded from the mouth of man than the phrasepreserved by the poet: - "quid times, CaesaremvehisP" "What do you fear, or why do youfear, you have Caesar on board."

There were two classes of gods then, recog-

CHAPTER XXVII 185

nized by Greece and Rome, the "Dei" and the"Divi." There were really three classes inIreland, including the aboriginal deities; theTuatha De Danaan who were associated withthese, and the adopted Milesian gods. Thetwo original classes have almost come to beregarded as one. So profoundly impressed wasAmergin with the Divine character of theTuatha De Danaan, even before their retirement,that he invoked the elements and all the powersof the one great god, or, pan-theos, as he sawit, against them.

Before leaving the peopled Pantheon, toconsider other things to which the ancientIrish gave religious veneration, we may herebring attention to a class of monsters or demonsthat harassed them. These were huge creepingthings that St. Patrick is said to have cast to thedeepest depths of some of the lakes and lakeletsof Ireland. They have to remain there, it issaid, bound in chains, till the Day of Judgment.

Every seven years, however, they were allowedto come to the surface, and then a clanking ofchains and other strange noises were heard inthe vicinity. These reptiles were not poisonous.They were voracious, and their favorite morselwas a princess or chieftain's daughter.


Some such luckless girl was picked out bylot, and bound to a tree or post near the spotwhere the monster was to emerge from thewater. The sacrifice had to be made to averta greater calamity, such as the "drowning"of the whole island of Erin. Rescue, however,was possible, and also the avoidance of thenational calamity, if a champion would, by anyaccident, appear, who would have the courageand the physical strength to fight the monster.

Needless to say, no maiden was ever de-voured. The champion was always there.While he is talking to the maiden and learningof her strange predicament, the "sea" becomesagitated; soon there is a roaring of the waves;they are tossed mountain-high, and in theirmidst a path is opened for the approachingreptile. With open jaws it lands its headand a part of its huge neck and body on theshore. The champion gets in a terrific blowand the beast drops back into the sea or lake,and the waters become all over red with itsblood. It returns for two consecutive days,but has been gradually growing weaker, andon the third day, by strategy of the champion,is allowed to land its whole length, so that itsretreat is cut off; and it thus falls an easy victim

CHAPTER XXVII 187

to his lance and is finally cut ill small bits.The maiden is rescued; and, of course theexpected happens. She marries the hero andthey live in royal state.

This may be taken as a fair sample of thisclassof stories. The monster is called a "piast,"in modern Irish "peist," and sometimes "oIl"is suffixed (ollpheist) to bring attention to itsextraordinary size. The first meaning of piastis "worm." Cormac's Glossary, the ninth-cen~tury dictionary that has reached us, identifies"piast" with the Latin "bestia." Multitudes ofthese demons are said in old stories to haveattempted at times to block the progress of St.Patrick in some of his journeyings. And asfor the tradition that he banished all venomousreptiles from Ireland, and that that is thereason why there are no snakes there, all thisis due to the credulity of Jocelyn, a monk ofFurness who wrote a life of St. Patrick in thetwelfth century. There were never any snakesin Ireland. Cajus Julius Solinus, a geographerwho flourished about the middle of the thirdcentury, mentions this as an extraordinarything, and ascribes it to certain qualities in theair and in the soil.

The Venerable Bede mentions the same thing.


If, indeed, there is anything supernatural inIreland's exemption from snakes; or if thefact is due to any special dispensation ofGod's providence, we can never be quite sureabout it.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The god Terminus. Irish pillar stones. Speak-ing stones. The Lia Fail. Veneration offire and water

THERE was a god in the Roman pan-theon whose name was Terminus.This name suggested his occupation;

and his occupation required that he should besingularly and strangely multiplied; or, inother words, that he should be present, at oneand the same time, in a great many places.He was simply a pillar stone set to mark bound-aries and frontiers. Numa Pompilius, thesecond King of Rome, ordered that these stonesbe consecrated to Jupiter and receive religiousveneration. Festivals called Terminalia wereinstituted in their honor, and, at these festivals,sacrifices were offered to them. The Irish alsohad their. termini or stone boundary gods.Whether they were numerous enough, as inancient Rome, to mark adjacent estates orfarms we do not quite know; but they werecertainly numerous enough to mark large divi-

