R E L I G IO N S AN C I E N T A N D MO D E R N

TH E M Y T H OL O GY O F A N C IEN T

BRIT A IN AN D IR E L AND RELIGIONS : ANCIENT AND MO DER N.

ANIMI S M . W LODD Auth TI n S tor o Crealz on . By E D ARD C , or of y f

A T E S . P N H I M 0 ME ALL N ON IC ON uth Tbe R elz z on o tire By JA S A S P T , A or of g f

Umve rse .

TH E R E L G O S F AN E T . I I N O CI N CHINA 0 in h e n i e sit G I L E LL . D . ess h n e se t By Profes sor S . Prof or of C i U v r y e of Cambridg . R THE R E L IGION OF ANCI E NT G EE CE . NE I ON Le tu e at e n h a lle e a b id e , By J A HARR S , c r r N w m Co g , C m r g ek R eli z on A uth or of Pro/ego men a to S t u dy qfGre g .

IS L AM . ‘ M s h u Y M A C . I. E . la te H . . t ME E AL' S E D . By A R , of Hig Co r tu e in Be n al uth Th e S irit lsla m an d TIn of J u d ica r g , A or of p qf I a m E t/ ucs of sl . E MAGIC AN D F TIS HIS M . DDO N F R S L e tu e o n E th n l at am D r A. . . . . C By . C HA , . c r r o ogy bridge Un ive rsit F A E T EGY T TH E RE L IGION NCI N P .

ms F . R S . . FL I N r ess . DE e . By Prof or W M RS P , B B AN D S R A THE RE L I GION OF A YL ONIA A SY I .

E O I U G I NC late h e B t sh use u . B T P L . E t y H H S P H S , of ri i M m EAR L Y B U DDH IS M. e ss R DAVl LL D late Se e ta Th e R al By Prof or HYS , . cr ry of oy t t Asi a ic S oci e y.

HIN D UI S M .

D r L . D . B NE th e De e n t O e n tal P n te d By . AR TT , of partm of ri ri M B t u B ks an d S S . sh se u oo . ri i M m. V SCAND INA IAN R E L I GION . I LL I M A I GIE n t E d t th e Ox ord E n lish By W A . CRA , J oi i or of f g D ict xo n a R IGI N C E LTIC E O . B ess ANWYL e ss elsh at Un e lle e y Prof or , Prof or of W iv rsi ty Co g , e t th Ab rys wy . TH E YT LOGY F A E T BR TA AND RE LA D M HO O NCI N I IN I N . B L E S UI E uth TimM th olo o th e B rz tislz y CHAR S ' R , A or of y gy f

Islan ds . J U DAI S M E L AB M L e tu e in Tal ud L t e atu e i By ISRA RAHA S , c r r m ic i r r n a b d e n e s uth e wish L e in 112: 'Mid l s C m ri g U iv r i A or of J if d e Agt . THE R E L G O F tyNCIE NT R E I I N O OM .

I L B I L E Y M A. By CYR A , . S T THE E T RE L G O OF A HIN O . ANCI N I I N J PAN .

. Asr rx G o . . . By W. . C M O THE RE L G OF A E T E' O AND E RU I ION NCI N M IC P . L e w rs S pe n ce M A By . . . EARLY R S T A TY CH I I NI . ' S B. S L C K f . e ss at M Gill n ty By A , Pro or U ive rsi . THE PS YCHOL OG ICA L O R IG IN AN D NATU RE OF R E

L IGION . fe s L E B . By Pro s or J . H . U A TH E RE L G ON OF E T L E I I ANCI N PA STINE. S NL E A OO K By TA Y . C . TH E MY THOL OGY OF

AN CIE N T BR ITAIN

AND IR E L AND

By C H A R L E S S ' U I R E

O OO O OO O O

‘ ’ TR E MY THOL OG Y o r TH E mu r' rsn TSLAN DS

LO NDON

’ C O N S T A B L E 69 C O M PA N Y L T D

1 0 OR ANGE STR EET L EICESTER S ' UAR E

F O R E W O R D

THI S little book does not profess in any way to su pplement the volu me u pon Celtic R eligion u already contrib ted to this series . It merely aims at calling the attention of the general reader to

o u r u the mythology of own co ntry , that as yet little - known store of Celtic tradition which reflects the religious conceptions of o ur earliest articu late

u ancestors . Nat rally , its limits compel the writer u bu t to dogmatise , or, at most , to to ch very briefly u u pon disp ted points , to ignore many fascinating

- u u side iss es, and to refrain from p tting forward

u But any s ggestions of his own . he has based his work u pon the stu dies of the leading Celtic scholars , and he believes that the reader may safely accept it as in line with the latest re

C. . search . S

C O N T E N T S

( H AP.

I L AN T E I M OLO . THE CE Ts D G H R YTH Y,

I I THE GODs OF TH E O N I NEN L CE LTs . C T TA

II I TH E GODs OF THE INS L E LT . U AR C s,

H M HI HIS O F E L N IV . T E YT CAI. O I D T RY R A ,

V TH E MY THIOAL HI S O OF B I IN . T RY R TA ,

V I. TH E HE ROIO CLE o r ANCI EN ULS E CY T T R,

TH E F N I AGAs V II. E I N O ss ANIc S A , R O , ,

VI I I . THE A U I N LE GEN D RTH R A ,

H ONOLOG IC L S Y L LAE US C R A ,

S EL E C E D Bo o x s BE A I NG ON E L IC M H OLOG 79 T R C T YT Y,

THE MY THOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

C H A P T E R I

THE CE LTS AND TH E I R MY THOLOGY

’ ‘ THE Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland . This title will possibly at first sight suggest to the reader who has been brought u p to consider himself essentially an Anglo - Saxon only a few

Tiw WOden u dim memories of , of , of Th nor i ( Thor) , and of Fr g, those Saxon deities who have bequ eathed to u s the names of fou r of the days of l o ur o f E n lish week . Yet the traces the g gods are

u comparatively few in Britain , and are not fo nd at all in Ireland , and , at any rate , they can be better stu died in the Teu tonic countries to which they were native than in this remote ou tpost of

u their infl ence . Preceding the Saxons in Britain — ‘ by many centuries were the Celts the Ancient Britons —who themselves possessed a rich myth o

1 w e sdte Od n e sdee Th u n re sd ae late Th u rre sdae g, W g, g ( r , g) , an d Fri e dae S ee e r n e s dae is ad a t e d th e L atin g g. t ( ) g p from , a l m i d S a ies . A MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

a u u logy , the tr dition of which , tho gh obsc red , has

u mi e never been qu ite lost. In s ch fa liar nam s as

’ ‘ ‘ u e n L dgat , called after a legendary good ki g

’ Lu d who was once the Celtic god Llfidd ; in popu lar folk an d fairy tales ; in the stories of

u but Arth r and his knights , some of whom are British divinities in disgu ise ; and in certain of

o u r the wilder legends of early saints, we have fragments of the Celtic mythology handed down tenacious ly by Englishmen who had qu ite as

mu ch of the Celt as of the Saxon in their blood. To what extent the formerly prevalent belief as to the practical extinction of the Celtic in habitants of o ur is lands at the hands of the Saxons has been reconsidered of late years may be j udged from the dictu m of one of the most

u u . recent st dents of the s bj ect, Mr Nicholson , in

‘ ‘ r the preface to his Keltic Resea ches . There is

’ u L good gro nd to believe , he says, that ancashire ,

' S taflordsh ire s West Yorkshire, , Worce tershire,

e e i u Warwickshire , Leic st rsh re, R tland , Cambridge

u shire , Wiltshire, Somerset, and part of S ssex , are as Keltic as Perths hire and North Mu nster ; that

r r i u Cheshire , Sh opshire, He efordsh re, Monmo th

Kelt ic Resea rch es : S tud ies in the H is to ry a n d Distribu tion o the A n ien t G id elic L a n ua e a n d P l b E d f c o g g eop e) , y ward illia s B n h ls n A Lo n d n 1 . 904. W m yro Nic o o , M o , THE CELTS AND THEIR MYTHOLOGY

u shire, Glo cestershire , Devon , Dorset, North am ton sh ire u p , H ntingdonshire, and Bedfordshire — are more so and equ al to North Wales and Leinster ; while Bu ckinghamshire and Hertford shire exceed even this degree and are on a level

u t l with So th Wales and Uls er . Cornwa l, of

u n co rse , is more Keltic than any other E glish

u u r co nty , and as m ch so as A gyll , Inverness

’

i u . sh re, or Conna ght If these statements are

u u u well fo nded , Celt and Te ton m st be very equ ally woven into the fabric of the British nation . Bu t even the Celts themselves were not the

r first inhabitants of o u islands. Their earliest arrivals fou nd men already in po ssession . We ’ e ‘ m et with their relics in the long barrows , and

u - u ded ce from them a short , dark , long sk lled race of slight physiqu e and in a relatively low stage of

u n civilisation . Its origin is ncertai , and so is all

u u we think we know of it, and , tho gh it m st have

u - u greatly infl enced Aryan Celtic c stom and myth, it wou ld be hard to put a finger definitely u pon any po int where the two different cu ltu res have

met and blended .

