Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race Part 8

Angus Og (Angus the Young), son of the Dagda, by Boanna (the river Boyne), was the Irish G.o.d of love. His palace was supposed to be at New Grange, on the Boyne. Four bright birds that ever hovered about his head were supposed to be his kisses taking shape in this lovely form, and at their singing love came springing up in the hearts of youths and maidens. Once he fell sick of love for a maiden whom he had seen in a dream. He told the cause of his sickness to his mother Boanna, who searched all Ireland for the girl, but could not find her. Then the Dagda was called in, but he too was at a loss, till he called to his aid Bov the Red, king of the Danaans of Munsterthe same whom we have met with in the tale of the Children of Lir, and who was skilled in all mysteries and enchantments. Bov undertook the search, and after a year had gone by declared that he had found the visionary maiden at a lake called the Lake of the Dragons Mouth.

Angus goes to Bov, and, after being entertained by him three days, is brought to the lake sh.o.r.e, where he sees thrice fifty maidens walking in couples, each couple linked by a chain of gold, but one of them is taller than the rest by a head and shoulders. That is she! cries Angus. Tell us by what name she is known. Bov answers that her name is Caer, daughter of Ethal Anubal, a prince of the Danaans of Connacht. Angus laments that he is not strong enough to carry her off from her companions, but, on Bovs advice, betakes himself to Ailell and Maev, the mortal King and Queen of Connacht, for a.s.sistance. The Dagda and Angus then both repair to the palace of Ailell, who feasts them for a week, and then asks the cause of their coming. When it is declared he answers, We have no authority over Ethal Anubal. They send a message to him, however, asking for the hand of Caer for Angus, but Ethal refuses to give her up. In the end he is besieged by the combined forces of Ailell and the Dagda, and taken prisoner. When Caer is again demanded of him he declares that he cannot comply, for she is more powerful than I. He explains that she lives alternately in the form of a maiden and of a swan year and year about, and on the first of November next, he says, you will see her with a hundred and fifty other swans at the Lake of the Dragons Mouth.

Angus goes there at the appointed time, and cries to her, Oh, come and speak to me! Who calls me? asks Caer. Angus explains who he is, and then finds himself transformed into a swan. This is an indication of consent, and he plunges in to join his love in the lake. After that they fly together to the palace on the Boyne, uttering as they go a music so divine that all hearers are lulled to sleep for three days and nights.

Angus is the special deity and friend of beautiful youths and maidens.

Dermot of the Love-spot, a follower of Finn mac c.u.mhal, and lover of Grania, of whom we shall hear later, was bred up with Angus in the palace on the Boyne. He was the typical lover of Irish legend. When he was slain by the wild boar of Ben Bulben, Angus revives him and carries him off to share his immortality in his fairy palace.

*Len of Killarney*

Of Bov the Red, brother of the Dagda, we have already heard. He had, it is said, a goldsmith named Len, who gave their ancient name to the Lakes of Killarney, once known as Locha Lein, the Lakes of Len of the Many Hammers.

Here by the lake he wrought, surrounded by rainbows and showers of fiery dew.(92)

*Lugh*

Lugh has already been described.(93) He has more distinctly solar attributes than any other Celtic deity; and, as we know, his wors.h.i.+p was spread widely over Continental Celtica. In the tale of the Quest of the Sons of Turenn we are told that Lugh approached the Fomorians from the west. Then Bres, son of Balor, arose and said: I wonder that the sun is rising in the west to-day, and in the east every other day. Would it were so, said his Druids. Why, what else but the sun is it? said Bres.

It is the radiance of the face of Lugh of the Long Arm, they replied.

Lugh was the father, by the Milesian maiden Dectera, of Cuchulain, the most heroic figure in Irish legend, in whose story there is evidently a strong element of the solar myth.(94)

*Midir the Proud*

Midir the Proud is a son of the Dagda. His fairy palace is at _Bri Leith_, or Slieve Callary, in Co. Longford. He frequently appears in legends dealing partly with human, partly with Danaan personages, and is always represented as a type of splendour in his apparel and in personal beauty.