189

190 mELAND'S FAIRY LORE

sions of the country. In Ireland as in Romethey were calculated to make people respecteach other's property. In fact, this was theidea Numa Pompilius had in mind. A Terminusguarded his worshipper's farm from other menjust as a scare-crow guards the sown grainfrom the crows. In Ireland they were calledclocha adrada, or stones of adoration; that is,stones that were the object of adoration or ofreligious veneration or some kind. They some-times served as oracles and were in consequencecalled clocha lowrish (labrais) or speakingstones. Dr. Joyce tells us that there is afamous cloc lowrish still standing at Stradbally,a village distant about two miles from Water-ford. This stone has been silent for over at;housand years. A woman once appealed to itto support her in a lie she was telling. Thestone split in two and never spoke again.No wonder the Irish have such a horror of liesand liars. Similar stones existed in Wales;and we have Giraldus Cambrensis for authoritythat they were called 'lec lawar' or speakingstones. Cloc is a stone of any kind; lee, com-mon to Irish and Welsh, is a flat stone.

The Lia Fail, or stone of Destiny, broughtinto Ireland by the Tuatha De Danaan, was

CHAPTER XXVIII 191

the most remarkable of all these stones. Whena King of pure Milesian blood sat on it, itinvariably roared. Keating tells us that whenthe Irishman, Fergus, was about to be madeKing 6f Scotland or rather of the Irish Colonyin Scotland, in A.D. 503 he sent to Ireland forthis stone that he might be crowned on it.Although there is no doubt of the Scotic purityof the blood of Fergus, we find no record thatthe Lia Fail gave its accustomed roar or cheerwhen he sat on it. Keating, the words of whose"Gaelic History of Ireland" we follow closely,goes on to tell us that that stone "is now inthe chair in which the King of England isinaugurated, it having been forcibly broughtfrom Scotland out of the Abbey of Scone;and the First Edward, King of England, broughtit with him so that the prophecy of that stonehas been verified in the king we have now,namely, The First King Charles, and in hisfather, the King James who came from theScotic race." Keating quotes Hector Boetius,the historian of Scotland and other authoritiesas saying that in whatever country that stonehappened to be, there also "a man of the Scoticnation, that is, of the seed of Miled of Spain,would be in the sovereignty." There seems to


be an implication that as this 'prophetic' stonewas in England the ruler of the whole Gaelicworld should have his throne in England too. Itwas called by Latin writers the Saxum Fatale.O'Curry points out how some of the earlyNorman occupants of Ireland appealed so muchto the Irish 'prophecies' in the endeavor tomake the Irish submit with resignation to theforeign yoke. If any particular condition was'in fate' for them, there was no use in kickingagainst the goad. We have no hesitation inexpressing our belief that many of these proph-ecies were coined by the English themselves orat their suggestion. And we have no doubtthat this "Lia Fail" story, at least as far as itspresence in England is concerned, is a case inpoint. Ireland derives its poetic name ofInisfail from this stone. This, in a generalway, is a beautiful coincidence. That Irelandis an Island of Destiny in a Christian sense isclear to any unbiassed mind.

Pillar stones received a sort of religiousveneration in many places in Continental Europeeven down to the tenth century, and so didwells of spring water. In Ireland at the presentday we have our '~Holy Wells." They are holyto us still, because St. Patrick or some of his

CHAPTER XXVIII 193

disciples baptized people in them or consecratedtheir waters for baptismal purposes. Frombeing sacred to the pagan gods they becamesacred to the God of the Christians. Some ofthem were even regarded as deities. St. Patrickfound a deity-well in Connaught. It wascalled "Sian" * because its waters impartedhealth and safety. It was a veritable healingfountain in pagan Ireland. Fire also receiveddivine honors; but, by some, it was regardedas a demon. A druid had himself buried in astone coffin under the waters of the well "Sian."His idea was that the waters would keep hisbones cool and make it impossible for fire toget at them; for he had always" adored waterand hated fire as an evil thing."

* "Sian", akin to Latin, sanus = sound, safe andhealthy, etc.