We know more abou t its conqu erors . Accord

ing to the most generally accepted theory , there were two main streams of Aryan emigra MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

- tion from the Continent into a non Aryan Britain , bo th belonging to the same lingu istic branch of the — — Indo - European stock the Celtic bu t speaking

o u — e variant dialects of that t ng e Goidelic, or Ga lic ,

and Brythonic , or British . Of these the Goidels

were the earlier, their first settlers having arrived 1 5 B C 000 00 . . at some period between and , while

Britten es the Brythons , or , seem to have appeared

u i u B C abo t the th rd cent ry . . , steadily encroaching u u un pon and o sting their forer ners . With the s us Be l ee Brython m t be considered the g , who

u r made , still later , an extensive invasion of So the n

bu t e e u Britain , who s em to have b en event ally assimilated to , or absorbed in , the Brythons , to

u l u whom they were , at any rate ling istical y, m ch l . u u akin In physiq e, as well as in lang age, there was probably a difference between the Brythons

ad and the Goidels , the latter containing some mixture o f the broad - head ed stock of Central

u u E rope , and it is tho ght also that the Goidels mu st have become in cou rse of time modified by

u - u - r admixt re with the dark, long sk lled non A yan race . The Romans appear to have recognised

u hi more than one type in Britain , disting is ng between the inhabitants of the coast regions

1 Rh s Celti Brita in 1904 an d Rh s an d Br n mo r- y , c , , y y J on es ,

The Welsh Ha k 1906 . w , THE CELTS AND THEIR MYTHOLOGY

u nearest to France , who resembled the Ga ls , and

u - - the r ddy haired , large limbed natives of the

North , who seemed to them more akin to the

Germans . To these may be added certain people of West Britain , whose dark complexions and cu rly hair cau sed Tacitu s to regard them as immigrants from Spain , and who probably belonged 1 either wholly or largely to the aboriginal stock . We have no records of the clash and counter

u clash of savage warfare which m st, if this theory be taken as correct, have marked , first, the con u o f q est the aborigines by the Goidels , and afterwards the displacement of the Goidels by s the later branches of the Celt . Nor do we know when or how the Goidels crossed from

Britain to Ireland . All that we can state with approximate certainty is that at the time of the Roman domination the Brythons were in posses u sion of all Britain so th of the Tweed , with the exception of the extreme West, while the Goidels

u had most of Ireland , the Isle of Man, C mberland ,

N u D orth and So th Wales , Cornwall , and evon, as w u ell as , in the opinion of some a thorities, the W 2 est Highlands of Scotland , the primitive dark

1 Ta t s A i la h a x i i u . . c , gr co , c p 2 It is h e e h eld b th e s th at th e G id els S tlan d , ow v r, y o r o of co did n ot rea ch t h at coun try (from Ire lan d) b e fore th e Ch ristian

e ra . MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

race being still fou nd in certain portions of Ireland

c and of West Britain , and in S otland north of the

Grampian Hills . di It is the beliefs , tra tions , and legends of these

s u x Goidel and Brythons , and their more nmi ed

e a d scendants , the modern G els and Cymry , which

make u p o u r mythology . Nor is the stock of them by any means so scanty as the remoteness and obscu rity of the age in which they were still vital will probably have led the reader to expect . We can gather them from six different sou rce s ( 1) D edications to Celtic divinities u pon altars

t u e i and votive ablets , large n mb rs of wh ch have been fou nd both on the Continent and in ou r

i s 2 u own sland ; ( ) Irish , Scottish , and Welsh man

u di scripts which , tho gh they date only from me ae val r u times , contain , copied f om older doc ments , legends preserved from the pagan age ; ( 3) S o — called histories notably that of Ge oflTey of

u e u Monmo th, writt n in the twelfth cent ry which consist largely of mythical matter dis gu ised as a record of the ancient British kin gs ; 4 i ( ) Early hagiology, in wh ch the myths of gods of the pagan Goidels and Brythons have been taken over by the eccles ias ts and fathered u pon the patron saints of the Ce ltic Church ; ( 5) The grou ndwork of British bardic tradition u pon 6 THE CELTS AND THEIR MYTHOLOGY

l which the Welsh , Breton , and Norman minstre s ,

l w - and , fol o ing them , the romance writers of all the more civilised Eu ropean countries founded

u 6 u the Arth rian cycle ; ( ) And lastly , pon folk

u bu t u tales which , altho gh lately red ced to r i w it ng , are probably as old , or even older, than

any of the other sources . A few lines mu st here be spared to show the reader the natu re of the mediaeval manuscripts

u o r j st mentioned . They consist of larger smaller

u u s n vell m or parchment vol me , i to which the scribe of a great family or of a monastery labori

o usl t l w as y copied wha ever lore , godly or world y, u deemed most worthy of perpetuation . They th s contain very varied matter - portions of the Bible ; lives of saints and works attribu te d to them ; genealogies and learned treatises ; as well as the poems of the bards and the legends of tribal

had heroes who been the gods of an earlier age .

u th e The most famo s of them are , in Irish , Books

Dun o f of the Cow , Leinster, of Lecan, of Bally

an d mote , and the Yellow Book of Lecan ; in

Welsh the so - called Fou r Ancient Bo oks of

l s — Wa e the Black Book of Carmarthen , the

u Book of Ane rin , the Book of Taliesin , and the — Re d Bo ok of Hergest together with the White h Book of Rhydderch . Taken as a whole , t ey date MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN from the beginning of the twelfth centu ry to the end of the sixteenth ; the oldest being the Book

Dun w of the Cow , the compiler of hich died in

Bu t u u the year 1 106 . m ch of their s bstance is

— t - far older can , indeed , be proved to an e date the — seventh century while the mythical tale s and

u poems m st, even at this earlier age , have long us been traditional. They preserve for , in how

i e a u ever d stort d form , m ch of the legendary lore of the Celts . The Irish manuscripts have suffered less sophis i a io n l t c t than the We sh. In them the gods still appear as divine and the heroes as the pagans they were ; while their Welsh congeners pose as i n i k ngs or k ghts , or even as dignitaries of the B i u . u t Chr stian Ch rch the more primitive, less

u u ad lterated , Irish myths can be bro ght to throw

u s u light pon the Wel h , and th s their accretions can be stripped from them till they appear in

u hi their tru e g ise . In t s way scholarship is gradu ally u nveiling a mythology whose appeal is

o ur i is not merely to patriot sm . In itself it often

u A t u poetic and lofty , and , in its disg ise of r h rian

h as u i e romance , it infl enced modern art and l t ra tu re only less potently than that mighty inspira — tion the mythology of Ancient Gree ce .

8

MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

merchants . Next comes Apollo , the divine

n healer, and he is followed by Mi erva, the teacher

u u u u sk y of sef l trades , by J piter, who r les the , l and by Mars , the director of battles . This does

u e a not , of co rse , mean that Ca s r considered the gods of the Gauls to be ex actly those of the Romans bu t that imaginary beings represented as carrying o u t mu ch the same function s as the

u u t an d Roman Merc ry, Apollo , Minerva , J pi er ,

Mars were worshipped by them . In practice , too , the Romans readily assimilated the deities of conqu ered peoples to their own ; hence it is that

u ee in the inscriptions discovered in Ga l , and ind d

o ur o wn s fin d s in i lands, we the name of Celtic divinities preceded by those of the Roman gods — they were cons idered to resemble as Mercuri u s

Artaios Gran n os Be lisama , Apollo , Minerva ,

u S ucello s a ul . J piter , and Mars C m os

’ Modern discoveries qu ite be ar o u t Caesar s statement as to the importance to the Gau lis h

u r min d of the god whom he called Merc y .

Numerou s place - names attest it in modern

France . Costly sta tue s sto od in his honou r ;

du u one , of massive silver, was g p in the gardens

u u of the L xembo rg , while another, made in bronze by a Gre ek artist for the great te mple of the

D e Bella Gallic iv 1 . o , . 7 I O THE GODS OF THE CONTINENTAL CELTS

u u Pu DOme Arverni pon the s mmit of the y de , is said to have stood a hu ndred and twenty feet high , and to have taken ten years to finish . Yet it would seem to have been rather for the war - god th at some at least of the warlike Gauls reserved their chief worship . The regard in which he was held is proved by two of his names or titles

‘ ‘ Rigisamos ( Most and AlbiOrix ( King

u u u of the M ch hono r, too , m st have

u Gran n os been paid to a Ga lish Apollo, , lord

- - of healing waters, from whom Aix la Chapelle

u Gran n i u u (anciently called Aq ae ) , Gra x and Ea x

Graun n es Wur , in the Vosges , and Granheim , in te mbur b g, took their names, for we are told y 1 Dion Cass iu s that the Roman Emperor Caracalla invoked him as the equ al of the better - known

u Ae sculapiu s and Serapis . Another Ga lish

‘ ’ ‘ ‘ ’ To u tiOrix Apollo , ( Lord of the People ) has u won , however , a far wider, if somewhat vicario s

u fame . Accidentally confo nded with Theodoric the Goth, his mythical achievements are, in all li probabi ty, responsible for the wilder legends connected with that histo rical hero u nder his title 2 of Dietrich von Bern . Bu t the gods of the Continental Celts are being

1 lx x vn . I5 .

9 - Rh s H ibbe t L e tu es 1886 . 30 32 . y , r c r for , pp 1 1 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN treate d in this series 1 far more competently than is his in the power of the present writer . For ’ u u p rpose and his readers , the only Ga lish deities who need be noti ced here are some whose names

o reappear in the written myths of u r own Islands . In the oldest Irish and Welsh manu scripts we meet with personages whose names and attribu te s identify them with divinities whom we know to have been worshipped in the Celtic world abroad . Ogrn a combines in Gaelic mythology the char acte rs of the god of eloqu ence and poetry and the

u s professional champion of his circle , the T ath

Dan an n - c u Dé , while a second ent ry Greek writer

u e u mi called L cian describ s a Ga lish Og os, who , though he was represented as armed with the clu b

- and lion skin of Heracles , was yet considered the exponent of persu asive speech . He was depicted as drawing men after him by golden cords attached

u ‘ from his tong e to their ears and , as the old ’ u man eloq ent, whose varied experience made his wdrds e worth list ning to , he was shown as wrinkled

o and bald . Alt gether ( as a native assu red

u u u L cian) , he ta ght that tr e power resides in

u u wise words as m ch as in do ghty deeds , a lesson

1 Celt ic R i ion b s s An w l t o W h th e e el P e E . it g , y rof or y , om wr r h e re tak es t h e Opportun ity of grate fu lly ackn owledgin g h is in d ebte d n ess aluable h e l to a ds th e a in th is b k for v p w r m k g of oo . 1 2 THE GODS OF THE CONTINENTAL CELTS

u 1 not yet q ite forgotten by the Celt. In the

u u in Continental L g s, whose name still cl gs to the

s cities of Lyon , Laon , and Leyden , all anciently

’ called Lugudfmum ( ‘ Lfigu s s we may Claim to see that important figu re of the Goidelic

Lu legends , g of the Long Hand . With the

u Bri in du Ga lish goddess g , of whom mention is

u made in a dedicatory tablet fo nd at Volnay,

u near Bea ne , we may connect Brigit, the Irish Minerva or Vesta who passed down into saint 2 - a ship as Saint Bridget . The war god C mulos

u u Coa l is possibly fo nd in Ireland as C mhal ( ) ,

u r Belin u s a ocr father of the famo s Fi m ; in , an p y phal British king who reappears in romance as

Morte Da rthwr Balin of the , we probably have the

u Bélén os u u Ga lish , whom the Latin writer A soni s mentions as a sun - god served by Dru ids ; while

Ma cn os p , identified by the Romans with Apollo, we find in th e Welsh stories as Mabon son of

Mo dron a u . ( M trona) , a companion of Arth r It is by a cu riou s irony that we must now look for the stories of Celtic gods to two islands once considered so remote and u ncivilised as hardly to belong to the Celtic world at all .

