Celtic Mythology. John Arnott MacCulloch

father of the gods, were sons of a giant, and the gods fought with giants. Other parallels might be cited; but what Is certain Is that gods of an orderly world—of growth, craftsmanship, medicine, poetry, and eloquence. If also of magic and war—are opposed to beings envisaged, on the whole, as harmful. In this combat some of the gods are slain. If this were told of them in the old myths, probably It did not affect the continuance of their cult. Pagan gods are mortal and Immortal; their life is a perennial drama, which ever begins and ends, and is ever being renewed—a reflexion of the life of nature itself.

      In another story the strife of powers of light and growth with those of darkness and blight Is suggested, though the latter are euhemeristically described as mortals. Three men came from Athens with their mother Carman—Valiant, Black, and Evil, sons of Extinction, who was son of Darkness, and he son of Ailment. By her incantations Carman ruined every place where she came, while her sons destroyed through plundering and dishonesty. They came to Ireland to blight the corn of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who sent against them Ai, a poet, Cridenbel the lampooner, Lugh Laebach, a wizard, and Béchuille, a witch, some of whom have already played a part in the story of Mag-Tured. By spells they drove the men oversea, but not until they gave the Seven Things which they served as security that they would not return, and left their mother as a hostage. She died of grief, begging the gods to hold an annual festival at her burial-place and to call it by her name; and as long as they kept it the Leinstermen were promised plenty of corn, fruit, milk, and fish.³⁰ No explanation is given as to what the mysterious "Seven Things" were.

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

      "A mighty host, with multitudes of horses,

       Attacked me on every side;

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

       Whom Eogan had called to his aid."

      Another instance occurs in the story of Loegaire, son of the King of Connaught. The people of Connaught were met in assembly near the Loch of the Birds in the plain of Ai, when a stranger approached them through the mist which rose from the lake. He wore a purple cloak, and his yellow hair fell upon his shoulders. A golden-hilted sword hung at his side; in his right hand he carried a five-pointed spear, and on his left arm a shield with a golden boss. Loegaire welcomed him, and he told how he had come from the gods' land to seek the aid of warriors. Fiachna was his name, and he had slain his wife's ravisher, but had been attacked by his nephew, Goll, son of the king of the fort of Mag Mell, and in seven battles had been vanquished, so that in view of a new conflict he had come for succour. He sang of the beauty of the land and of the bloody combats fought there among the people of majestic race, and how silver and gold awaited those who would help him. Beautiful were the divine warriors, with blue eyes of powerful sight, teeth brilliant as glass, and red lips. Mighty in conflict, in their assemblies they sang in melodious verse of learned matters.³³ Fiachna disappeared into the lake, and now Loegaire appealed to his men. Fifty warriors plunged with him into the water and in the divine land under the loch joined Fiachna against his foe, besieging the fort of Mag Mell, where his wife was a prisoner. The defenders released her, and she followed the vanquishers, singing of her love for Goll. Fiachna gave his daughter, Sun Tear, to Loegaire, and each of his men also received a wife. For a year they remained in the divine land, until they became home-sick; and as they left him Fiachna bade them mount on horseback and not alight on the earth if they wished to return to him. The people of Connaught rejoiced to see them again, for sorely had they mourned them, but now Loegaire announced their return to the gods' land, nor would he remain, although his father offered him the kingdom, its gold, and its women. The unmoved son sang of the divine land, where beer fell in showers, and every army was of a hundred thousand warriors, while as one went from kingdom to kingdom, the melodious music of the gods was heard. He told of his goddess wife and those of his comrades and of the cauldrons and drinking-horns taken from the fort; for one night of the nights of the síd he would not accept his father's kingdom. With these words he quitted the king for ever and returned to Mag Mell, there to share the sovereignty with Fiachna—a noble divine reward to a mortal.³⁴ In the heroic cycle of Fionn other instances of heroes helping gods will be found.

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

      The Christian scribes were puzzled over the Tuatha Dé Danann. The earliest reference to them says that because of their knowledge they were banished from heaven, arriving in Ireland in clouds and mists—the smoke of their burning ships, says an euhemerizing tradition. Eochaid ua Flainn, in the tenth century, calls them "phantoms" (siabhra) and asks whether they came from heaven or earth; were they demons or men. They were affiliated to Japhet, yet regarded as demons in the Book of Invasions. Another tradition makes them a branch of the descendants of Nemed who, after being in the Northern isles learning wizardry, returned to Ireland. The annalists treated them more or less as men; official Christianity more or less as demons; popular belief and romance as a kind of beautiful fairy race with much of their old divine aspect.

      D'Arbois translates 'Tuatha Dé Danann as "people of the god whose mother is called Danu";³⁶ Stokes renders it "folk or folks of the goddess Danu";³⁷ Stern prefers to regard Danann as a later addition and to take the earlier name as Tuatha Dé or Fir Dea—"the divine tribe," or "the men of the god."³⁸ Three insignificant members of the group, Brian, luchar, and lucharba, are sometimes called "three gods of Danu"; and hence also, perhaps, the whole group is designated "men of the three gods." Brian, luchar, and lucharba are also termed tri deé dána, or "three gods of dán," i. e. "knowledge," or "fate." Danand (Danu) is mentioned with Béchuille as a separate goddess, and both are called foster-mothers of the gods. Cormac's Glossary knows nothing of Danu, but speaks of a goddess Anu, mater deorum hihernensium—" It was well she nursed the gods"vwhile he refers to two hills in Kerry as "the paps of Anu," which a later glossary calls "the paps of Danu."

      Ireland is called lath n'Anann, and Anu is mentioned with Macha, Morrígan, and Badb, the war-goddesses, though other passages give Danu along with these. Possibly Danu is a mistake for Anu, through confusion with dán, "knowledge," knowledge as a function of Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba being personified as Danu, so that they would then be called gods or sons of Danu, though they were actually sons of Brigit. As Stem points out, Danu can scarcely be mother of the whole group, since she herself is daughter of Delbaeth, who was brother of Dagda, Ogma, Bres, etc. If Anu was mother of the group,