CHAPTER XXIX

WO'l'ship of fire. The God Baal. The bonfire.The elements. Elemental oath. Weapon~WO'l'ship. The Irish elysium. ImmO'l'iality.Metempsychosis. M etamorplwsis

MillR.CHIU, in his life of St. Patrick,tells us that on one occasion theSaint challenged the druids to throw

their sacred books into the water and that hewould also throw his into the same pool at thesame time to see which set would come outuninjured. But they had seen him baptizingand therefore declined the challenge on theground that he was a water-worshipper. Hethen wanted both sets of books thrown into thefire but they declined this also, because therewas some evidence that he worshipped fire.In fact he had been accused of this by one ofKing Leary's druids; and the charge was prob-ably founded on the propensity the Saintshowed for lighting fires at times when paganfestivities forbade such conduct. At certaintimes in the year, the druids, with great in-

1M

CHAPTER XXIX 195

cantations, lighted fires and while these fireswere burning all other fires had to be coveredor extinguished. These fires were lighted gen-erally at Tara, Uisneach, or Tlachtga. Theyreceived divine honors, and were also made theoccasion and the means of honoring the Sun-god, Baal. Sacrifices were offered to himwhile they were burning, but these sacrificesconsisted merely in "assigning," or makingsacred to him th(( firstlings of all flocks andherds. Baal, promiscuously written Bel, Bialand Beal, and supposed to be the "Beel" in theHebrew word Beelzebub, is a semitic word thatwould give the idea of a supreme god or asupreme demon. Beal, the god, was worshippedby the Assyrians, Arabians, Mesopotamians;and, among many others, by the Phoenicians.The Irish notions of him are so like the Phoeni-cian, that even writers who deplore the amountof nonsense that is written about the connectionbetween the ancient Irish and the Phoenicians,are constrained to admit that the Irish Baal isan immigrant from Phoenicia. That the Irishworshipped the sun under its Irish name,Grian, is well known; and it is not improbablethat they confusedly identified Grian withBaal. Something like this had happened to

196 IRELAND'S FAffiY LORE

Baal before in his eastern home, where he wasat times identified with Saturn and Jupiter.On the first day of May when the summer wasbeginning in ancient Erin, the druids, withgreat incantations, lighted great fires and drovethe cattle between them to cure them fromdisease and protect them from the maladies ofthe coming year. The month of May is calledin Irish Beltaine, and the first day of May iscalled in Irish-speaking districts" La '1BeItaine"or "the day of the feast of the fire of BaaL"When the sun was in his glory in the heavens,in mid-summer, fires were also lighted, withincantations and sacrifices; and again at Sa-main or Hallowe'en, when he was about towithdraw much of his genial warmth for awhile from the earth, sacrificial fires burned onthe Irish hills. It is not a matter' of wonder-ment that our pagan forefathers ascribed asort of supremacy to the Sun-god; for theyalso worshipped the moon and everything theyconceived to be sublime and grand in theheavens. In the east, Baal was supposed torepresent the male principle in nature. Thefestivals held in his honor would put to shamethe Saturnalia of pagan Rome. We read no-where of low or immoral rites entering into the

CHAPTER XXIX 197

ritual of the pagan Irish. They expected, andprayed for, real benefits from their gods. TheMid-summer fire festival happened on the24th of June, which coincides with the feast ofSt. John; and the custom still flourishes inmany parts of Ireland. A bonfire is built onthat night with "turf" contributed by the wholevillage. When the night has darkened suffi-ciently, the fire is lighted, and the people gatheraround it and engage in pleasant conversation,poking fun at each other, the practical jokerslooking for a chance to throw, or rather pretendto throw each other's caps or "cawbeens" intoit. As a matter of fact no gossoon placesimplicit confidence in any of his fellows, as faras this prank is concerned, but holds on care-fully to his head-dress. The people attach noreligious significance whatever to the bonfire.If they give the matter any thought at all,they wonder how it is that St. John happens tobe honored in this way. In the present age ofenlightenment regarding Gaelic matters, manyof the people have learned, no doubt, that allthis is a survival of the ancient pagan rite. Butthey will not abandon it, because it gives achance for a brief village reunion; and boysare delighted with it because they may be


allowed to remain out later than usual and havea good time.

The custom of carrying burning sods of turfaway and throwing them into the fields for"luck" is fast dying away; and probably hasnot been taken seriously for centuries. Thebonfire is to the Irish to-day what it is to mostother peoples, merely a way of expressing joy.

All the elements, or, to be more precise, allthe divinities supposed to reside in the elements,were given religious veneration. All did notunite in worship of anyone element, but allfelt that an oath taken "on the elements," thatis, an oath in which the elements were given asa guarantee of good faith, was inviolable andthat the one who broke such an oath was sureto meet with some dreadful misfortune.

King Leary had made an unsuccessful attemptto levy the Borromean tribute. He fell into thehands of the Leinster men. To secure his ran-som, he swore by the "Sun and Moon, Waterand Air, Day and Night, Sea and Land,"that he would never again seek to recover thattribute from the Leinster men. But in spiteof all this he again invaded their province forthe self-same purpose! and the result was that"the elements passed a doom of death on him,"

CHAPTER XXIX 199

"to wit, the earth to swallow him up, the sunto burn him and the wind to depart from him,so that the sun and wind killed him, becausehe had violated them"; and we are solemnlytold that "no one durst violate them in thosedays."

The ancient Irish worshipped their weapons,and swore by them; and it may go withoutsaying that such an oath was strictly executed.It was no uncommon thing to hear a swordtalk in those days and tell what had beenachieved by it. It was demons that spoke inthose weapons; and we are told in a manuscript,published by Dr. Whitley Stokes in the RevueCeltique, that "the reason why demons used tospeak from weapons was because weapons werethen worshipped by human beings."

A most remarkable thing about ancientIreland is that, while it had such a tremendouspantheon, there seem to have been no distinctideas regarding heaven. What is left of ourliterature tells of no heaven to which all mightaspire. Such heaven as there was, is repre-sented as being a kind of monopoly of thefairies. No one dared enter it, or could enterit, unless they carried him off; willingly or un-willingly, on his part. And if he did not get

~oo IRELAND'S FAIRY LORE

into a fairy heaven there was no other for him,and, consequently, no assured immortality. Andas we saw in the case of Ossian, people, thuscarried off, were allowed to revisit the land ofErin to see their friends again, but if they setfoot on its soil, all hope of returning to Elysiumwas gone. Connla, the son of "Conn of the hun-dred battles," was carried away in a crystal boatby a fairy maiden, in the presence of his friendsand relatives, and he has not come back yet.Bran, the son of Febal, sailed among the happyislands of the blest for hundreds of years andit seemed to him as if it was only a few hours,so pleasantly did the time pass. Approachingthe coast of Kerry, however, one of his com-panions foolishly leaped ashore and at oncebecame a heap of ashes. In the eleventh bookof the Odyssey, the shade of Achilles tells thewandering Ulysses that he -would sooner bethe servant of a landless man on earth than thechief, that he was, among the ghosts of the dead.In the Irish Elysium not everybody was happyeither. Dian, after countless ages, comes outof the fairy rath of Mullaghshee at Assaroe andsays regretfully that he would rather be aservant to a servant of the Fenians than be theprince that he was among the fairies.

CHAPTER XXIX 201

The fairy heaven is sometimes referred to Mbeing at the bottom of the sea, or under lakesand wells, or in the fairy mounds. In fact,every fairy mound was a sort of heaven. Therewas a tradition, and perhaps the strongest andmost beautiful of all such traditions, that therewas a vast heaven situated somewhere in thewestern ocean. It was visible from Arran, inthe evening. It was the phantom city thatGerald Griffin saw" in turreted majesty riding."Poets are the only people who ever see it anymore. It seemed to ride or dance on the

-waves; and if one got near enough to throwfire into it he would thereby ":fix" it. This hasbeen accomplished, but the Aerial City did notremain fixed as long as might be desirable.In keeping with many of our hopes and aspira-tions, it is very elusive.

The Irish heaven is known by very manybeautiful names, such as Tir Na N-Og, or Landof the Young; Tir Na l\f-Beo, Land of theLiving; Hy Brazil, or I BresaI, Land of BresaI;Magh Meala, Plain of Honey; Magh Mon,Plain of Sports, in other words, Happy HuntingGrounds; Tir Na Sorcha, Land of Lights, andTir Tairngire, or Land of Prophecy or Promise,a name evidently suggested by the old Testa-


ment and found by Zeuss in eighth-centuryglosses.