1 - Rh s Hibbe t L e tures . 13 2 0. y , r c , pp 2 ‘ CRmtIIu s se e ms t o h ave be e n a mor e import an t god th an h is

u a i n ith a s . 10 su e st s P e ss R oman eq t o w M r ( p ) gg . rof or Rhys ‘ ’ - - m a s J u it e . . 2 1 an d hi b k alls h i a . 63 t s . c M r p r Cf pp , of oo 1 3 C H A P T E R I I I

THE GODS OF THE INS ULAR CELTS

IT u wo ld be impossible, in so small a space as we ff all bu t can a ord , to mention , or indeed any a fe w , of the swarming deities of ancient Britain and Ireland , most of them , in all probability,

u extremely local in their nat re . The best we can do is to look for a fixed point, and this we find in certain gods whose names and attribu tes are very largely common to both the Goidels and

u the Brythons . In the old Gaelic literat re they are called the Tu ath a Dé Dan an n ( Tootth a da e

‘ ’ ( lem ma u ) , the Tribe of the Goddess Dan , and

‘ ’ th e u DOn in Welsh doc ments, the Children of

’ r and the Child en of Llyr .

u—o r u s m Dan Don , as the name is ometi es — spelt seems to have been considered by the

s Goidel as the ancestress of the gods, who collee tivel y took their title from her . We also fin d mention of another ancient female deity of some I4 THE GODS OF THE INSULAR CELTS

An u An a what similar name , or , worshipped in Mu nster as a goddess of prosperity and abu n l s dance , who was likewise de cribed as the mother —J of the Irish Pantheon Well she u sed to cherish ’ - u the gods, wrote a commentator on a ninth cent ry 2 a u m th o Irish gloss ry . T rning to the British y u logy , we find that some of the principal fig res in what seems to be its oldest stratu m are called sons or daughters of DOn : Gwydion son of DOD ; Govan n on son of Don ; Arianrod dau ghter of

n Bu t s e u DO . Arianrod is al o t rmed the da ghter

e of B li , which makes it reasonably probable that

Beli , who otherwise appears as a mythical king

’ DOn s of the Brythons , was considered to be His u er Bil . e consort Gaelic co nt part is perhaps , the ancestor of the Milesians, the first Celtic

u settlers in Ireland, and tho gh Bilé is nowhere connected with Danu in the scattered myths

u s which have come down to , the analogy is

Su ggestive . Bilé and Beli seem to represent on Gaelic and British soil respectively the Dis 3 Pater from whom Caesar tells u s the Gau ls believed themselves to be descended , the two

1 ‘ ’ Coir An ma n n . Th e Ch i e a e s . T an slat e d b Dr o c of N m r y .

k n Iri t ex te Wh i tley S to e s i scl e T . ’ ’ 2 T n slat e d b O Don o v Cormac s Glossa ry . r a y an an d edit e d by S tok e s .

ella Galli vi. 18 . D e B co, I S MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

Bile u DOD shadowy pairs , and Dan , Beli and , standing for the divin e Father and Mother alik e of gods and men.

in Llyr, the head of the other family , appears

Lir i Lér en . o Gael c myths as (g ) , b th names pro i ’ bably mean ng the Sea . Though ranked among

Tu ath a Dan an n Lér the Dé , seems to descend if i l from a d f erent l ne , and plays ittle part in the l stories of the ear ier history of the Irish gods , though he is prominent in what are perhaps equ ally ancient legends concerning Finn and the

Fenians . On the other hand , there are details concerning the British Llyr which sugge st that he may have been borrowed by the Brythons His a Iw from the Goidels . wife is c lled e rydd

r e Lle diaith ( I eland) , and he himself is term d Llyr ,

‘ ’ L1 - u i.e . r u y of the Half Tong e, which is s pposed to mean that his langu age could be bu t imper

l u fe ct . s y nderstood He gave its name to Leice ter,

i - l L r orig nally Llyr cestre, ca led in Welsh Caer y , h u Ge ofire u while , t ro gh y of Monmo th, he has

’ ‘ ’ u become Shakespeare s King Lear, and is fo nd in hagiology as the head of the first of the ‘ Th ree Chief Holy Families of the Isle of

’ Britain .

o Ler B th and Llyr are , however, better known to mythology by their sons than from their own 1 6

MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN be en one of the most vivid of the figu res of the l T a h a Dan an n . u u t Dé Clad in his inv lnerable mai , l su n with j ewe led helmet which flashed like the , robed in h is cloak of invisibility woven from the

his fleeces of the flocks of Paradise, and girt with

’ sword ‘ Retaliator which never failed to slay ;

‘ ’ u o h o rse S le n did whether riding p n his p Mane, which went swift as the spring wind over land or

’ o - i sea , or voyaging in his b at Wave Sweeper, wh ch

u needed neither sail nor oar nor r dder , he pre sents as striking a pictu re as can be fou nd in any

r mythology . The especial pat on of sailors , he was ’ n ‘ s i voked by them as The Lord of Headland , while the merchants claimed that he was th e i fou nder of their gu ild . He was connected espe c cally with the Isle of Man ; eu hemerising legend

n asserts that he was its first ki g, and his grave ,

is hi s o ut which t rty yard long , is still pointed at A u u Peel Castle . c rio s tradition credits him with

a three legs, and it is these limbs , rranged like the spokes of a wheel , which appear on the arms of

. His n u n the Island British a alog e , Manawydda , can be seen less clearly through the mists of myth . On the one hand he appears as a kind

u u - — u a ricul of c lt re hero h nter , craftsman , and g tu rist ; while on the other he is the enemy of

ben e flce n t those gods who seem most to man. 1 8 THE GODS OF THE INSULAR CELTS

u One of his achievements was the b ilding , in the u O penins la of Gower , of the Fortress of e th and

An n oe th u , which is described as a gr esome prison made of hu man bones ; and in it he is said to have incarcerated no less a person than the famou s Arthu r . Whether or not we may take the children of

Llyr to have been gods of the sea, we can hardly go wrong in considering the children of Don as having come to be regarded as deities of the sky . — ’ Constellations bore their names Cas smpeia s ’ o u Ll s Don Chair was called D n s Co rt ( y ) , the ’ Arian rod s Ca er Ar n Northern Crown , Castle ( ia/ rod l ' ) , and the Mi ky Vay , the Castle of Gwydion

Cat er Gw dio n . do ( y ) Taken as a whole , they not present su ch close analogies to the Irish Tu ath a

D an an n é D as do the Children of Llyr . Never th ele ss to , there are striking parallels extending what wou ld seem to have been some of the greatest of their gods . In Irish myth we find

Nu ada Ar e tlam u u g , and in British , N dd , or Ll dd

Llaw Ere in t , both epithets having the same mean

‘ ’ ing of the Silver Hand . What it signified we do not know ; in Irish literature there is a lame but story to accou nt for it (see p . if there was a kin dred British version it has be en lost. Bu t the attribu tes of both Nu ada and Nudd 1 9 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

( Lludd) show them as the kind of deity whom the Romans wou ld have equ ated with their

Nu ada u Tu ath a Ju piter . r les over the Dé

Dan an n u u , while Ll dd , or N dd, appears as a mythical British king, who changed the name ’ ’ of his favou rite city from Trin o van tu m ( Ge o flrey s

’ u w be New Troy ) to Caer L dd , hich afterwards

e u came London. He is said to have be n b ried at

u t L dga e , a legend which we may perhaps connect with th e tradition that a temple of the Britons

’

u . formerly occ pied the site of St Pau l s . However h hi t is may be , we know that he was wors pped

u u at Lydney in Glo cestershire , for the r ins of

u r his sanct ary have been discovered the e , with DE VO N DE n s O NTI D . M. varied i criptions to him as ,

No n o x rr DEO NUDE NTE M. l , and , as well as a smal

u e n plaq e of bronze , probably repres nti g him ,

u s u u ur which shows a yo thf l fig e, with head

u u d u - s rro nde by solar rays , standing in a fo r horse chariot , and attended by two winged genii and 1 ‘ M ’ two Tritons. The of the inscription may

a in u AG A' have re d f ll M NO , M IMO, or , more pro 2 ART w u bably , M I , which o ld be the Roman , or

- wa e Romano British , y of d scribing the god as the

1 A n a h o n th e s ub e t e n title d R ma n Ant i uities mo ogr p j c , o q Pa rk Gl estershire b h v a t L dn e ou t e R e . . H . Ba t h u st y y , c , y W r , w as pu blish e d in 1879 . 7 h l P e sso R s l win Dr. Hub n e rof r y , fo o g r . 2 0 THE GODS OF THE INS ULAR CELTS

warrior he appears as in Irish legend . With him u , tho gh not necessarily as his consort, we

u u m st rank a goddess of war whose name , Morrig

‘ ( the Great attests her importance, and who may ha ve been the same as Macha Badb ( ‘ Carrion and Nemon whose name suggests comparison l emeton a - with the British N , a war goddess to h whom an inscription as been fou nd at Bath . u l The wife of Ll dd , however , in We sh myth is

Gw ar bu t her called y , name also implies fighting, ‘ ’ 2 hi for it means gore . The c ldren of both the Gaelic and the British god play noteworthy parts

Tad Tea u e Nu ada in Celtic legend . g ( g ) , son of ,

’ u was the grandfather , pon his mother s side , of

u w dd u . u the famo s Finn mac Co l G yn , son of N , originally a deity of the Underworld , has passed down into living folk - lore as king of the Tylw ytiz

Te . g, the Welsh fairies Another of the sons of Don whom we als o fin d in the ranks of the Tu ath a Dé Dan an n is the 3 - Go van n o n u god of Smith craft , , in Irish Goibni

i n n Go bn . (gen . e ) The Gaelic deity appears in

1 e e n h s h la . Gaido z Th e t wo are id e n tifi ed by t h Fr c c o r, M , h e u h e ld bu t th e eq uat ion is n o t e ve ryw r e p . 2 Rh s S tud ies in the Arth ur ian L e en d . 16 9. y , g , p ’ ’ 3 ‘ an s Th e Als alle d in e lsh Go v n io n Han . 1161; e o c W , y m ’ An ie n c t .