When he appears to King Eochy on the Hill of Tara he is thus described:(95)

It chanced that Eochaid Airemm, the King of Tara, arose upon a certain fair day in the time of summer; and he ascended the high ground of Tara(96) to behold the plain of Breg; beautiful was the colour of that plain, and there was upon it excellent blossom glowing with all hues that are known. And as the aforesaid Eochy looked about and around him, he saw a young strange warrior upon the high ground at his side. The tunic that the warrior wore was purple in colour, his hair was of a golden yellow, and of such length that it reached to the edge of his shoulders. The eyes of the young warrior were l.u.s.trous and grey; in the one hand he held a fine pointed spear, in the other a s.h.i.+eld with a white central boss, and with gems of gold upon it. And Eochaid held his peace, for he knew that none such had been in Tara on the night before, and the gate that led into the _Liss_ had not at that time been thrown open.(97)

*Lir and Mananan*

Lir, as Mr. OGrady remarks, appears in two distinct forms. In the first he is a vast, impersonal presence commensurate with the sea; in fact, the Greek Ocea.n.u.s. In the second, he is a separate person dwelling invisibly on Slieve Fuad, in Co. Armagh. We hear little of him in Irish legend, where the attributes of the sea-G.o.d are mostly conferred on his son, Mananan.

This deity is one of the most popular in Irish mythology. He was lord of the sea, beyond or under which the Land of Youth or Islands of the Dead were supposed to lie; he therefore was the guide of man to this country.

He was master of tricks and illusions, and owned all kinds of magical possessionsthe boat named Ocean-sweeper, which obeyed the thought of those who sailed in it and went without oar or sail, the steed Aonbarr, which could travel alike on sea or land, and the sword named The Answerer, which no armour could resist. White-crested waves were called the Horses of Mananan, and it was forbidden (_tabu_) for the solar hero, Cuchulain, to perceive themthis indicated the daily death of the sun at his setting in the western waves. Mananan wore a great cloak which was capable of taking on every kind of colour, like the widespread field of the sea as looked on from a height; and as the protector of the island of Erin it was said that when any hostile force invaded it they heard his thunderous tramp and the flapping of his mighty cloak as he marched angrily round and round their camp at night. The Isle of Man, seen dimly from the Irish coast, was supposed to be the throne of Mananan, and to take its name from this deity.

*The G.o.ddess Dana*

The greatest of the Danaan G.o.ddesses was Dana, mother of the Irish G.o.ds, as she is called in an early text. She was daughter of the Dagda, and, like him, a.s.sociated with ideas of fertility and blessing. According to dArbois de Jubainville, she was identical with the G.o.ddess Brigit, who was so widely wors.h.i.+pped in Celtica. Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba are said to have been her sonsthese really represent but one person, in the usual Irish fas.h.i.+on of conceiving the divine power in triads. The name of Brian, who takes the lead in all the exploits of the brethren,(98) is a derivation from a more ancient form, Brenos, and under this form was the G.o.d to whom the Celts attributed their victories at the Allia and at Delphi, mistaken by Roman and Greek chroniclers for an earthly leader.

*The Morrigan*

There was also an extraordinary G.o.ddess named the Morrigan,(99) who appears to embody all that is perverse and horrible among supernatural powers. She delighted in setting men at war, and fought among them herself, changing into many frightful shapes and often hovering above fighting armies in the aspect of a crow. She met Cuchulain once and proffered him her love in the guise of a human maid. He refused it, and she persecuted him thenceforward for the most of his life. Warring with him once in the middle of the stream, she turned herself into a water-serpent, and then into a ma.s.s of water-weeds, seeking to entangle and drown him. But he conquered and wounded her, and she afterwards became his friend. Before his last battle she pa.s.sed through Emain Macha at night, and broke the pole of his chariot as a warning.

*Cleenas Wave*

One of the most notable landmarks of Ireland was the _Tonn Cliodhna_, or Wave of Cleena, on the seash.o.r.e at Glandore Bay, in Co. Cork. The story about Cleena exists in several versions, which do not agree with each other except in so far as she seems to have been a Danaan maiden once living in Mananans country, the Land of Youth beyond the sea. Escaping thence with a mortal lover, as one of the versions tells, she landed on the southern coast of Ireland, and her lover, Keevan of the Curling Locks, went off to hunt in the woods. Cleena, who remained on the beach, was lulled to sleep by fairy music played by a minstrel of Mananan, when a great wave of the sea swept up and carried her back to Fairyland, leaving her lover desolate. Hence the place was called the Strand of Cleenas Wave.