A belief in the imperfect sort of immortalitythat may be found in Metempsychosis was notgeneral, either. This sort of rebirth was sup-posed to have been the privilege of certainheroes only. Cucullain was a reincarnation of"Lugh of the long arms," the De Danaan hero-god; and Mungan, King of Dalriada, in theseventh century, was a rebirth of the greatFinn MacCool.

A species of metamorphosis is known to havebeen practiced in Ossory. It is not in any wayrelated to metempsychosis, strictly so called;but it is taken so seriously and described sographically and put forward as such a greatwonder by Geraldus Cambrensis that one wouldthink he believed every word of it. A certainclass of people changed themselves at will intowolves and devoured their neighbor's flocks.When sated, they resumed their proper humanforms. This change was effected by "draoide-act" or magic, and was very convenient attimes, especially if the price of mutton werehigh and one did not mind eating it raw.

CHAPTER XXX

Turning Deisiol. Odd numbers. Geasa. Theevil eye. The ordeal.

T~Irish also attach~d a superstitiousImportance to certam movements, tocertain numbers, and to certain in-

junctions called geasa. Deas is the Irishword for right; and hence turning from left toright, or right-hand-wise was called "deisiol,"and as it was the same as turning in the directionin which the sun goes, it was considered thelucky thing to do. It was a move in the rightdirection. We are told that when St. Patrickwas given the land on which he built his churchat Armagh he walked around it three timesright-hand-wise to consecrate it. It would beabsurd to think that he would yield to thesuperstition associated with the act, but as therewas nothing bad in the movement itself, he mayhave shown respect for the ancient custom.We are told also in ancient writings, that whena horde of British pirates landed on the easterncoast, St. Findchua, a born soldier, who wasthen at Tara, advised the national forces to

iOS


make a right-hand-wise circuit in marchingagainst them. This proved to be an excellentstrategical move, as it brought them right downon the enemy's flank. We are told the LadyBoand went left-hand-wise around the wellwhich became the source of the Boyne, andthe sinister movement, done in contempt, re-sulted disastrously for her.*

The odd numbers, three and sev~n, had acertain religious significance; but this was par-ticularly true of the number nine. The TuathaDe Danaan persuaded the Milesians to retirenine waves from the shore, believing that thiswould give themselves the advantage over theirinvaders. And during the prevalence of theyellow plague in Ireland, Colman O'Clausaige(O'Cloosy or O'Clohissy), a professor in St.Finbar's school in Cork, fled with his pupils toan island, nine waves from the shore, believingthat pestilence could not reach him 'at thatsacred distance.

• "The well burst up round her, and broke her thighbone and one hand and one eye. She fled in terroreastward, but the water pursued her till she arrived atthe seashore and was drowned. Even after that thewater continued to flowso as to form the river Boand orBoyne which took its name from her." - Dr. P. W.Joyce... Social History of Ireland."

CHAPTER XXX 205

A remarkable practice among the Irish wasthe imposing of injunctions or prohibitionscalled geasa. The geis (gesh), which is thesingular of geasa, tied a man, hands and feet.As a matter of fact we seldom find geis in theancient literature; it is almost always geasa.They went in bunches; and there was little orno protection against them. They had a kindof preternatural sanction that made theirtyranny inexorable; and the one who violatedhis geasa was sure to meet with a great mis-fortune of some kind. Men were often placedunder geasa by people asking for some favorand appealing to them in some such phrase asthis: "I place you under heavy geasa whichno true champion would break" ; and thenwould follow a list of things which the championmust, or must not, do till he grants the request.H the request was in any way just or reasonableit was considered highly dishonorable to refuseit, irrespective altogether of the consequencesthat might follow the breaking of the geasa.Sometimes these geasa were very sensible restric-tions. The King of Emania was forbiddenever, when alone, to attack a wild boar in hisden. Most men would refrain from this kindof sport, even without being under geasa,


unless indeed they were armed with the high-power, rapid-firing rifles that could not be hadin those ancient times. Some of the geasa werepenal and oppressive laws. It was forbiddento the King of Ireland to let the sun-rise catchhim lying in his bed at Tara. No reasons canbe assigned for some geasa. We do not under-stand them. Some of them are clear enoughas statutory prohibitions of the strictest obliga-tion. On the day of the celebration of KingLeary's festival at Tara, no one in the vicinitydared light a fire till Leary's fire was burning.The dread of sitting at table with thirteen, atthe present day, is of the same nature as theterror inspired by the geish or 'geasa. Onesuperstition is no more foolish than the other.The etymology of the word" geish" is unknown;but it is used so abundantly in our ancientliterature that it is impossible not to knowprecisely from the context what it means.

Another object of terror in ancient Irelandwas the evil eye; and even to this day it issupposed, in remote parts of the country, thatcertain people have a strange power to blightor injure a person or thing by a glance of theeye. This would make a wonderful psychologi-cal study. Of course, some definite attitude of

CHAPTER XXX ~07

mind must go with the baleful glance; andyet it does not seem that the person with the"evil eye" can always prevent the evil thatcomes from its glance, or is ever a willing partyto it. The eye seems to act independently ofthe volition of its owner. This superstition iscommon to the Irish with many other peoples.In fact, it is now a tradition rather than asuperstition. It dates probably from "Balor ofthe Evil Eye," the Tuatha De Danaan hero-god. Through a chink in the door he hadsurreptitiously watched his father's druids whilethey were engaged, like Shakespeare's witches,in concocting sorcery. A whiff of the poisonoussteam from the cauldron struck him in the eye.He never again opened that eye by his own ex-ertions. He never could. It took four men, twoon each side of him and using powerful hooks,to raise the lid. But when the eye was open,the poor wretch on whom one ray of its lightrested was doomed. A glance from it enfeebledan army drawn up in battle array and made itsdefeat inevitable. But Balor had its lid raisedonce too often. At the second battle of Moy-tura, Lug of the long arms, his grandson,watched for its opening, and before its evilinfluence could reach him, he let By a hard ball

208 IRELAND'S FAffiY WRE

from his sling and it went through eye, brainand all, and Balor's "Evil Eye" was foreverclosed and himself counted among the hosts ofErin's dead.

How did they find out in ancient Erin whethera man was lying, or whether, or not, he wasguilty of any crime that he was accused of?It was by the ordeal. There were many kindsof ordeals; and they were common to mostancient nations. Ireland had some ordeals ofher own, and she had some others that sheborrowed from other nations. Altogether theordeal was practised in twelve different ways inIreland. We are told that Cormac Art, in hisparliament at Tara, arranged and promulgatedtwelve. It would be a waste of time to describethem all. One or two will do. If a man hadto prove his innocence one of the ways of doingit was to pass his tongue over a piece of red hotiron. If he were guilty it would burn him. Ifhe were innocent, the fire would not produceits natural effect, nor even dry up the saliva inhis mouth. Another way was to put on"Morann's Collar." If the witness told a lie,it pressed on his throat, and would choke himif he lost any time in taking back what he hadsaid and coming right out with the truth.

CHAPTER XXX t 209

What a pity that collar was lost. Guilt orinnocence, truth or falsehood were also deter-mined by "Crannchur," which, as the nameimplies, was a casting of lots. The" Coirem"or "Cauldron of truth" was another test. This,as Windisch tells us in his "Irische Texte," wasfilled with boiling water, and the person accusedplunged his hand into it. If he were innocentit did not burn him.

CHAPTER XXXI

MuUiplicity oj Irish gods. Julius Caesar'sGaulish and Irish druids. Irish druids andtheir yractices. Magical arts. Divination.King Dathi. The Druid Dubbtach.

THE old Romans did not surpass theIrish in the number and variety oftheir gods, and it is safe enough to

say that they had no god which was not repre-~nted in the Irish pantheon. The Romangods fitted well in Rome; but they were for-eigners there. They were simply naturalized.They were borrowed principally from Greece.The Irish gods fitted so well in Ireland that onewould think they had grown on the soil. Thereis no doubt that a vast number of them werebrought in by the earliest colonists; but wemay say, without fear of exaggeration,that this

. must have happened not only before the dawnof history, but even before the dawn of fable.These imported gods, like the Angle-Normansof later days, became "more Irish than theIrish themselves."

110

CHAPTER XXXI

The sacred people of the ancient Irish werethe Druids. These stood between them andthe gods. They could influence the fairies forgood or evil and had the power to protectpeople from any deity or demon that was evil-disposed.