2 1 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

mythical literature as the forger of the weapons of h is divine companions and the brewer of an ale of immortality ; and in folk - tales as the

b a u Gob an S er, the fairy architect to whom pop lar fancy has attribu ted the rou nd towers and the

u early churches of Ireland . Of his British analog e

but u we know less, he is fo nd , in company with

r u his b other Amaethon , the god of H sbandry, engaging in a wonderfu l feat of agricu ltu re at

i u the bidd ng of Arth r.

Bu t , greater than any of the other sons of

u Don wo ld seem to have been Gwydion , who

‘ ’ a s u u - appe rs in Briti h myth as a C lt re Hero, the

e c an d i t a her of arts giver of g fts to his fellows . His name and attribu tes have caus ed more than one leading mythologist to conj ecture whether he may not have been identical with a still

a u u i gre ter fig re , the Te tonic Woden , or Od n . l w Professor Rhys , especial y , has dra n , in his

Hibbert Lectu res 1886 ( ) on Celtic Heathendom , a remarkable series of parallels between the two

u characters , as they are fig red respectively in Celtic 1 u and Te tonic myth. Both were alike pre eminent in war - craft and in the arts of story

li an d u tel ng , poetry , and magic , both gained thro gh painful experiences the lore which they placed

2 - 2 8 . Pp. 304

2 2 THE GODS OF THE INSULAR CELTS at the service of mankind This is represented on the Ce ltic side by the poetical ins piration which Gwydion acqu ired throu gh his su fferings i wh le in the power of the gods of Hades, and

u u in Te tonic story by two dra ghts of wisdom , one which Woden obtained by gu ile from Gund

fled u S u tu n , da ghter of the giant p g, and another which he cou ld only get by pledging one of his

S o kk - eyes to its owner mimi , the Giant of the

u i Abyss . Each was born of a mysterio s , l ttle known father and mother ; each had a love whose

a name was ssociated with a symbolic wheel, who posed as a maiden and was furiou sly indignant at 1 the birth of her children ; and each lost his so n

u u i u in a c rio sly similar fash on , and so ght for him u sorrowf lly to bring him back to the world . Still more striking are the strange myths which tell how each of them could create human o u t of vegetable life ; Woden made a man and a

‘ o u t e woman of tr es , while Gwydion enchanted ’ u a woman from blossoms as a bride for Lle , on whom his u nnatural mother had ‘ laid a ’ destiny that he shou ld never have a wife of Bu t u the people of this earth . the eq ation ,

u u u fascinating tho gh it is, is m ch disco nted by the fact that the only traces we find of

a e Bu t se e n ote 2 o n followin g p g . 2 3 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN Gwydion in Britain are a few stories connected

with certain place - names in the Welsh counties

of Carnarvonshire and Merionethshire . This

u ee u n wo ld s m to s ggest that , like so ma y of

u his the divine fig res of the Celts, fame was

merely a local one, and that he is more likely to

‘ ’ have been simply the lord of Mona and Arvon,

s h im as a Welsh bard call , than so great a deity as the Teu tonic god he at first sight seems to

e e u res mble . His n arest Celtic eq ivalents we may

‘ u i u find in the Ga lish Ogm os, fig red as a Heracles who won his way by persu asion rather than by

force, and the Gaelic Ogma, at once champion

u s Dé Dan an n u of the T ath , god of Literat re and

u Eloq ence , and inventor of the ogam alphabet .

m — o It is another of the fa ily of Don Arianr d ,

’ o the goddess of the constellation C rona Borealis ,

to which she sometime gave her name , which

’ u ‘ Wh ee l l was pop larly interpreted as Silver , who appears in con nection with Gwydion as

u the mother of Lle , or Llew, depicted as the 2 u w i a helper of his ncles , G yd on and Am ethon ,

Th e A ian d in ea lie e ls h Aran ro t ma ha e be e n form r ro , r r W , y v e volved by pop ular e tymology u n de r t h e in flue n ce of a ria n s il e ( v r) . 3 Lle u is s ome tim es treate d as th e son of Gwydion an d A ian d t h u h th e e is n o di e t e n i r ro , o g r r c state m t t o t h s e ffe ct in e ls h lite atu e an d t h e in t h as be e n e lab ate d b P e ss W r r , po or y rof or h l o n th e a n l s i e R s ain a ila lt i th s . Th e a t y m y ogy of m r C c my f c , 2 4

MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

k sun u it seemed li e the , and none co ld gaze

di a stea ly at it . He was the acknowledged m ster m of all arts, both of war and of peace . A ong his possessions were a magic spear which slew

boun d u u . of itself, and a of most wonderf l q alities

- His rod sling was seen in heaven as the rainbow,

’ ’ ‘ u and the Milky Way was called L g s chain .

t sun - G l First accep ed as the god of the oide s , it is now more u su al to regard him as a personification

fir e . to of There is , however , evidence show that a certain amou nt of confu sion be t ween the two great sou rces of light and heat is a not u nnatural 1 - phenomenon of the myth making mind.

u This similarity in name, title, and attrib tes u between Bilé and Beli , Dan and Don , Ler and a w Llyr, Bron and Bran , Manann n and Mana yddan , Nu ada and Nudd (or Nemon and

Néméton a Govan n o n u Lu , and Goibni , and g and Lleu h as suggested to several compe tent scholars that the Brythons received them from the other branch of the Celts either by inherit ance from the Goidels in Britain or by direct But borrowing from the Goidels of Ireland . su ch a case has not yet been made ou t con ~ vin cin l is in a un t g y, nor it necessary order to cco

‘ Th e Ri - V e da in s t an e t e lls u s t h at A n i F i e is g , for c , g ( r ) ’ r a th e S un in t h e n in Su a is A n i at n i h t . S ti y ( ) mor g, ry g g 2 6 THE GODS OF THE INSULAR CELTS for similar names and myths among kindred races of the same stock . Whatever may be the explanation of their likeness, these names

bu t o u t are , after all, a few taken of two long lists

u of divine characters . Nat rally, too, deities whose attribu tes are alike appear under different names in the myths of the two branches of the u bu t Celts . Specialised gods co ld have been few in type ; while their names might vary with every tribe . Some of these it may be interest ing to compare briefly , as we have already done in the case of the British Gwydion and the Gaelic

Ogma, The Irish Dagda, whose name (from an

Da o dévo s u earlier g ) , wo ld seem to have meant the ’ ’ ‘ u ‘ n good god, whose ca ldron, called the U dry, fed all the races of the earth , and who played the seasons into being with his mystic harp , may ’ be compared with Don s brother, the wise and

u j st Math , who is represented as a great magician who teaches his lore to his nephew Gwydion .

’ u u Ang s , one of the Dagda s sons, whose m sic

u ca sed all who heard to follow it, and whose

s a u ki ses became birds which s ng of love , wo ld

u be, as a divinity of the tender passion , a co nter 1 o f Dw n Dw n we n u part y , or y , the British Ven s,

1 ’ e n e sse d Dw n Th e h u h th is Dwyn w e n m a s th e Bl y . c rc of

- godde ss sain t is Llan ddwyn in An gle s e y . 2 7 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

e as who was , even by the later Welsh bards , hymn d

’ ’

a . au e the s int of love Brigit, the Dagda s d ght r,

u in patroness of poetry , may find her analog e

‘ Ke rridwen u the Welsh , the owner of a ca ldron

’ Dia n ket of Inspiration and Science . Diancecht ( ) the Goidelic god of Healing seems to have no

u bu t certain eq ivalent in Brythonic myth , Mider, — a deity of the Underworld though his name would bring him rather into lin e with the British

Me d r c y , who , however, appears in Welsh roman e — only as a wonderfu l marksman may be here Pw ll considered in connection with y , the hero of a legendary cycle apparently loc al to Dyved R Deme tia u ( the oman province of , and , ro ghly,

- Pw ll re re u . so th west Wales) y , who may perhaps p sent the same god as the Arawn who is connected c with him in mythic roman e , appears as an

Underworld deity , friendly with the children of

Llyr and opposed to the sons of Don , and with

u him are gro ped his wife , Rhiannon (in older

‘ ’ Ri an ton a u his Celtic g , or Great ' een ) and

Pr déri u d t son y , who s ccee s his fa her as king

An n wvn of Annwn or ( the British Other World) ,

is jointly with Manawyddan son of Llyr . He represented as the antagonist of Gwydion, who is

u u event ally his conq eror and slayer. But even th e briefest account of the Celtic 2 8 THE GODS OF THE INSULAR CELTS gods would be incomplete withou t some mention u u of a second gro p of fig res of British legend , some of whom may have owed their names to history , with which local myths became incor po rated . These are the characters of early Welsh tradition who appear afterwards as the kings and knights and ladies of mediaeval Arthu r u ian romance . There is Arth r himself, half god ,

u Gwen h w var— s half king , with his q een y who e

’ ‘ Le odo ran i father, Tennyson s g , the K ng of ’ Came liard O rvan , was the giant gy , patron and perhaps originator of bardism—and Gwalchmai

Medrawt u u u l and , who , tho gh they are s al y called his nephews , seem in older story to have been considered his sons . A greater figu re in some respects even than Arthu r m u st have been

a u Myrddin , a mythical person ge do btless to be distinguished from his namesake the supposed sixth - centu ry bard to whom are attribu ted the poems in the Black Book of Carmarthen . Promi nent , too, are Urien , who sometimes appears as a

u s powerf l prince in North Britain , and sometime

u as a deity with similar attrib tes to those of Bran , the son of Llyr , and Kai, who may have been (as seems likely from a passage in the Ma bin ogion ’ story of ‘ Kulh wch and Olwen ) a personification C of fire, or the mortal hieftain with whom tradi 2 9 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN tion h as as sociated Caer Gai in Merioneths hire . e and Cai Hir in Glamorganshire . Connect d , too ,

’ by a loose thread with Arthu r s story are the figu res of what is thought to have been the

in indepe ndant mythic cycle of March (K g Mark) , his u Ess llt ul Dr s tan q een y (Ise t) , and his nephew y , T r s tan . s or y , (Sir Tristrem) All the e , and many s u others , eem to be inhabitants of an obsc re borderland where vanishing myth and dou btfu l history have mingled . The memory of this cycle has passed down into living folk - lore among the descendants of those

u Brythons who , fleeing from the Saxon conq erors , found new homes u pon the other side of the

English Channel . Little Britain has joined with

u Great Britain in cherishing the fame of Arth r,

z while Myrddin (in Breton , Mar in) , described as e all the mast r of knowledge, owner of all wealth ,

n l and lord of Fairyland , can o y be the folk

o f e s lore representative a once gr at deity . The e two stand o u t clearly ; while the other characters of the Brython ic mythology have lost their in divi

u d alities , to merge into the nameless hosts of the

R ow ed r Kor ri a n dwarfs ( ) , the fai ies ( g ) , and the

- i Mor a n t u water sp rits ( g ) of Bre on pop lar belief.