*The G.o.ddess Ain*

Another topical G.o.ddess was Ain, the patroness of Munster, who is still venerated by the people of that county. She was the daughter of the Danaan Owel, a foster-son of Mananan and a Druid. She is in some sort a love-G.o.ddess, continually inspiring mortals with pa.s.sion. She was ravished, it was said, by Ailill Olum, King of Munster, who was slain in consequence by her magic arts, and the story is repeated in far later times about another mortal lover, who was not, however, slain, a Fitzgerald, to whom she bore the famous wizard Earl.(100) Many of the aristocratic families of Munster claimed descent from this union. Her name still clings to the Hill of Ain (Knockainey), near Loch Gur, in Munster. All the Danaan deities in the popular imagination were earth-G.o.ds, _dei terreni_, a.s.sociated with ideas of fertility and increase. Ain is not heard much of in the bardic literature, but she is very prominent in the folk-lore of the neighbourhood. At the bidding of her son, Earl Gerald, she planted all Knockainey with pease in a single night. She was, and perhaps still is, wors.h.i.+pped on Midsummer Eve by the peasantry, who carried torches of hay and straw, tied on poles and lighted, round her hill at night. Afterwards they dispersed themselves among their cultivated fields and pastures, waving the torches over the crops and the cattle to bring luck and increase for the following year. On one night, as told by Mr. D. Fitzgerald,(101) who has collected the local traditions about her, the ceremony was omitted owing to the death of one of the neighbours. Yet the peasantry at night saw the torches in greater number than ever circling the hill, and Ain herself in front, directing and ordering the procession.

On another St. Johns Night a number of girls had stayed late on the Hill watching the _cliars_ (torches) and joining in the games. Suddenly Ain appeared among them, thanked them for the honour they had done her, but said she now wished them to go home, as _they wanted the hill to themselves_. She let them understand whom she meant by _they_, for calling some of the girls she made them look through a ring, when behold, the hill appeared crowded with people before invisible.

Here, observed Mr. Alfred Nutt, we have the antique ritual carried out on a spot hallowed to one of the antique powers, watched over and shared in by those powers themselves. Nowhere save in Gaeldom could be found such a pregnant ill.u.s.tration of the ident.i.ty of the fairy cla.s.s with the venerable powers to ensure whose goodwill rites and sacrifices, originally fierce and b.l.o.o.d.y, now a mere simulacrum of their pristine form, have been performed for countless ages.(102)

*Sinend and the Well of Knowledge*

There is a singular myth which, while intended to account for the name of the river Shannon, expresses the Celtic veneration for poetry and science, combined with the warning that they may not be approached without danger.

The G.o.ddess Sinend, it was said, daughter of Lodan son of Lir, went to a certain well named Connlas Well, which is under the sea_i.e._, in the Land of Youth in Fairyland. That is a well, says the bardic narrative, at which are the hazels of wisdom and inspirations, that is, the hazels of the science of poetry, and in the same hour their fruit and their blossom and their foliage break forth, and then fall upon the well in the same shower, which raises upon the water a royal surge of purple. When Sinend came to the well we are not told what rites or preparation she had omitted, but the angry waters broke forth and overwhelmed her, and washed her up on the Shannon sh.o.r.e, where she died, giving to the river its name.(103) This myth of the hazels of inspiration and knowledge and their a.s.sociation with springing water runs through all Irish legend, and has been finely treated by a living Irish poet, Mr. G.W. Russell, in the following verses:

>A cabin on the mountain-side hid in a gra.s.sy nook, With door and window open wide, where friendly stars may look; The rabbit shy may patter in, the winds may enter free Who roam around the mountain throne in living ecstasy.

And when the sun sets dimmed in eve, and purple fills the air, I think the sacred hazel-tree is dropping berries there, From starry fruitage, waved aloft where Connlas Well oerflows; For sure, the immortal waters run through every wind that blows.

I think when Night towers up aloft and shakes the trembling dew, How every high and lonely thought that thrills my spirit through Is but a s.h.i.+ning berry dropped down through the purple air, And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere.

*The Coming of the Milesians*

After the Second Battle of Moytura the Danaans held rule in Ireland until the coming of the Milesians, the sons of Miled. These are conceived in Irish legend as an entirely human race, yet in their origin they, like the other invaders of Ireland, go back to a divine and mythical ancestry.

Miled, whose name occurs as a G.o.d in a Celtic inscription from Hungary, is represented as a son of Bil. Bil, like Balor, is one of the names of the G.o.d of Death, _i.e._, of the Underworld. They come from Spainthe usual term employed by the later rationalising historians for the Land of the Dead.

The manner of their coming into Ireland was as follows: Ith, the grandfather of Miled, dwelt in a great tower which his father, Bregon, had built in Spain. One clear winters day, when looking out westwards from this lofty tower, he saw the coast of Ireland in the distance, and resolved to sail to the unknown land.