The Irish gave the name of druids to thesacred men of all other nations. Julius Caesartells us distinctly that the Germanic peopleshad no druids; but he describes at length, inthe sixth book of his Gallic War, the greatdruidic system he found in Gaul. He tells usthe druids and knights were the people ofhighest rank in that country; that the druidswere thoroughly organized, having one of theirnumber presiding over all the others; that theyhad all to do with the sacrifices or public func-tions of religion; and that to be interdicted bythem from these functions was the worst formof ostracism. They were teachers and tutors.They were counsellors to the great, settlers ofdisputes for all, and administrators of justice.They offered human sacrifices; sometimes inwhole hecatombs. He concludes by statingthat the system came from Britain, and thatpeople who wanted to study it thoroughly wentto that country to do so. He says nothing


about the Irish druids. He probably knewnothing about them; but writers have beenaccustomed to take his description and applyit to the Irish druids. Unlike the ancientGauls and the ancient British, the Irish havetheir native records from which our knowledgeof the Irish druids is drawn. Unfortunately

. these records are very imperfect; and it isimpossible to get a clear-cut idea of the Irishdruid. But we do know for certain that theIrish druids were not organized; that they hadnot all to do with the sacrifices; that they didnot pronounce all the spells or prepare all thecharms; that they offeredno human sacrificesand did not teach general metempsychosisastheir Gaulish brothers did. With these excep-tions, Caesar's description would fit them verywell. There was a popular belief that theword "druid" was derived from the Greek"drys," meaningan oak, and that therefore thedruids worshippedthe oak and performed theirreligiousfunctions within the recessesof beauti-ful oak groves. But there is no foundation forthis. It is certain that the Irish druids did notworship the oak tree; but they had a kind ofveneration for the yew, the hazel and thequickentree. They used wandsof yew in their

CHAPTER XXXI ~13

incantations and scared away the fairies bythe quicken tree.

The druid was not tied down to any par-ticular god or gods, or to any particular form ofworship or sacrifice; neither was any otherIrishman. Although all revered the druidicalcharacter, everyone selected his own particularkind of paganism, and hence the religion of theancient Irish is better expressed by the wordpaganism than by druidism, as it is oftenincorrectly called.

The Irish druid was a wizard and a learnedman rather than anything else. He combinedin his own person the office of historian, poet,prophet, brehon and even physician; but inthe course of time these offices were filled byas many distinct men. The druids were thesole men of learning. They were also greatmagicians. The Irish word for magic is still"druideact," which literally means druidism,showing that druidism and magic were regardedby our fathers as identical things. The druidscould direct the course of the wind. Theycould raise a storm on land or at sea, but theycould not always quell it. They could bringdown showers of fire or blood from the clouds.They could drive a person insane by flinging


a "magic wisp" in his face. It is a remarkablething that St. Patrick, in his famous "lorica,"sung on his way to Tara, asks for the divineprotection against "the spells of women, ofsmiths and of druids." These womenwere thepythonesses, or druidesses, whom St. Patricklater on mentions in one of his canons, wherehe warns Christian Kings against consultingthem. Certain princes had continued far intoChristian times to be influencedby the druids;so much so that we find one chief asking adruid to put a "protecting fence" around hisarmy when he was marching to battle. Thisfence, of course, had to be invisible and self-moving. It was merely a spell pronounced bythe druid while walking or running around thearmy. The druids pronouncedmalign incanta-tions. that enervated whole bodies of fightingmen. They administered draughts that madepeople forget grief or joy. When Cucullainfell in love with the fairy Fand, and his wifeEmer naturally got jealous, they gave drinks tothe hero and to his wife that made him for-get his infatuation and her her jealousy. Thedruid wasalsoa "fait" (LatinVates) or prophet.He foretold things by observation of the starsand clouds, by artificial rites and by studying

CHAPTER XXXI 215

the operation of natural causes, which canhardly be called prophecy. But natural causesthat were quite clear to the druid were occultto others. In the Irish translation of Nenniuswe are told that the Irish druids " taughtdruidism, sorcery, idolatry, how to write brightpoems, and how to forecast the future from theway people sneezed, from the voices of birdsand other omens, and how to find out whenthere would be good or bad weather, or luckydays for entering on any enterprises." Thecroaking of the raven and the chirping of thewren were considered very ominous. The littlewren was considered very wise; and for thatreason was called "draoi na-n ean," or, "thedruid of the birds." We read nowhere ofdivination by the blood or the entrails ofvictims offered in sacrifice, such as was practisedin ancient Rome. There are very few referencesto astrology proper, or divination by the stars;but there are very many references to readingof the clouds. When Dathi, the high king ofIreland, asked his druid to find out what wasin "fate" for him as a king, the druid betookhimself to the top of a hill and remained thereall night reading "the clouds of the men ofErin." Approaching Dathi next morning he


saluted him as king of Erin and Alban, orScotland. "'Whence the addition to my title?"said the king; "Why Alban?" "Because thouart destined to make a conquering expeditioninto Albain, Britain and Gaul," said the druid.Dathi started out forthwith to fulfill theprophecy.

There was also a "roth ramach" or "rowingwheel" which was used for purposes of divina-tion. There is a passage in the " Coir Anman "which says that "Mogh Ruith" signifies MagusRotarum or wizard of the wheels, for it is bywheels he (the wizard) used to make his"taisceladh druidecta," or magical observation.Very little is known about this wheel.

The future was read frequently in the palmsof the hands and tips of the fingers; and thiswas done generally after some absurd riteshad been gone through and sacrifices offered.These are the superstitious practices that survivein the modern "pishogue"which is as well knownin England and Scotland as in Ireland. Spellsand pishogues are as widely spread, in fact, ashumanity itself. One of the most curiousspells mentioned in the ancient Irish writingswas the "glam dichenn" or curse, pronouncedby one "standing on one leg, with one eye

CHAPrER XXXI ~I7

closed and one arm extended." Glam is in-terpreted in Cormac's Glossary as "Clamour"or "outcry." The words of malediction werepronounced in a loud voice. The Fomorianscoming into Ireland to oust or conquer theParthelonians. presented themselves in thisway. for some malign purpose; and certainhistorians. unable to interpret the words inwhich the posture is described. have representedthem as monsters possessed only of one leg. onearm and one eye. A party of druids tried the"Glam dichenn" on St. Caillin. The posturethey assumed seemed entirely unworthy oftheir august character. They proceededtowards him on all fours. He. however.straightened them out and changed them intostanding stone pillars.

Before leaving the druids we may mentionthe respect in which they were held and theinfluence they wielded in the halls of Kings.The latter undertook no great enterprise withoutconsulting them; and were careful to see thattheir children were educated by them. Fedelmaand Eithne. the daughters of King Leary.boarded at Cruachan. in Connaught. with thedruid who taught them; and St. Columbkillehimself began his education under a druidic

218 mELAND'S FAmy LORE

teacher. The Mesca Ulad informs us that itwas geish, prohibition, for any of the Ultoniansat their assemblies to speak before their King,Concobar, had spoken, and that it was geishfor him to speak before his druid. And on oneoccasion when Concobar had stood up to speak,it occurred to him that his druid had not yetspoken, so he remained standing in silence tillthe druid uttered something which he inter-preted as a sign that he could go on and speak.

As Christianity approached the druids con-ceived a terror of the Christians and of theChristians' God; and, as a feeble means ofoffsetting the influence of the Christian priests,they affected the wearing of a tonsure and theadministration of a gentile baptism. By thislatter they had hoped to dedicate the risinggeneration more effectively to the pagan gods.We read that when Conall Cearnach was born"the druids came to baptize the child and theysang the heathen baptism (Baithis Geintlide)over the child." It is impossible to accountfor the presence of a baptism of any kind amongthem except on the theory that they borrowedthe idea from Christians and wanted to use itin opposition to Christianity.

Nine druids, dressed in robes of immaculate

CHAPrER XXXI 219

white, which was the color of their ordinaryouter garment, tried at one time to waylay St.Patrick and kill him. The astounding thing isthat these men did not succeed in hamperinghis progress more than they did. They musthave seen their power departing forever as thelight of Christianity spread. Many, very manyof them, embraced the new faith; and it is asignificant thing that the :firstconvert made bySt. Patrick at Leary's Court was Dubbtach,the king's Arch-druid.•

* See Dr. P. W. Joyce's Social History of Ireland,chapter on Paganism.

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