30 C H A P T E R I V

THE MYTHICAL HISTORY o r IRELAND

RD G ACCO IN to the early monkish annalists , who sought to nullify the pagan traditions against which they fou ght by tu rning them into a pseu do e history , Ireland was first inhabit d by a lady

Cess air named and her followers , shortly after the

- u flood . They describe her as a grand da ghter of Noah ; bu t it is more likely that she represented a tribal goddess or divine an cestress of the l - pre Celtic people in Ireland . Whoever she may u have been , her infl ence was not lasting . She

all perished , with her race , leaving a free field to her su ccessors . We say field with intention ; for Ireland con sisted then of only one plain , treeless and grass

bu t n i less , watered by three lakes and ne rivers .

u Cessair The race that s cceeded , however, soon

Parth olo n set to work to remedy this . , who

ti ita n i d e dit i n R h s Cel B i Th . 2 88 . y , c r , r o , p 3 1 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN landed with twenty - fou r males and twenty - fou r females u pon the first of May ( the Celtic feast of enlarged the island to fou r plains

with seven new lakes . The newcomers them

n a u selves also i cre sed and m ltiplied , so that in three centu ries their original forty - eight members u B t . u had become five tho sand , on the three u i h ndredth anniversary of the r coming , an epi u demic sprang p which annihilated them . They gathered together u pon the original first - created

n u plai to die , and the place of their f neral is still

u u . marked by the mo nd of Tallaght , near D blin

Before these early colonists , Ireland had been inhabited by a race of demons or giants , described

u z u as monstro s in si e and hideo s in shape , many

s a l of them being footle s and h nd ess , while others

h ad . Fomor the heads of animals Their name ,

’ i ‘ u 1 i wh ch means nder wave , and the r descent

n u ‘ from a goddess named Dom , or the Deep , seem to show them as a personification of the sea waves . To the Celtic mind the sea represented

F omo rach darkness and death , and the appear as the antithesis of the be n e fice n t gods of light and

Parth olon life . and his people had to fight them

u u for a foothold in Ireland , and did so s ccessf lly .

1 H ibbert L e t u res 94 Rh s 5 . y , c , p . 7 Ibid . . 598 , p . 32

MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

worship . At any rate , we never find them in con

flict i i , l ke the other races , w th the gigantic and

n . demo iac powers On the contrary , they them

an d Fo morach u selves the alike str ggle against,

u . and are conq ered by , the next people to arrive T Tu ath a Dé Dan an n hese are the , in whom all serious students now recognis e the gods of the s Celts in Ireland , and who , as we have een, parallel the earlier divinities of the Celts in

a u Britain . They are v rio sly fabled to have come u from the sky , or else from the north or the so th of the world . Wherever they came from , they landed in Ireland u pon the same mystic First of

n u u May, bringi g with them their fo r chief treas res

’ —Nu ada s s sword , whose blow needed no econd ,

u hi u L gs living lance, w ch req ired no hand to

’ u wield it in battle, the Dagda s ca ldron, whose

u e u s pply of food never fail d , and the mysterio s

‘ ’ u o ut Stone of Destiny , which wo ld cry with a

u to h man voice acclaim a rightfu l king . This sto ne is said by some to be identical with o ur own ’ r n Co o ation Stone at Westminster, which was

u r L bu t is bro ght f om Scone by Edward , it more

u probable that it still stands pon the hill of Tara , where it was preserved as a kind of fetish by the i 1 early k ngs of Ireland . They had not been long

1 T r t i Se e he C on a o n S ton e . A n a h b F . S k e n e . o mo ogr p y W . 34 THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF IRELAND in occupation of the country before their presen ce e was discover d by the race in possession . After ff some parleying and o ers to partition the island ,

Mo tura—in Ma a battle , known as that of y Irish g

Tu ir' ea dh a — u , Pl in of the Pillars was fo ght near

u s Dan an n Cong , in Mayo, in which the T ath Dé

n gained the victory . Handi g over the province

u u o of Conna ght to the conq ered race, they t ok possession of the rest of Ireland , fixing their D m i a ru ca n . c pital at the historic Tara, then called

u Their conq est , however, still left them with a

u c Fomorach powerf l enemy to fa e , for the were by no means ready to accept their occu pation of

i Bu t Tuath a Dan an n u the so l . the Dé tho ght to o find a means of conciliating those h stile powers .

i Nuada The r own king, , had lost his right hand in Mo tu ra u b e the battle of y , and , altho gh it had e n

artifical h ad replaced by an one of silver, he , according to the Ce ltic law which forbade a e u e blemished p rson to sit pon the throne, be n obliged to renounce the so vereignty . They there

Elath an of Fo mo rach fore sent to , King the , so n r s inviting his B ess to ally him elf with them , u e and bec ome their r ler. This was agre d to ; and a marriage was made between Bress an d Brigit

u Cian the da ghter of the Dagda, while , a son of

d E th n iu Diancecht the god of Medicine, we ded , 3S MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

the daughter of a po werful prince of the Fo mo rach

a n med Balor. But Bress soon showed himse lf in his true

u t s i u Fomorian colou rs . He p exce s ve taxes pon his u e h m new s bj cts , and seized for i self the con e u trol of all the n cessities of life, so that the pro d gods were forced to manu al labou r to obtain food W i — and warmth. orse than th s even to the

Ga i —h e b o arded all elic m nd he got, spending none of his wealth in free feasts and p u blic enter n But u t o f tain me ts . at last he p a pers nal a front u Cairbré son l pon of Ogma, the principa bard of Tuath a Dan an n the Dé , who retorted with a satire so scathin g that boils broke o ut u pon its ’ u s s victim s face . Th s Bre s him elf became blem ish ed l e Nu ada , and was ob iged to abdicat , and , whose lost hand had meanwhile been replaced by the spells and medicaments of a so n and

u da ghter of Diancecht, came forward again to

i u u take the Kingsh p . Bress ret rned to his nder u Fomo rach sea home , and , at a co ncil of the , it was decided to make war u pon the Tuatha Dé

u o u t l n Danan , and drive them of Ire a d . Bu t now a mighty help was coming to the

’ gods . From the marriage of Diancecht s son and ’ u e Lu Balor s da ghter was born a child call d g, who swiftly grew proficient in every branch of skill 36 THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF IRELAND

e and knowledge , so that he b came known as the ’ Io ldan ach ‘ Master of all Arts . He ’ his threw in lot with his father s people, and organised the Tu ath a Dé Dananu for a great

u . str ggle Incidentally , too , he obtained , as a

blood - fin e for the mu rder of his father at the

hands of three grandsons of Ogma , the principal

magic treasu res of the world . The story of their qu est is told in the romance of ‘ The Fate of the ’ Tuire an n u ‘ Children of , one of the famo s Three ’ 1 Sorrowfu l Stories of Erin .

u o mo rach Th s, by the time the F had com

le te d Tuath a p their seven years of preparation , the Dan an n u Dé were also ready for battle . Goibni ,

the god of Smithcraft , had forged them magic weapons , while Diancecht, the god of Medicine, had made a magic well whose water healed the Bu t wou nded and brought the slain to life . this

Fomo rach well was discovered by the spies of the , and a party of them went to it secretly and filled it with stones. te u u Af r a few des ltory d els , the great fight began on the plain of Carrowmore, near Sligo, u the site , no do bt, of some prehistoric battle , the memorials of which still form the fin est collection

1 ' e n e Curr an d ublish e d in vol. iv. Tran slate d by E ug O y, p of

Atla n tis . 37 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

u t u of r de s one mon ments in the world , with the 1 x Mo tura one e ception of Carnac. It is called y the — Northern to distin gu ish it from the other Mag ll Ta iread h further to the sou th. Great chiefs fe s e In dech o f on either ide. Ogma kill d , the son

m u the goddess Do n , while Balor , the Fomor

Nu ada whose eye shot death , slew , the King of

a a Dan an n Bu t Lu u the Tu th Dé . g t rned the

u d fortunes of the fray . With a caref lly prepare magic sling - stone b e blin d ed the terrible Balor and , at the fall of their principal champion , the

o morach l u s Dan an n F ost heart, and the T ath Dé drove them back headlong to the sea. Bress

s l u u him e f was capt red , and the r le of the Giants broken for ever. Bu t the power of the Tuath a Dé D an an n was ul itself on the wane . They wo d seem , indeed , to have come to Ireland only to prepare the way for

u c to men, who were themselves iss ant, ac ording

u n e i the iversal C ltic trad tion , from the same pro u genitor and co ntry as the gods .

In the Other World dwelt Bilé and Ith , deities

- of the dead . From their watch tower they cou ld

u look over the earth and see its vario s regions . — Till now they had not noticed Ireland perhaps — on account of its slow and grad ual growth but

1 Fe u sso n Rud M n umen ts . 1 e e St n e 80 tc. rg , o o , pp , 38 THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF IRELAND

’ s at la t Ith , on a clear winter s night, descried it .

u u a u in s e c F ll of c riosity, he st rted on a to r of p tion and landed at the mou th of the Kenmare n in . J our e River y g northwards, he came, with

u o Tu ath a Dan an n his followers, p n the Dé , who were in cou ncil at a spot near Londonderry still Grian an Aile ach n called to choose a new ki g . Three sons of Ogma were the candidates—Mac

Cu i h ll Ce c t . , Mac , and Mac Greine Unable to

Tu ath a u l come to a decision , the Dé Danan ca led

u . u pon the stranger to arbitrate He co ld not, or u e u wo ld not, do so ; and , inde d , his whole attit de seemed so su spiciou s that the gods decided to bu t his kill him . This they did, spared followers ,

u d u who ret rne to their own co ntry , calling for vengeance.

Mile , the son of Bilé, was not slow in answering their appeal. He started for Ireland with his eight sons and their followers, and arrived there u pon that same mysteriou s First of May on which bo th Parth o lo n and the Tu ath a Dé Dananu them selves had first come to Ireland .

n r u u Marchi g th o gh the co ntry towards Tara , they met in su ccession three eponymou s god

u Cuill desses of the co ntry , wives of Mac , Mac h t Cec . , and Mac Greine Their names were

a Fo tla E rin ur n d Banb , , and . Each in t n dema de 39 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

Amer in u s — of g , the dr id of the Milesian as these — first legendary Irish Celts are called that, in the

u u event of their s ccess, the island sho ld be called

Am r n bu t . e i after her g promised it to them all , ,

E rin as asked last, it is her name ( in the genitive u case of Erinn which has s rvived . The legend probably crystallizes what are said to have be en

the three first names of Ireland . Soon they came to the capital and called the

Tuath a Dé Dan an n to a parley. After some dis cussion it was decided that, as the Milesians were to blame for not having made due declaration of i u e war before invad ng the co ntry, their prop r cou rse was to retire to their ships and attempt

a fresh landing . They anchored at nine green ' a Tu ath a waves dist nce from the shore, and the

Dan an n u Dé , ranged pon the beach , prepared dru idical spells to prevent their approaching

nearer.

Manannan, son of the Sea, waved his magic mantle and shook an off- shore wind straight into

But Ame r in u their teeth . g had powerf l spells of his own . By incantations which have come down u s be to , and which are said to the oldest Irish t h e li erary records , propitiated both the Earth and the Sea, divinities more ancient and more u powerf l than any anthropomorphic gods, and in 40

C H A P T E R V

THE MYTH ICAL HIS TORY o r BR ITAIN

’ ‘ E s WH N Britain first, at Heaven s command , aro e ’ o u t z u e ' w as Clas from the a re main , her nam

M rddin a u y , that is , the Pl ce , or Enclos re, of

Merlin . In later days, she became known as

‘ ’ 1 u the Honey Isle of Beli , and it was not ntil safely occu pied by mankind that she took her Aedd present designation , from Prydain , son of e the Great, who first established settl d govern All . us ment this is told by a Welsh Triad , and it is from such fragmenta ry sou rces that we glean the mythical history of o u r island . With thes e relics we mu st make what we can ; for the work has not been done for u s in the way tha t it was done by the mediaeval monkish ann alists for Ireland We find o ur data scattered

u di in thro gh old bar c poems and romances , and pseudo - hagiologies and hardly less apocryphal

1 Be li se e ms t o h ave b e e n some t imes ass ocia te d in We lsh ’ le e d i h h e sea hi h was alled th e d in Be li an d g n w t t , w c c r k of , ’ ’ a l it s waves Be lis c tt e . 42 THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN

. u u histories Yet , witho t perhaps sing more free dom with o u r mate rials than an early writer u wo ld have done , we can piece them together, and find in them ro ughly the same story as that — of Ireland the su bj ugation of the land by friendly d u go s for the s bsequ ent u se of men. The greatest bulk of ancient British myth is

u — u fo nd in the Mabinogion more correctly, the Fo r

Mabin o i e Branches of the g . These tal s evidently consist of fragments of varying myths pieced 1 An w l together to make a cycle, and Professor y has endeavou red with mu ch lea rning to trac e ou t and

u dise ntangle the original legends . B t in the form in which the Welsh writer has fixed them , they show a gradu al supersession of other deities by the gods u u u who more especially represent h man c lt re . The first of the Fou r Branches deals with the leading incidents in the life of Pwyll : how he k became a ing in Annwn , the Other World of the Welsh ; how , by a clever trick , he won his Pr déri bride Rhiannon ; the birth of their son y , and his theft by mysteriou s powers ; the punish ment incu rre d by Rhiannon on the false charge of having eaten him ; and his recovery and re ~ storatio n u pon the night of the First of May . Pr déri In the second Branch we find y , gro p i See a se rie s of articles in th e Zeiwchrifl filr Celticche Philolog e . 43 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN u r l p and ma ried to a wife ca led Kicva, as the Ma h olw h u ia . t c g est of Br n, son of Llyr, at Harlech , e u King of Ireland , arrives with a fleet to r q est

’ r t the hand of B an s sis er, Branwen of the Fair n Bosom . It is granted , and Bra wen sails to

. Bu t Ireland , later on , news comes that she is

u being badly treated by her h sband, and Bran

to . goes with an army avenge her There is parley, u i s ou t hi s bm s ion , treachery , and battle , of w ch ,

u after the sla ghter of all the Irish , only seven ’ ian —Pr déri th e of Br s host remain y , Manawyddan ,

u bard Taliesin , and fo r others of less known mythic

u fame. Bran himself is wo nded in the foot with

th e a poisoned spear, and in his agony orders others to cu t o ff his head and carry it to ‘ the ’ hi u ll W te Mo nt in London, by which Tower Hi is believed to have be en meant. They were

- u all eighty seven years pon the way, cheered the while by the singin g of the Three Birds of

u u Rhiannon , whose m sic was so sweet that it wo ld e a r e r c ll the dead to life, and by the ag e able con ’ Brfin s Bu s versation of severed head . t at la t u u they reached the end of their jo rney , and b ried

f u r c the head with its ace t rned towa ds Fran e, n h foe a watchi g t at no foreign c me to Britain . r u u n And here it eposed ntil Arth r disi terred it, u n his ‘ th e n r i g , in pride of heart, to hold isla d 44 THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN

’ u act otherwise than by valo r, a rash of which the

Saxon conqu est was the result . The third Mabin ogi recou nts the fu rther adve n u a t res of Manawyddan , who m rried the apparently

but u u h u hi old, no do bt ever yo t f l , R annon, mother

Pr déri Pr déri of his friend y , and of y himself and u his wife Kicva. D ring their absence in Ireland

e Caswallawn their kinsmen had all b en slain by , i a son of Bel , and their kingdom taken from them by the Children of Don . The fou r fu gitives i were compelled to l ve a homeless nomadic life, and it is the ‘ spiriting away ’ by magic of Rhiannon and Prydéri and their recovery by the craft of Manawyddan which forms the subject of the tale . ’ With the fou rth Branch the Children of Don come into a prominence which they keep to the w end . They are sho n as dwelling together at

Dath l u u Caer y , an nidentified spot in the mo n

u tains of Carnarvonshire, and r led over by Math , ’ i Don s brother. There are two ch ef incidents of s the story . The first tell of the birth of the twin ’ o — s ns of Gwydion s sister, Arianrod Dylan , appar 1 w ently a marine deity , who, as soon as he as

1 Profes s or Rh ys is in clin ed to see in h im a de ity of Dark n ess se d to t h e od Li h t Hibbert L e tu es 38 , oppo g of g , c r , p . 7 . e e in t h is n n e ti n . 32 th e e se n t boo k S co c o p of pr . 45 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

r bo n , disappeared into the sea, where he swam as u well as any fish , and Lle , who was fostered and brought up by Gwydion ; the rage of Arianrod u u u li when she fo nd her intrig e made p b c, and

u f un her ref sal of name , arms, or a wi e to her wished - for son ; the craft by which Gwydion o b

’ tain e d for him those three essentials of a man s life ; the infidelity of the damsel whom Math and Gwydion had created for Lleu ‘ by charms and

u ou t ill sion of the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom , and the blossoms of the

’ - e his meadow swe t , and enchantment into an eagle by the cu nning of her lover ; the wander ings of Gwydion in search of his protégé, and his eventu al recovery of him ; and the vengeance taken by Lleu u pon the man an d by Gwydion m upon the wo an. The second relates the coming of pigs to Britain as a gift from Arawn , King

n Pr déri u u u of Annw , to y ; their fra d lent acq isition by Gwydion ; the war which followed the theft ; and the death of Prydéri through the su perior

r strength and magic of the g eat son of Don .

‘ ’ These Four Branches of the Mabin ogi thu s c e u give a ons c tive, if incomplete , history of some n i of the most importa t of the Brython c gods .

There are, however, other isolated legends from to ff which we can add the information they a ord . 46 THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN

We learn more of the details of Gwydion ’s e stru ggles with his enemies . In his first att mpts

u he seems to have been nfortu nate . Trespassing u u Pw ll Pr déri pon Hades, he was ca ght by y and y , and imprisoned in a mysteriou s island called Caer

u ff u i Sidi . It was the s erings he end red there wh ch made him a poet, and any one who aspires to a similar gift may try to gain it, it is said , by sleep ing ou t either u pon the top of Cader Idris or u nder the Black Stone of the Arddu u pon the side of Snowdon , for from that night of terrors he will return either inspired or mad .

Bu t w G ydion escaped from his enemies, and we find him victoriou s in the strange conflict

’ dd e ‘ Cad Go a . called , the Battle of the Trees His brother Amaethon and his nephew Lleu

u Brain were with him , and they fo ght against

u and Arawn . We learn from vario s traditions how the sons of Don changed the forms of the ’ elementary trees and sedges into warriors ; how Gwydion overcame the magic power of Bran by

u g essing his name ; and how, by the defeat of

the powers of the Underworld , three boons were — won for man the dog , the deer , and some bird

’ whose name is translated as lapwing . Bu t now a fresh protagonist comes u pon the

— u u scene the famo s Arth r, whose history and 47 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

even existe nce have bee n involved in so m u ch

A th u r u . r do bt The word , of which several vary

ing explanations have been attempted , is now

' Artémus held to have been originally , a recog

n ised a u L tin name fo nd on inscriptions, and as

Artfi/riu s u u in J venal , which wo ld make him n i m a Roma sed Briton who, like any others of e a i his period , adopt d a L tin des gnation . His i e l polit cal prominence, impli d not on y by the

traditions which make him a supreme war - leader bu t of the Britons , also by the fact that he is l described in a twelfth century We sh MS . as

e a mhe rawd r l con tem o r Emp ror ( y ) , whi e his p

e s ari s, however high in rank , are only prince

wlecli du e s (g g) , may be , as Profe sor Rhys has 1 u s ggested , to his having filled , after the with d rawal u of the Romans, a position eq ivalent to

Bu t their Comes Britamn ia e . his legendary fame is hardly to be explain ed except u pon the sup position that the fabled exploits of a god or gods pe rhaps of somewhat similar name have become

u e confo nd d with his own , as seems to have also hap pened in the case of Dietrich von Bern (Th eodoric

u s Tou in s . the Goth) and the Ga li h tiorix . An crip u u tion has been fo nd at Bea croissant, in the valley

e ur u Artaios l of the Is re, to Merc i s , whi e the name

1 S tudies in the Arth uria n L e en d g , p . 7. 48

MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

crafty as his predecessor . When he had designs u pon the swine of March son of Meirchion ( the ’ ‘ King Mark of the romances) which Trystan u was herding, he co ld not get, says another B . ut suc Triad , even one pig in the end he ceeded wholly . An old Welsh poem tells us of

‘ ’ 1 n rei d A his Spoiling of A nwn (P d eu n n w n, ) and u ul r its i his capt re of the magic ca d on of K ng, u tho gh , like Bran himself when he went to ou a him Ireland, he br ght b ck with from his ex

e ditio n l t p on y seven of the men who, at star ing , ’ r u fill Pr dwen had been th ice eno gh to y , his

Bu t i s , having accompl shed thi , he seems to

s have had the other , and perhaps older, god at u c to his feet . Ll dd , a cording Triads , was one of his Three Chief War Knights , and Arawn one of u his Three Chief Co nselling Knights . In the story of the hu nting of the wild boar Twrch Trw th u u y , a q est in the co rse of which he

‘ ’ ui u r acq red the Treas res of Britain , he is se ved

Govan n on s not only by Amaethon and , son of o bu t l D n , a so by the same Manawyddan who had been his gaoler and another whilom king in i so n u . ts Hades , Gwyn of N dd This tale, like il similar in Gaelic myth , the Fate of the Ch dren

1 ‘ ’ B Taliesin oe x x x S e n e v l o . i . 256 ook of , p m , k , . p . 50 THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN

’ Tuirean n of , is a long one , and the reader is ’ referred to Lady Guest s Ma bin ogion for the full

ud be story , which a good j ge has acclaimed to ,

‘ ' ' saving the finest tales of the Arabian Nights , the greatest romantic fairy tale the world h as ’ n 1 ever k own . The pu rsu it of wondrous pigs seems to have been an important featu re of ’

u . e Trw th Arth r s career B sides the boar y , he ass embled his hosts to captu re a sow called Hen

u n . wen , which led him thro gh the le gth of Wales Whereve r she went she dropped the germs of wealth for Britain—three grains of wheat and three bees, a grain of barley, a little pig, and a Bu t i grain of rye. she left evils beh nd her as cub u well , a wolf and an eaglet which ca sed

u tro ble afterwards, as well as a kitten which grew

‘ ’ u u u on e p to be the Pal g Cat, famo s as of the ’ 2 Three Plagu es of the Isle of Mona . Of what may have been historical elements in his story , the Triads also take notice. We learn ’ how Arthu r and Medrawt raided each other s

’ u cou rts d ring the owner s absence, and that the battle of Camlan was one of the Three Frivolous

1 e d u tt in his n te s to his e diti n 1902 Lad Mr. Alfr N , o o ( ) of y ’ i Gue st s Ma bin og mz . 9 Th is cre at u re is als o me n tion e d in an Art h u rian poe m in h e n t h e t welfth c e n tu ry Black Book of Carmart . S I MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

’ u u Battles of Britain , beca se d ring it the two

antagonists thrice shared their forces , and that

‘ ’ u u u the s al Three alone escaped from it, tho gh

u co n ve n Arth r himself is , in spite of the triadic

u . tion , added as a fo rth

So he vanishes, passing to Avilion (Avallon) , and the end of the divine age is also marked by

u n the similar depart re of his associate Myrddi , or

u Merlin , to an island beyond the s nset, aecom pan ie d by nine bards bearing with them those

u ur . wondro s talismans , the Thirteen Treas es

Britain was now ready for her Britons .

‘ Gwlad u - a In yr Hav, the Land of S mmer name for the Brythonic Other World—dwelt the

u ancestors of the Cymry , r led over by a divine hero called Hu Gadaru ( ‘ the and the our time was ripe for their coming to island . Apparently we have a similar legend to the story of the conqu est of Ireland from the

Tu ath a Dé u b u Danan y the Milesians, tho gh

i there is here no hint of fighting, it be ng, on

e Hu the contrary , stat d in a Triad that obtained his dominion over Britain not by war and blood

e bu t u a . u sh d , by j stice and pe ce He instr cted e a u u his p ople in the art of gric lt re, divided them into federated tribes as a first step towards civil

r u e u gove nment, and laid the fo ndations of lit rat re 52 THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN

u d and history by the instit tion of bar ism , He pu t a stop to disastrou s floods by dragging o u t of the lake where it concealed itself the dragon - like u e monster which ca s d them, and , after the waters

u had s bsided , he was the first to draw on British soil a fu rrow with a plou gh . Therefore he is called the first of the ‘ Three National Pillars of ’ the Isle of Britain , the second being the Prydain who gave her his name, while the third was the

‘ D vn wal Moe lmud re mythical legislator y , who e d th e u duc to a system laws, c stoms, maxims, and

’ u privileges appertaining to a co ntry and nation .

53 C H A P T E R V I

THE H EROIC CY CLE OF ANCI ENT ULS TER

IN addition to the myths of the Tu ath a Dé

u Danan , and the not less apocryphal stories of

’ ‘ e her early Milesian kings, Ireland has evolv d two heroic cycles . The completest, and in some l ways the most interesting, of these dea s with the palmy days o fthe then Kingdom of Ulster during

Oou a ha r the reign of Conchobar ( ) Mac Nessa, whom the early annalists place at abou t the begin Bu . t ning of the Christian era , precise as this statement so u nds and vividly as the Champions

’ ’ Con ch obar s of the Red Branch, as King braves u s were called , are depicted for by the story

if u tellers, there is probably little , any, fo ndation of fact in their legends . We may discern in their genealogies and the stories of their births the u clue to their real nat re . Their chief figures Tuath a u draw descent from the Dé Danan , and are twice described in the oldest manuscripts as 54 HEROIC CYCLE OF ANCIENT ULSTER

‘ ’ terrestrial gods One may compare them with th e divinely descended heroes of the Greeks .

u th e The sagas, or romances, which make p Ulster cycle are found mainly in three manu

o o f Dun scripts, the B ok the Cow and the Bo ok e t i of L ins er, both of wh ch date from the begin f ur ning of the twel th cent y, and the Yellow Book

c u of Le an, assigned to the end of the fo rteenth . The lon gest and most important of them is known

' ’ ‘ as the Tdin B o Chu a clgn e (the Cattle Raid of

’ Cooley ) the chief figure of which is the famou s

’ u u Cu ch ullin Co n ch o bar s C ch lainn, or , the son of

De h tiré Lu Tuath a Dan an n sister c by g of the Dé .

u u n ort issimf u s heros S cot C ch lainn , i deed , f

' to ru m c . , is the real entre of the whole cycle It is very doubtful whether he ever h ad actual u u existence. His attrib tes and advent res are of the type u sually recorded of what are called

’ ‘ h u solar heroes . W en in his f ll strength no l one cou ld look him in the face withou t b inkin g. The heat of his body melted snow and boiled t els h im wa er . It was g taboo to to behold the n u of e sea. The a tagonists whom he conq ers are t n suspiciously like mythological person ification s of th e dark shades of night . was e a but He first called Set nt , it was while he was still quite a child that he chan ged his 55 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

’ name to 0d Ch a la in n ( ‘ Hound of Culan n ) as the resu lt of an exploit in which he killed the

- f watch dog of the chief smith of Ulster, and a ter wards acted as its substitu te until another could be proc ured and trained Other stories of his you th tell how he assumed

h ch am io arms at the age of seven, and slew t ree p who had set all the warriors of Ulster at defiance ; how he travelled to Alba (Scotland) to learn the S cath ach highest skill in arms from , the Warrior Witch who gave her name to the Isle of Skye ; how he carried off his bride Emer (Avairf ) in the

e t u te h of a host ; and how , by s ccess in a series t l of terrible ests , he gained the right to be cal ed

- Head Champion of Ulster . But these isolated sagas are only external to B l Tam 6 Ch ua i n e. the real core of the cycle, the g This is the story of a war which the other fou r n — u t s ki gdoms of Ireland Meath , M ns er , Lein ter — and Connaught made u pon Ulster at the bidding

Medb Ma in e - u of ( ) , the Amazon ' een of the last a r i n med p ovince, to obta n possession of a magic

bull called The Brown of Cu algn e . Its in te rest lies in no promiscu ous battles in which the de eds of an individu al warrior are dwarfed by those of his compeers . For the mythic raid was under ’ taken at a time when all Co n ch obar s warriors 56

MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

take up the standing challenge . After a three ’ u u n th e u t days d el , d ri g which co r esies exchanged between the two combatants are not excelled in l u u any tale of mediaeval chiva ry, C ch lainn gives

- w ll r the death blo to the foe who is sti his f iend . his u When he sees him at feet, he b rsts into

‘ s all pas ionate lament . It was a game and a spo rt u ntil Ferdiad came ; the memory of this