He embarked with ninety warriors, and took land at Corcadyna, in the south-west. In connexion with this episode I may quote a pa.s.sage of great beauty and interest from de Jubainvilles Irish Mythological Cycle:(104)

According to an unknown writer cited by Plutarch, who died about the year 120 of the present era, and also by Procopius, who wrote in the sixth century A.D., the Land of the Dead is the western extremity of Great Britain, separated from the eastern by an impa.s.sable wall. On the northern coast of Gaul, says the legend, is a populace of mariners whose business is to carry the dead across from the continent to their last abode in the island of Britain. The mariners, awakened in the night by the whisperings of some mysterious voice, arise and go down to the sh.o.r.e, where they find s.h.i.+ps awaiting them which are not their own,(105) and, in these, invisible beings, under whose weight the vessels sink almost to the gunwales. They go on board, and with a single stroke of the oar, says one text, in one hour, says another, they arrive at their destination, though with their own vessels, aided by sails, it would have taken them at least a day and a night to reach the coast of Britain. When they come to the other sh.o.r.e the invisible pa.s.sengers land, and at the same time the unloaded s.h.i.+ps are seen to rise above the waves, and a voice is heard announcing the names of the new arrivals, who have just been added to the inhabitants of the Land of the Dead.

One stroke of the oar, one hours voyage at most, suffices for the midnight journey which transfers the Dead from the Gaulish continent to their final abode. Some mysterious law, indeed, brings together in the night the great s.p.a.ces which divide the domain of the living from that of the dead in daytime. It was the same law which enabled Ith one fine winter evening to perceive from the Tower of Bregon, in the Land of the Dead, the sh.o.r.es of Ireland, or the land of the living. The phenomenon took place in winter; for winter is a sort of night; winter, like night, lowers the barriers between the regions of Death and those of Life; like night, winter gives to life the semblance of death, and suppresses, as it were, the dread abyss that lies between the two.

At this time, it is said, Ireland was ruled by three Danaan kings, grandsons of the Dagda. Their names were MacCuill, MacCecht, and MacGren, and their wives were named respectively Banba, Fohla, and Eriu. The Celtic habit of conceiving divine persons in triads is here ill.u.s.trated. These triads represent one person each, and the mythical character of that personage is evident from the name of one of them, MacGren, Son of the Sun. The names of the three G.o.ddesses have each at different times been applied to Ireland, but that of the third, Eriu, has alone persisted, and in the dative form, Erinn, is a poetic name for the country to this day.

That Eriu is the wife of MacGren means, as de Jubainville observes, that the Sun-G.o.d, the G.o.d of Day, Life, and Science, has wedded the land and is reigning over it.

Ith, on landing, finds that the Danaan king, Neit, has just been slain in a battle with the Fomorians, and the three sons, MacCuill and the others, are at the fortress of Aileach, in Co. Donegal, arranging for a division of the land among themselves. At first they welcome Ith, and ask him to settle their inheritance. Ith gives his judgment, but, in concluding, his admiration for the newly discovered country breaks out: Act, he says, according to the laws of justice, for the country you dwell in is a good one, it is rich in fruit and honey, in wheat and in fish; and in heat and cold it is temperate. From this panegyric the Danaans conclude that 1th has designs upon their land, and they seize him and put him to death. His companions, however, recover his body and bear it back with them in their s.h.i.+ps to Spain; when the children of Miled resolve to take vengeance for the outrage and prepare to invade Ireland.

They were commanded by thirty-six chiefs, each having his own s.h.i.+p with his family and his followers. Two of the company are said to have perished on the way. One of the sons of Miled, having climbed to the masthead of his vessel to look out for the coast of Ireland, fell into the sea and was drowned. The other was Skena, wife of the poet Amergin, son of Miled, who died on the way. The Milesians buried her when they landed, and called the place Inverskena after her; this was the ancient name of the Kenmare River in Co. Kerry.

It was on a Thursday, the first of May, and the seventeenth day of the moon, that the sons of Miled arrived in Ireland. Partholan also landed in Ireland on the first of May, but on a different day of the week and of the moon; and it was on the first day of May, too, that the pestilence came which in the s.p.a.ce of one week destroyed utterly his race. The first of May was sacred to Belten, one of the names of the G.o.d of Death, the G.o.d who gives life to men and takes it away from them again. Thus it was on the feast day of this G.o.d that the sons of Miled began their conquest of Ireland.(106)

*The Poet Amergin*

When the poet Amergin set foot upon the soil of Ireland it is said that he chanted a strange and mystical lay:

I am the Wind that 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 Combats; I am the Vulture upon the rock; I am a Ray of the Sun; I am the fairest of Plants; I am a Wild Boar in valour; I am a Salmon in the Water; I am a Lake in the plain; I am the Craft of the artificer; I am a Word of Science; I am the Spear-point that gives battle; I am the G.o.d that creates in the head of man the fire of thought.

Who is it that enlightens the a.s.sembly upon 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?

De Jubainville, whose translation I have in the main followed, observes upon this strange utterance: