22.
Rebirth and Transmigration.
The ancient Celts had their own ideas on reincarnation. I have included the tale of Etain and the tale of Friuch and Rucht at the bottom of this blog.
What follows are descriptions and tales from old sources:
The ancient Celts had their own ideas on reincarnation. I have included the tale of Etain and the tale of Friuch and Rucht at the bottom of this blog.
What follows are descriptions and tales from old sources:
In Irish sagas, rebirth is asserted only of divinities or heroes,
and, probably because this belief was obnoxious to Christian scribes, while
some MSS. tell of it in the case of certain heroic personages, in others these
same heroes are said to have been born naturally. There is no textual evidence
that it was attributed to ordinary mortals, and it is possible that, if
classical observers did not misunderstand the Celtic doctrine of the future
life, their references to rebirth may be based on mythical tales regarding gods
or heroes. We shall study these tales as they are found in Irish texts.
In the mythological cycle, Etain, in insect
form, fell into a cup of wine. She was swallowed by Etar, and in due time was reborn
as a child, who was eventually married by Eochaid Airem, but recognized and
carried off by her divine spouse Mider. Etain, however, had quite forgotten her
former existence as a goddess.
 |
| Cuchulainn |
In one version of Cúchulainn's birth story Dechtire and her women
fly away as birds, but are discovered at last by her brother Conchobar in a
strange house, where Dechtire gives birth to a child, of whom the god Lug is
apparently the father. In another version the birds are not Dechtire and her
women, for she accompanies Conchobar as his charioteer. They arrive at the
house, the mistress of which gives birth to a
child, which Dechtire brings up. It dies, and on her return from the burial
Dechtire swallows a small animal when drinking. Lug appears to her by night,
and tells her that he was the child, and that now she was with child by him (i.e. he
was the animal swallowed by her). When he was born he would be called Setanta,
who was later named Cúchulainn. Cúchulainn, in this version, is thus a rebirth
of Lug, as well as his father.
In the Tale of the Two Swineherds, Friuch and Rucht
are herds of the gods Ochall and Bodb. They quarrel, and their fighting in
various animal shapes is fully described. Finally they become two worms, which
are swallowed by two cows; these then give birth to the Whitehorn and to the
Black Bull of Cuailgne, the animals which were the cause of the Táin.
The swineherds were probably themselves gods in the older versions of this
tale.
Other stories relate the rebirth of heroes. Conchobar is variously
said to be son of Nessa by her husband Cathbad, or by her lover Fachtna. But in
the latter version an incident is found which points to a third account. Nessa
brings Cathbad a draught from a river, but in it are two worms which he forces
her to swallow. She gives birth to a son, in each of whose hands is a worm, and
he is called Conchobar, after the name of the river into which he fell soon
after his birth. The incident closes with the words, "It was from these
worms that she became pregnant, say some." Possibly
the divinity of the river had taken the form of the worms and was reborn as
Conchobar. We may compare the story of the birth of Conall Cernach. His mother
was childless, until a Druid sang spells over a
well in which she bathed, and drank of its waters. With the draught she
swallowed a worm, "and the worm was in the hand of the boy as he lay in
his mother's womb; and he pierced the hand and consumed it."
The personality of Fionn is also connected with the rebirth idea.
In one story, Mongan, a seventh-century king, had a dispute with his poet
regarding the death of the hero Fothad. The Fian Caoilte returns from the dead
to prove Mongan right, and he says, "We were with thee, with Fionn."
Mongan bids him be silent, because he did not wish his identity with Fionn to
be made known. "Mongan, however, was Fionn, though he would not let it be
told." In
another story Mongan is son of Manannan, who had prophesied of this event.
Manannan appeared to the wife of Fiachna when he was fighting the Saxons, and
told her that unless she yielded herself to him her husband would be slain.
On
hearing this she agreed, and next day the god appeared fighting with Fiachna's
forces and routed the slain. "So that this Mongan is a son of Manannan mac
Lir, though he is called Mongan son of Fiachna." In
a third version Manannan makes the bargain with Fiachna, and in his form sleeps
with the woman. Simultaneously with Mongan's birth, Fiachna's attendant had a
son who became Mongan's servant, and a warrior's wife bears a daughter who
became his wife. Manannan took Mongan to the Land of Promise and kept him there
until he was sixteen. Many
magical powers and the faculty of shape-shifting are attributed to Mongan, and
in some stories he is brought into connection with
the síd. Probably
a myth told how he went to Elysium instead of dying, for he comes from
"the Land of Living Heart" to speak with S. Columba, who took him to
see heaven. But he would not satisfy the saints' curiosity regarding Elysium,
and suddenly vanished, probably returning there. This twofold account of Mongan's birth is curious. Perhaps the
idea that he was a rebirth of Fionn may have been suggested by the fact that
his father was called Fiachna Finn, while it is probable that some old myth of
a son of Manannan's called Mongan was attached to the personality of the
historic Mongan.
 |
| Manannan |
About the era of Mongan, King Diarmaid had two wives, one of whom
was barren. S. Finnen gave her holy water to drink, and she brought forth a
lamb; then, after a second draught, a trout, and finally, after a third, Aed
Slane, who became high king of Ireland in. This is a Christianised version of
the story of Conall Cernach's birth.
In Welsh mythology the story of Taliesin affords an example of
rebirth. After the transformation combat of the goddess Cerridwen and Gwion,
resembling that of the swine-herds, Gwion becomes a grain of wheat, which
Cerridwen in the form of a hen swallows, with the result that he is reborn of
her as Taliesin.
Most of these stories no longer exist in their primitive form, and
various ideas are found in them-conception by magical means, divine descent
through the amour of a divinity and a mortal, and rebirth.
As to the first, the help of magician or priest is often invoked in savage society
and even in European folk-custom in case of barrenness. Prayers, charms,
potions, or food are the means used to induce conception, but perhaps at one
time these were thought to cause it of themselves. In many tales the swallowing
of a seed, fruit, insect, etc., results in the birth of a hero or heroine, and
it is probable that these stories embody actual belief in such a possibility.
If the stories of Conall Cernach and Aed Slane are not attenuated instances of
rebirth, say, of the divinity of a well, they are examples of this belief. The
gift of fruitfulness is bestowed by Druid and saint, but in the story of Conall
it is rather the swallowing of the worm than the Druid's incantation that
causes conception, and is the real motif of the tale.
Where the rebirth of a divinity occurs as the result of the
swallowing of a small animal, it is evident that the god has first taken this
form. The Celt, believing in conception by swallowing some object, and in
shape-shifting, combined his information, and so produced a third idea, that a
god could take the form of a small animal, which, when swallowed, became his
rebirth. If,
as the visits of barren women to dolmens and megalithic monuments suggest, the
Celts believed in the possibility of the spirit of a dead man entering a woman
and being born of her or at least aiding conception,--a belief held by other
races, --this
may have given rise to myths regarding the rebirth of gods by human mothers. At
all events this latter Celtic belief is paralleled by the American Indian
myths, e.g. of the Thlinkeet god Yehl who transformed himself
now into a pebble, now into a blade of grass, and, being thus swallowed by
women, was reborn.
In the stories of Etain and of Lug, reborn as Setanta, this idea
of divine transformation and rebirth occurs. A similar idea may underlie the
tale of Fionn and Mongan. As to the tales of Gwion and the Swineherds, the
latter the servants of gods, and perhaps themselves regarded once as
divinities, who in their rebirth as bulls are certainly divine animals, they
present some features which require further consideration. The previous
transformations in both cases belong to the Transformation Combat formula of
many Märchen, and obviously were not part of the original form of
the myths. In all such Märchen the antagonists are males,
hence the rebirth incident could not form part of them. In the Welsh tale of
Gwion and in the corresponding Taliesin poem, the ingenious fusion of the Märchen formula
with an existing myth of rebirth must have taken place at an early date. This
is also true of The Two Swineherds, but in this case, since the
myth told how two gods took the form of worms and were reborn of cows, the
formula had to be altered. Both remain alive at the end of the combat, contrary
to the usual formula, because both were males and both were reborn. The fusion
is skilful, because the reborn personages preserve a remembrance of their
former transformations, just
as Mongan knows of his former existence as Fionn. In other cases there is no
such remembrance. Etain had forgotten her former existence, and Cúchulainn does
not appear to know that he is a rebirth of Lug.
The relation of Lug to Cúchulainn deserves further inquiry. While
the god is reborn he is also existing as Lug, just as having been swallowed as
a worm by Dechtire, he appears in his divine form and tells her he will be born
of her. In the Táin he appears fighting for Cúchulainn, whom
he there calls his son. There are thus two aspects of the hero's relationship
to Lug; in one he is a rebirth of the god, in the other he is his son, as
indeed he seems to represent himself in The Wooing of Emer, and as
he is called by Laborcham just before his death. In
one of the birth-stories he is clearly Lug's son by Dechtire. But both versions
may simply be different aspects of one belief, namely, that a god could be
reborn as a mortal and yet continue his divine existence, because all birth is
a kind of rebirth. The men of Ulster sought a wife for Cúchulainn,
"knowing that his rebirth would be of himself," i.e. his
son would be himself even while he continued to exist as his father. Examples
of such a belief occur elsewhere, e.g. in the Laws of
Manu, where the husband is said to be reborn of his wife, and in ancient Egypt,
where the gods were called "self-begotten," because each was father
to the son who was his true image or himself. Likeness implied identity, in
primitive belief. Thus the belief in mortal descent from the gods among the
Celts may have involved the theory of a divine avatar. The god became father of
a mortal by a woman, and part of himself passed over to the child, who was thus
the god himself.
 |
| Nessa |
Conchobar was also a rebirth of a god, but he was named from the
river whence his mother had drawn water containing the worms which she
swallowed. This may point to a lost version in which he was the son of a
river-god by Nessa. This was quite in accordance with Celtic belief, as is shown
by such names as Dubrogenos, from dubron, "water,"
and genos, "born of" ; Divogenos, Divogena, "son or
daughter of a god," possibly a river-god, since deivos is
a frequent river name; and Rhenogenus, "son of the Rhine." The
persons who first bore these names were believed to have been begotten by
divinities. Mongan's descent from Manannan, god of the sea, is made perfectly
clear, and the Welsh name Morgen = Morigenos, "son of the
sea," probably points to a similar tale now lost. Other Celtic names are
frequently pregnant with meaning, and tell of a once-existing rich mythology of
divine amours with mortals. They show descent from
deities--Camulogenus (son of Camulos), Esugenos (son of Esus), Boduogenus (son
of Bodva); or from tree-spirits--Dergen (son of the oak), Vernogenus (son of
the alder); or from divine animals--Arthgen (son of the bear), Urogenus (son of
the urus). What
was once an epithet describing divine filiation became later a personal name.
So in Greece names like Apollogenes, Diogenes, and Hermogenes, had once been
epithets of heroes born of Apollo, Zeus, and Hermes.
Thus it was a vital Celtic belief that divinities might unite with
mortals and beget children. Heroes enticed away to Elysium enjoyed the love of
its goddesses--Cúchulainn that of Fand; Connla, Bran, and Oisin that of unnamed
divinities. So, too, the goddess Morrigan offered herself to Cúchulainn. The
Christian Celts of the fifth century retained this belief, though in a somewhat
altered form. S. Augustine and others describe the shaggy demons called dusii by
the Gauls, who sought the couches of women in order to gratify their
desires.
The dusii are akin to the incubi and fauni,
and do not appear to represent the higher gods reduced to the form of demons by
Christianity, but rather a species of lesser divinities, once the object of
popular devotion.
These beliefs are also connected with the Celtic notions of
transformation and transmigration--the one signifying the assuming of another
shape for a time, the other the passing over of the soul or the personality
into another body, perhaps one actually existing, but more usually by actual
rebirth. As has been seen, this power of transformation was claimed by the
Druids and by other persons, or attributed to them, and they were not likely to
minimise their powers, and would probably boast of them on all occasions. Such
boasts are put into the mouths of the Irish Amairgen and the Welsh Taliesin. As
the Milesians were approaching Ireland, Amairgen sang verses which were perhaps
part of a ritual chant:
"I am the wind which
blows over the sea,
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the bull of seven battles,
I am the eagle on the rock . . .
I am a boar for courage,
I am a salmon in the water, etc."
Professor Rhŷs points out that some of these verses need not mean
actual transformation, but mere likeness, through "a primitive formation
of predicate without the aid of a particle corresponding to such a word as
'like.” Enough,
however, remains to show the claim of the magician. Taliesin, in many poems,
makes similar claims, and says, "I have been in a multitude of shapes
before I assumed a consistent form"--that of a sword, a tear, a star, an
eagle, etc. Then he was created, without father or mother. Similar
pretensions are common to the medicine-man everywhere. But from another point
of view they may be mere poetic extravagances such as are common in Celtic
poetry. Thus
Cúchulainn says: "I was a hound strong for combat . . . their little
champion . . . the casket of every secret for the maidens," or, in another
place, "I am the bark buffeted from wave to wave . . . the ship after the
losing of its rudder . . . the little apple on the top of the tree that little
thought of its falling." These
are metaphoric descriptions of a comparatively simple kind. The full-blown
bombast appears in the Colloquy of the Two Sages, where Nede and
Fercertne exhaust language in describing themselves to each other. Other
Welsh bards besides Taliesin make similar boasts to his, and Dr. Skene thinks
that their claims "may have been mere bombast." Still
some current belief in shape-shifting, or even in rebirth, underlies some of
these boastings and gives point to them. Amairgen's "I am" this or
that, suggests the inherent power of transformation; Taliesin's "I have
been," the actual transformations. Such assertions do not involve
"the powerful pantheistic doctrine which is at once the glory and error of
Irish philosophy," as M. D'Arbois claims, else
are savage medicine-men, boastful of their shape-shifting powers, philosophic
pantheists. The poems are merely highly developed forms of primitive beliefs in
shape-shifting, such as are found among all savages and barbaric folk, but
expressed in the boastful language in which the Celt delighted.
How were the successive shape-shiftings effected? To answer this
we shall first look at the story of Tuan Mae Caraill, who survived from the
days of Partholan to those of S. Finnen. He was a decrepit man at the coming of
Nemed, and one night, having lain down to sleep, he awoke as a stag, and lived
in this form to old age. In the same way he became a boar, a hawk, and a
salmon, which was caught and eaten by Cairell's wife, of whom he was born as
Tuan, with a perfect recollection of his different forms.
 |
| Monk |
This story, the invention of a ninth or tenth century Christian
scribe to account for the current knowledge of the many invasions of
Ireland, must
have been based on pagan myths of a similar kind, involving successive
transformations and a final rebirth. Such a myth may have been told of
Taliesin, recounting his transformations and his final rebirth, the former
being replaced at a later time by the episode of the Transformation Combat,
involving no great lapse of time. Such a series of successive shapes--of every
beast, a dragon, a wolf, a stag, a salmon, a seal, a swan--were ascribed to
Mongan and foretold by Manannan, and Mongan refers to some of them in his
colloquy with S. Columba--"when I was a deer . . . a salmon . . . a seal .
. . a roving wolf . . . a man." Perhaps
the complete story was that of a fabulous hero in human form, who assumed
different shapes, and was finally reborn. But the transformation of an old man,
or an old animal, into new youthful and vigorous forms might be regarded as a
kind of transmigration--an extension of the transformation idea, but involving
no metempsychosis, no passing of the soul into another body by rebirth. Actual
transmigration or rebirth occurs only at the end of the series, and, as in the
case of Etain, Lug, etc., the pre-existent person is born of a woman after
being swallowed by her. Possibly the transformation belief has reacted on the
other, and obscured a belief in actual metempsychosis as a result of the soul
of an ancestor passing into a woman and being reborn as her next child. Add to
this that the soul is often thought of as a tiny animal, and we see how a point
d'appui for the more materialistic belief was afforded. The insect or
worms of the rebirth stories may have been once forms of the soul. It is easy
also to see how, a theory of conception by swallowing various objects being
already in existence, it might be thought possible that eating a salmon--a
transformed man--would cause his rebirth from the eater.
The Celts may have had no consistent belief on this subject, the
general idea of the future life being of a different kind. Or perhaps the
various beliefs in transformation, transmigration, rebirth, and conception by
unusual means, are too inextricably mingled to be separated. The nucleus of the
tales seems to be the possibility of rebirth, and the belief that the soul was
still clad in a bodily form after death and was itself a material thing. But
otherwise some of them are not distinctively Celtic, and have been influenced
by old Märchen formulæ of successive changes adopted by or
forced upon some person, who is finally reborn. This formulæ is already old in
the fourteenth century B.C. Egyptian story of the Two Brothers.
Such Celtic stories as these may have been known to classical
authors, and have influenced their statements regarding eschatology. Yet it can
hardly be said that the tales themselves bear witness to a general
transmigration doctrine current among the Celts, since the stories concern
divine or heroic personages. Still the belief may have had a certain currency
among them, based on primitive theories of soul life. Evidence that it existed
side by side with the more general doctrines of the future life may be found in
old or existing folk-belief. In some cases the dead have an animal form, as in
the Voyage of Maelduin, where birds on an island are said to be
souls, or in the legend of S. Maelsuthain, whose pupils appear to him after
death as birds. The
bird form of the soul after death is still a current belief in the Hebrides.
Butterflies in Ireland, and moths in Cornwall, and in France bats or
butterflies, are believed to be souls of the dead. King
Arthur is thought by Cornishmen to have died and to have been changed into the
form of a raven, and in mediæval Wales souls of the wicked appear as ravens, in
Brittany as black dogs, petrels, or hares, or serve their term of penitence as
cows or bulls, or remain as crows till the day of judgment. Unbaptized
infants become birds; drowned sailors appear as beasts or birds; and the souls
of girls deceived by lovers haunt them as hares.
These show that the idea of transmigration may not have been
foreign to the Celtic mind, and it may have arisen from the idea that men
assumed their totem animal's shape at death. Some tales of shape-shifting are
probably due to totemism, and it is to be noted that in Kerry peasants will not
eat hares because they contain the souls of their grandmothers. On
the other hand, some of these survivals may mean no more than that the soul
itself has already an animal form, in which it would naturally be seen after
death. In Celtic folk-belief the soul is seen leaving the body in sleep as a
bee, butterfly, gnat, mouse, or mannikin. Such
a belief is found among most savage races, and, might easily be mistaken for
transmigration, or also assist the formation of the idea of transmigration.
Though the folk-survivals show that transmigration was not necessarily alleged
of all the dead, it may have been a sufficiently vital belief to colour the
mythology, as we see from the existing tales, adulterated though these may have
been.
The general belief has its
roots in primitive ideas regarding life and its propagation--ideas which some
hold to be un-Celtic and un-Aryan. But Aryans were "primitive" at
some period of their history, and it would be curious if, while still in a
barbarous condition, they had forgotten their old beliefs. In any case, if they
adopted similar beliefs from non-Aryan people, this points to no great
superiority on their part. Such beliefs originated the idea of rebirth and
transmigration. Nevertheless
this was not a characteristically Celtic eschatological belief; that we find in
the theory that the dead lived on in the body or assumed a body in another
region, probably underground.
Etain in Fairyland
 |
| Midir |
The preliminary events of the cycle are transacted in the
"Land of Youth," the mystic country of the People of Dana after their
dispossession by the Children of Miled. Midir the Proud son of the Dagda, a
Danaan prince dwelling on Slieve Callary, had a wife named Fuamnach. After a
while he took to himself another bride, Etain, whose beauty and grace were
beyond compare, so that" as fair as Etain" became a proverbial
comparison for any beauty that exceeded all other standards. Fuamnach therefore
became jealous of her rival, and having by magic art changed her into a
butterfly, she raised a tempest that drove her forth from the palace, and kept
her or seven years buffeted hither and thither throughout the length and breadth
of Erin. At last, however, a chance gust of wind blew her through a window of
the fairy palace of Angus on the Boyne. The immortals cannot be hidden from
each other, and Angus knew what she was. Unable to release her altogether from
the spell of Fuamnach, he made a sunny bower for her, and planted round it all
manner of choice and honey-laden flowers, on which she lived as long as she was
with him) while in the secrecy of the night he restored her to her own form and
enjoyed her love. In time, however, her refuge was discovered by Fuamnach;
again the magic tempest descended upon her and drove her forth; and this time a
singular fate was hers. Blown into the palace of an Ulster chieftain named
Etar, she fell into the drinking-cup of Etar's wife just as the latter was
about to drink. She was swallowed in the draught, and in due time, having passed into the womb of Etar's wife, she was born as an apparently
mortal child, and grew up to maidenhood knowing nothing of her real nature and
ancestry.
Eochy and Etain
 |
| Etain |
About this time it happened that the High King of Ireland, Eochy
[pronounced "Yeo´hee"] being wifeless and urged by the nobles of his
land to take a queen - " for without thou do so," they said, "we
will not bring our wives to the Assembly at Tara "-sent forth to inquire
for a fair and noble maiden to share his throne. The messengers report that
Etain, daughter of Etar, is the fairest maiden in Ireland, and the king
journeys forth to visit her. A piece of description here follows which is one
of the most highly wrought and splendid in Celtic or perhaps in any literature.
Eochy finds Etain with her maidens by a spring of water, whither she had gone
forth to wash her hair:
"A clear comb of silver was held in her hand, the comb was
adorned with gold; and near her, as for washing, was a bason of silver whereon
four birds had been chased, and there were little bright gems of carbuncles on
the rims of the bason. A bright purple mantle waved round her ; and beneath it
was another mantle ornamented with silver fringes: the outer mantle was clasped
over her bosom with a golden brooch. A tunic she wore with a long hood that
might cover her head attached to it ; it was stiff and glossy with green silk
beneath red embroidery of gold, and was clasped over her breasts with
marvellously wrought clasps of silver and gold; so that men saw the bright gold
and the green silk flashing against the sun. On her head were two tresses of
golden hair, and each tress had been plaited into four strands; at the end of
each strand was a little ball of gold. Arid there was that maiden undoing her
hair that she might wash it, her two arms out through the armholes of her
smock. Each of her two arms was as white as the snow of a single night, and
each of her cheeks was as rosy as the foxglove. Even and small were the teeth
in her head, and they shone like pearls. Her eyes were as blue as a hyacinth,
her lips delicate and crimson; very high, soft and white were her shoulders.
Tender, polished and white were her wrists; her fingers long and of great
whiteness; her nails were beautiful and pink. White as snow, or the foam of a
wave, was her neck; long was it, slender, and as soft as silk. Smooth and white
were her thighs; her knees were round and firm and white; her ankles were as
straight as the rule of a carpenter. Her feet were slim and as white as the
ocean's foam; evenly set were her eyes; her eyebrows were of a bluish black,
such as you see upon the shell of a beetle. Never a maid fairer than she, or
more worthy of love, was till then seen by the eyes of men; and it seemed to
them that she must be one of those that have come from the fairy mounds."
The king wooed her and made her his wife and brought her back to
Tara.
The Love-Story of Ailill
It happened that the king had a brother named Ailill, who, on
seeing Etain, was so smitten with her beauty that he fell sick of the intensity
of his passion and wasted almost to death. While he was in this condition Eochy
had to make a royal progress through Ireland. He left his brother-the cause of whose malady
none suspected - in Etain's care, bidding her do what she could for him, and,
if he died, to bury him with due ceremonies and erect an Ogham Stone above his
grave. [Ogham letters, which were composed of straight lines arranged in a
certain order about the axis formed by the edge of a squared pillar-stone, were
used for sepulchral inscription and writing generally before the introduction
of the Roman alphabet in Ireland.] Etain goes to visit the brother; she
inquires the cause of his illness ; he speaks to her in enigmas, but at last,
moved beyond control by her tenderness, he breaks out in an avowal of his
passion. His description of the yearning of hopeless love is a lyric of
extraordinary intensity. "It is closer than the skin," he cries,
"it is like a battle with a spectre, it overwhelms like a flood, it is a
weapon under the sea, it is a passion for an echo." By "a weapon
under the sea" the poet means that love is like one of the secret
treasures of the fairy-folk in the kingdom of Mananan - -as wonderful and as
unattainable.
Etain is now in some perplexity; but she decides, with a kind of
naive good-nature, that although she is not in the least in love with Ailill,
she cannot see a man die of longing for her, and she promises to be his.
Possibly we are to understand here that she was prompted by the fairy nature,
ignorant of good and evil, and alive only to pleasure and to suffering. It must
be said, however, that in the Irish myths in general this, as we may call it,
"fairy" view of morality is the one generally prevalent both among
Danaans and mortals - both alike strike one as morally irresponsible.
Etain now arranges a tryst with Ailill in a house outside of Tara
- for she will not do what she calls her "glorious crime" in the
king's palace. But Ailill on the eve of the appointed day falls into a profound slumber and misses his appointment. A being in his shape does,
however, come to Etain, but merely to speak coldly and sorrowfully of his
malady, and departs again. When the two meet once more the situation is
altogether changed. In Ailill's enchanted sleep his unholy passion for the
queen has passed entirely away. Etain, on the other hand, becomes aware that
behind the visible events there are mysteries which she does not understand.
Midir the Proud
The explanation soon follows. The being who came to her in the
shape of Ailill was her Danaan husband, Midir the Proud. He now comes to woo
her in his true shape, beautiful and nobly apparelled, and entreats her to fly
with him to the Land of Youth, where she can be safe henceforward, since her
persecutor, Fuamnach, is dead. He it was who shed upon Ailill's eyes the magic
slumber. His description of the fairyland to which he invites her is given in
verses of great beauty:
The Land of Youth
[unsalted flesh: The reference is to the magic swine of Mananan, which
were killed and eaten afresh every day, and whose meat preserved the eternal
youth of the People of Dana.]
Etain, however, is by no means ready to go away with a stranger
and to desert the High King for a man "without name or lineage."
Midir tells her who he is, and all her own history of which, in her present
incarnation, she knows nothing; and he adds that it was one thousand and twelve
years from Etain's birth in the Land of Youth till she was born a mortal child
to the wife of Etar. Ultimately Etain agrees to return with Midir to her
ancient home) but only on condition that the king will agree to their
severance, and with this Midir has to be content for the time.
A Game of Chess
 |
| Chess |
Shortly afterwards he appears to King Eochy, as already related on the Hill of Tara. He tells the king that he has come to play a game of chess
with him, and produces a chessboard of silver with pieces of gold studded with
jewels. To be a skilful chess-player was a necessary accomplishment of kings
and nobles in Ireland, and Eochy enters into the game with zest. Midir allows
him to win game after game, and in payment for his losses he performs by magic
all kinds of tasks for Eochy, reclaiming land, clearing forests, and building
causeways across bogs - here we have a touch of the popular conception of the
Danaans as earth deities associated with agriculture and fertility. At last,
having excited Eochy's cupidity and made him believe himself the better player,
he proposes a final game, the stakes to be at the pleasure of the victor after
the game is over. Eochy is now defeated.
"My stake is forfeit to thee," said Eochy.
"Had I wished it, it had been forfeit long ago", said
Midir.
"What is it that thou desirest me to grant?" said Eochy.
"That I may hold Etain in my arms and obtain a kiss from
her," said Midir.
The king was silent for a while; then he said: "One month
from to-day thou shalt come, and the thing thou desirest shall be granted
thee."
Midir and Etain
Eochy's mind foreboded evil, and when the appointed day came he
caused the palace of Tara to be surrounded by a great host of armed men to keep
Midir out. All was in vain, however; as the king sat at the feast, while Etain
handed round the wine, Midir, more glorious than ever, suddenly stood in their
midst. Holding his spears in his left hand, he threw his right around Etain,
and the couple rose lightly in the air and disappeared through a roof-window in
the palace. Angry and bewildered, the king and his warriors rushed out of
doors, but all they could see was two white swans that circled in the air above
the palace, and then departed in long, steady flight towards the fairy mountain of
Slievenamon. And thus Queen Etain rejoined her kindred.
War with Fairyland
Eochy, however, would not accept defeat, and now ensues what I
think is the earliest recorded war with Fairyland since the first dispossession
of the Danaans. After searching Ireland for his wife in vain, he summoned to
his aid the Druid Dalan. Dalan tried for a year by every means in his power to
find out where she was. At last he made what seems to have been an operation of
wizardry of special strength - " he made three wands of yew, and upon the
wands he wrote an ogham; and by the keys of wisdom that he had, and by the
ogham, it was revealed to him that Etain was in the fairy mound of Bri-Leith)
and that Midir had borne her thither."
Eochy then assembled his forces to storm and destroy the fairy
mound in which was the palace ot Midir. It is said that he was nine years
digging up one mound after another, while Midir and his folk repaired the
devastation as fast as it was made. At last Midir, driven to the last
stronghold, attempted a stratagem - he offered to give up Etain, and sent her
with fifty handmaids to the king, but made them all so much alike that Eochy
could not distinguish the true Etain from her images. She herself, it is said,
gave him a sign by which to know her. The motive of the tale, including the
choice of the mortal rather than the god, reminds one of the beautiful Hindu
legend of Damayanti and Nala. Eochy regained his queen, who lived with him till
his death, ten years afterwards, and bore him one daughter, who was named
Etain, like herself.
The Religion of the Ancient Celts, By J. A. MacCulloch, 1911
The Two Bulls
This, now, is the story of the two bulls, the Brown of Cuailgne,
and the White-horned of Cruachan Ai, and this is the way it was with them--for
they were not right bulls, but there was enchantment on them. In the time long
ago Bodb was king of the Sidhe of Munster, and it is in Femen, of Slieve-na-man
he was, and Ochall Ochne was king of the Sidhe of Connaught, and it is in
Cruachan he used to be. They used at one time to be fighting one against the
other, but afterwards they made peace, and were good friends. Now Bodb had a
swineherd, whose name was Friuch [boar's bristle], and Ochall had a swineherd whose name was
Rucht [boar's grunt], and they were friendly with one another the same as their masters. And
they had the knowledge of enchantments, and could turn themselves to every
shape. And when there was a great plenty of mast in Munster, the swineherd from
Connaught would bring his lean swine to the south, and in the same way, when
mast was plentiful in Connaught, the swineherd would bring his swine northward,
and would bring them home again fat.
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| Boar |
But after a while some bad feeling rose up between the two, for
the men of Connaught and the men of Munster began to set them one against the
other. So one year when there was great mast in Munster, and Rucht brought his
herd from Connaught, so soon as his comrade Friuch had bade him welcome, he
said: "The people are all saying your power is greater than mine."
"It is no less any way," said Ochall's herd.
"We will soon know that," said Friuch. "I will put
an enchantment on your swine, and even though they eat their share of mast,
they will not be fat, like mine will be."
And so it happened, he put an enchantment on the Connaught swine,
and when Rucht went home with them they could hardly walk at all, they were so
thin and so weak, and all the people were laughing at the state they were in.
"It was a bad day for you, you went to the South," they said,
"for your comrade has greater power than what you have."
"That is not so," said he. "Wait till it is our turn
to have mast, and I will play the same trick on him."
So the next year he did as he had said, and the Munster swine
pined away, so that every one said their power was the same. And when Bodb's
swineherd went back home to Munster with his lean swine, his master put him out
of the place. And Ochall put his herd out of his place as well, because of the
swine coming back in so bad a state from Munster.
 |
| Ravens |
One day, two full years after that, the men of Munster were
gathered together near Femen, and they took notice of two ravens that were
making a great cawing. "What a noise those birds have been making all
through the year!" they said. "They never stop scolding at one
another." Just then Findell, Ochall's steward from Cruachan, came towards
them on the hill, and they bade him welcome. "What a noise those birds are
making!" he said; "any one would think them to be the same two birds
we had in Cruachan last year." With that, they saw the two ravens change
into the shape of men, and they knew them to be the two swineherds, and they
bade them welcome. "It is not right you to welcome us," said Bodb's
swineherd, "for there will be many dead bodies of friends, and much crying
on account of us two."
"What has happened you all through this time?" they
asked.
"Nothing good," he said. "Since we went from you we
have been all the time in the shape of birds, and you saw the way we were
scolding at one another all through this year. And we were quarrelling in the
same way the whole of last year at Cruachan, and the men of the North and of
the South have seen what our power is. And now," he said, "we will go
into the shape of water beasts, and be under the water for the length of two
years."
And with that one of them went into the Sionnan, and the other
into the Suir, and they were seen for a year in the Suir, and for a year in the
Sionnan, and they devouring one another. And one day the men of Connaught had a
great gathering at Ednecha, on the Sionnan, and they saw these two beasts in
the river; each one of them looked to be as big as the top of a hill, and they
made such a furious attack on one another that fiery swords seemed to be coming
from their jaws, and the people came round them on every side. They came out of
the Sionnan then, and as soon as they touched the shore, they changed again
into the shape of the two swineherds. Ochall bade them welcome.
"Where have you been wandering?" he asked them.
"Indeed it is tired we
are with our wanderings," they said. "You saw what we were doing
before your eyes, and that is what we were doing through these two years, under
seas and waters. And now we must take new shapes on us, till we try one
another's strength again."
And with that they went away.
It happened a good while after that there was a great gathering of
the men of Connaught at Loch Riach, for Bodb was coming on a friendly visit to
Ochall. And Bodb brought a great troop with him, the most splendid ever seen;
speckled horses they had, and green cloaks with silver brooches, and shoes with
clasps of red bronze, and every one of them had a collar of gold, with a stone
worth a newly-calved cow set in it. When Ochall saw what grand clothes and
horses they had, he called to his people secretly, and asked could they match
Bodb's people in dress and in horses and aims, and they said they could not.
Then Ochall said: "That is a pity, and our great name is
lost." But just then a troop of men were seen coming from the North, and
black horses with them, that you would think had been cast up by the sea, and
bridle-bits of gold in their mouths. And the men bad black-grey cloaks, and a
gold brooch at the breast of each, and a white tunic with crimson stripes, and
fifty coils of bright gold round every man. And every man of them had black
hair, as smooth as if a cow had licked it. And they stopped a little way off,
and then the men of Connaught stood up and gave up their place to them. There
was a Druid from Britain there, and when he saw them make way he said:
"From this out, to the end of life and time, the Connaught men will be
under the yoke, attending on hounds and on Sons of kings and queens forever."
 |
| Warrior |
Then after they had been feasting for a while, Bodb asked could
any Connaught man be found that would fight against his champion Rinn, that was
with him, and that had a great name, but no one knew where he came from. And at
first there could no one be found, but then a strange champion came out from
among the men of Connaught, and he said, "I will go against him."
"That is no welcome news," said Rinn. Then they fought
against one another for three days and three nights, and before the end of that
time the two armies began to join into the fight, and a troop came from
Leinster and joined with Bodb, and another troop came from Meath and joined
with Ochall. And four kings were killed there, and Ochall among them, and then
Bodb went back to Slieve-na-man. But as to the two champions, they were seen no more, and it was known they were
the two swineherds. After that they were for two years with the appearance of
shadows, threatening one another, the way that many people died of fright after
seeing them.
And after that, they were in the shape of eels, and one went into
the river Cruind, in Cuailgne; and after a while a cow belonging to Daire, son
of Fachna, drank it down. And the other went into the Spring of Uaran Garad, in
Connaught; and one day Maeve went out to the spring, and a small bronze vessel
in her hand, and she dipped it in the water, and the little eel went into it,
and every colour was to be seen on him. And she was a long time looking at him,
she thought the colours so beautiful. Then the water went away, and the eel was
alone in the vessel.
"It is a pity you cannot speak to me," said
Maeve.
"What is it you want to know?" said the eel.
"I would like to know what way it is with you in that shape
of a beast," she said; "and I would like to know what will happen me
after I get the sway over Connaught."
"Indeed it is a tormented beast
I am," he said, "and it is in many shapes I have been. And as to
yourself," he said, "handsome as you are, you should take a good man
to be with you in your sway."
"I have no wish," said Maeve, "to let a man of
Connaught get the upper hand over me," and with that she went home again.
But she married Ailell after that, and as for the eel, he was
swallowed down by one of Maeve's cows that came to drink at the spring.
And it was from that cow, and from the cow that belonged to Daire,
son of Fachna, the two bulls were born, the White-horned and the Brown. They
were the finest ever seen in Ireland, and gold and silver were put on their
horns by the men of Ulster and Connaught. In Connaught no bull dared bellow
before the White-horned, and in Ulster no bull dared bellow before the Brown. As to the Brown, he that had been Friuch, the Munster swineherd,
his lowing when he would be coming home every evening to his yard was good
music to the people of the whole of Cuailgne. And wherever he was, neither
Bocanachs nor Bananachs nor witches of the valley, could come into the one
place with him. And it was on account of him the great war broke out. Now, when Maeve saw at Ilgairech that the battle was going against
her, she sent eight of her own messengers to bring away the Brown Bull, and his
heifers. "For whoever goes back or does not go back," she said,
"the Brown Bull must go to Cruachan."
Now when the Brown Bull came into Connaught, and saw the beautiful
trackless country before him, he let three great loud bellowings out of him. As
soon as the White-horned heard that, he set out for the place those bellowings
came from, with his head high in the air. Then Maeve said that the men of her army must not go to their
homes till they would see the fight between the two bulls.
 |
| two bulls |
And they all said someone must be put to watch the fight, and to
give a fair report of it afterwards. And it is what they agreed, that Bricriu
should be sent to watch it, because he had not taken any side in the war; for
he had been through the whole length of it under care of physicians at
Cruachan, with the dint of the wound he got the day he vexed Fergus, and that
Fergus drove the chessmen into his head. "I will go willingly," said
Bricriu. So he went out and took his place in a gap, where he could have a good
view of the fight. As soon as the bulls caught sight of one another they pawed the
earth so furiously that they sent the sods flying, and their eyes were like
balls of fire in their heads; they locked
their horns together, and they ploughed up the ground under them and trampled
it, and they were trying to crush and to destroy one another through the whole
length of the day. And once the White-horned went back a little way and made a rush
at the Brown, and got his horn into his side, and he gave out a great bellow,
and they rushed both together through the gap where Bricriu was, the way he was
trodden into the earth under their feet. And that is how Bricriu of the bitter
tongue, son of Cairbre, got his death.
Then when the night was coming on, Cormac Conloingeas took hold of
a spear-shaft, and he laid three great strokes on the Brown Bull from head to
tail, and he said: "This is a great treasure to be boasting of, that
cannot get the better of a calf of his own age." When the Brown Bull heard
that insult, great fury came on him, and he turned on the White-horned again.
And all through the night the men of Ireland were listening to the sound of
their bellowing, and they going here and there, all through the country.
On the morrow, they saw the Brown Bull coming over Cruachan from
the west, and be carrying what was left of the White-horned on his horns. Then
Maeve's sons, the Maines, rose up to make an attack on him on account of the
Connaught bull he had destroyed.
"Where are those men going?" said
Fergus.
"They are going to kill the Brown Bull of Cuailgne."
"By the oath of my people," said Fergus, "if you do
not let the Brown Bull go back to his own country in safety, all he has done to
the White-horned is little to what I wilt do now to you."
Then the Brown Bull bellowed three times, and set out on his way.
And when became to the great ford of the Sionnan he stopped to drink, and the
two loins of the White-horned fell from his horns into the water. And that place is called Ath-luain, the ford of the loin, to this
day. And its liver fell in the same way into a river of Meath, and it is called
Ath-Truim, the ford of the liver to this day. Then he went on till he came to the top of Slieve Breagh, and when
be looked from it he saw his own home, the hills of Cuailgne; and at the sight
of his own country, a great spirit rose up in him, and madness and fury came on
him, and he rushed on, killing everyone that came in his way. And when he got to his own place, he turned his back to a hilt and
he gave out a loud bellowing of victory. And with that his heart broke in his
body, and blood came bursting from his mouth, and he died.
Cuchulain of Muirthemne, By Lady Augusta Gregory, 1902
Monk: Wikipedia
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