’ w u a n day ill be like a clo d h ngi g over me for ever. But the victory ended his perilous labours ; for th e t l s o ff e men of Uls er, at a t shaking their w akness , i came down and dispe rsed the r enemies . Other stories of the cycle tell of such episodes

’ as Cuchulainn s u nwitting slaying of his only so n

mo ti h in single combat, an old Aryan f whic we fin d u h is also in Te tonic and Persian myth, or visit to the Celtic Other World , and his love u t a t advent re wi h F nd, the deser ed wife of Man an n zin so n of Ler ; until at last the mass of legends

’ which make up a complete story of the hero s caree r are closed with the tragedy of his dea th u pon the plain of Mu irth e mn é. It was planned by Medb with the sons and relations of th e chiefs whom Cu chulainn h ad il n d was u u to k led in battle, a no stone left nt rned compass his downfall Three witches who had been to Alba and Babylon to learn all the sorcery 58 HEROIC CYCLE OF ANCIENT ULSTER

of the world deceive him with magic shows, and draw h im out alone into the open ; he is tricked into breaking his taboo by eating the flesh of a

— - bu t dog his name sake, says the story , perhaps also his totem ; satirists demand his favourite weapons , threatening to lampoon his family if he

u u an d u ref ses ; and th s, stripped of material s per

u aid a l nat ral , he is att cked by overwhe ming

u Bu t u an n mbers . , tho gh signs and portents

u ‘ no nce his doom , there is no shadow of chang

’ ’ in u ing the hero s indomitable heart . Wo nded to the death, he binds himself with his belt to a

- t pillar s one , so that he may die standing ; and , even after he has drawn his last breath , his h is sword , falling from grasp , chops off the hand of the enemy who has come to take his head .

Out of the seven ty- six stories of the Ulster us cycle which have come down to , no less than

u But sixteen are personal to Cu ch lainn . the other u heroes are not altogether forgotten , tho gh their lists are comparatively short. Most of these tales b have een already translated , and , taken together , they form a narrative which is almost epic in its 1 completeness and interest .

A lis t t h e tale s e x tan t an d l st th e Ulste le ill of , o , of r Cyc w ’ le n Hull s Cuchullin S a a A n ix . iss E a be foun d as ppe d I of M or g ,

n d n 1898. Lo o , 59 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

w was a u Probably its gro th gr d al , and spread over a considerable time . Some of the redactors, in too , have evidently had a hand recasting the pagan myths of Ulster for the pu rposes of io i Christian edificat n . We are told w th startling

e u u inconsist ncy how C ch lainn , going to his last m fight, heard the angels hy ning in Heaven , con u fessed the tr e faith , and was cheered by the

‘ certainty of salvation. The Tragical Death of

’ Dun a Conchobar , in the Book of the Cow rel tes how that king died of wrath and sorrow at learn n ing of the Passion of Christ. A other story from

’ u e the same so rc , entitled The Phantom Chariot,

u s u u n u shows C ch lain , conj red from the dead by

u St . Patrick , testifying to the tr th of Christianity

But u before an Irish king . s ch interpolations do

ff e th e h not a ect the real matt r of cycle, w ich presents us with a pictu re of the Celts of Ireland

’ at an age perhaps contemporary with Caesar s i invasion of her s ster isle of Britain. C H A P T E R V I I

THE FE A OR S S A S AGAS NI N , O I NIC ,

THE second of the two Gaelic ' h ero ic cycles presents

certain striking contrasts to the first. It depicts

u ff u u u a q ite di erent stage of h man c lt re ; for,

while the Ulste r stories deal with chariot - driving chiefs ru ling over settled commu nities from forti

fie d u u d ns, the Fenian sagas mirror, nder a faint

u u disg ise, the lives of nomad h nters in primeval

woods . The especial possession , not of any one u but tribal comm nity , of the folk, it is common

u e to the two Goidelic co ntries, b ing as native to

Scotland as to Ireland . Moreover, it has the u u u distinction, niq e among early literat res , of

being still a living tradition . So firmly rooted are the memories of Finn and his heroes in the minds of the Gaelic peasantry that there is a proverb to the effect that if the Fenians found that they had u not been spoken of for a day, they wo ld rise

from the dead . 6 : MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

It may be well here to remove a few possible misconceptions concerning these sagas and their

‘ o u heroes . The word Fenian in p p lar parlance is applied to certain political agitators of recent

’ But s ‘ n i u notoriety. tho e Fe ans merely ass med their title from the tradition that the original Fianna (FEM ) were a band of patriots sworn to a the defence of Irel nd . With regard , too , to the second title of Ossianic which the romances and

m u b u poe s which make p the cycle ear, it m st not be taken that the Fenian hero Ossian w as their u u a thor, an idea perhaps s ggested by the prose

s MacPh erson u u t poem of Jame , which , tho gh do b less fou nded u pon genu ine Gaelic material was

’ o almost certainly that write r s own co mpo mti n . i Some of the poetical pieces are , ndeed , rightly or u wrongly attrib ted to Ossian , as some are to Finn e bu t u hims lf, the b lk of the poems and all the prose tales are , like the sagas of the Ulster cycle , by u nknown au thors . A few of them are found u bu t in the earliest Irish man scripts , there has been a continuou s stream of literary trea tment of

l o n them , and they have a s been handed dow as

- e folk tal s by oral tradition. The cycle as a whole deals with the history and adventures of a band of warriors who are desc ribe d as having formed a standing force, in the pay of 6 2 THE FENIAN OR OSSIANIC SAGAS K the High ings of Tara, to protect Ireland , both

u a from internal tro ble and foreign inv sion . The early annalists were qu ite certain of their historical reality , and dated their existence as a body from

300 2 84 A. D . u to , while even so late and so nd

’ a scholar as Eu gene O Cu rry gave his opinion that Finn himself was as undou btedly historical a character as Juliu s Caesar . u Modern Celtic st dents, however, tend to reverse this view . The name Fionn or Finn, meaning

’ ’ ‘ ‘ r white , or fair , appea s elsewhere as that of a

’ mythical ances tor of the Gaels . His father s name

um Coa l C hal ( ) , according to Professor Rhys , is identical with Camulos and the German Himmel

u (Heaven) . The same writer is inclined to eq ate

u Cumh ail Nu Fion mac with Gwyn ab dd , a ’ ‘ White son of Sky who, we have seen, was a

British god of the Other World , and , afterwards, l B king of the Welsh fairies . u t there may have been a historical nu cleu s of the Fenian cycle in to which myths of gods and heroes became incor

po rated . Th is possible starting - point would show us a w roving band of picked soldiers, follo ing the

um u chase in s mer, q artered on the towns in

1 e se ide n tifica ~ ibbert Le t u es . 178 179 . But t h Rh ys , H c r , pp ,

tion s are con te sted . MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

i e but n w nt r , always ready to march , at the biddi g

u dis of the High King of Ireland, to q ell any

turban ce or to meet any foreign fee . For a time Bu t s all goes smoothly. at la t their exactions

use ro the people against them , and their pride

i s affronts the k ng. Dis ensions leading to inter

n ecin e a o u t strife bre k among themselves, and , i e in tak ng advantage of thes , k g and people make

common cause and destroy them . es e c In the romanc , this s ed of de ay is sown

before the birth of Finn . His father Cu mhal

n is Gau l a u ba hes Goll ( ) , he d of the powerf l clan of

a o bu t u a Morn Goll g es into exile ret rns , defe ts and kills Cu mhal and disperses the clan of Bao isgn e ’ i B t Cu mh al s Baskin . u s u u ( ) , his tr be po th mo s

u u i e son is bro ght p in secret, is tra n d to manly e feats , and , as the reward of a d ed of prowess , is called u pon by the High King to claim a boon ’ ‘ a u I ask only for my l wf l inheritance , says the

u h is . u yo th , and tells name The king insists pon

’ a i i Goll dm tting F nn s rights , and so he becomes

But leader of the Fenians . , in the end , the

u o u t smo ldering enmity breaks , and , after the death of Goll, the rest of the clan of Morna go

—Cairbré over to the High King of Ireland , son of a t the Corm c who had res ored Finn to his heritage .

u u The disastro s battle of Gavra is fo ght , in which 6 4

M YTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN and is defeated by the joint efforts of the Fe n ian s

n and the Tuath a Dé Dan an . u Ossian takes , of co rse, a prominent part in the stories which are so mu ch associated with his

But name . he is especially connected with what

’ - might be called the post Fenian ballads , in which the heroic deeds of Fin n and his men are told in the form of dialogu es between Ossian an d

n u St . Patrick. They hi ge pon the legend that Ossian escaped the fate of the rest of his kin by

’ Tir mm 0 ‘ u being taken to 9 , the Land of Yo th , —the Celtic Paradise of old and the Celtic Fairy — o f - b Niamh land to day y the fairy, or goddess , Neca vc u ( ) , da ghter of Manannan mac Lir . Here

u u h he enjoyed three h ndred years of divine yo t ,

u while time changed the face of the world o tside .

to his u n In the end he longs see own co ntry agai , b u u and Niam mo nts him pon a magic horse , i to u t u warn ng him not p foot pon earthly soil .

But - s to his saddle girth breaks, Ossian fall earth , u and rises p, a blind old man , stripped of the gifts

of the gods .

’ The ballad ‘ Dialogu es recite the arguments held betwe en the saint and the hero . Saint Patrick presses the new creed an d culture upon his u u e nwilling g est, who answers him with passionat

s laments for the days that are dead . Patrick tell 6 6 THE FENIAN OR OSSIANIC SAGAS

of God and the Angels , Ossian retorts with tales of Finn and the Fenians . It is the clash of two a aspects of life , the heathen ide l ofjoy and strength , and the Christian ideal of service and sacrifice . ’ ‘ o u u I will tell y a little story abo t Finn , replies Ossian to the saint’s praises of the heaven of the elect, and relates some heroic exploit of chase or d ’ war . Nor is he more rea y to listen to Patrick s exhortations to repent and weep ove r his pagan ‘ ’ ‘ b . u t past I will weep my fill , he answers , not God bu t u n for , beca se Fi n and the Fenians are i ’ no longer al ve . C H A P T E R V I I I

THE ARTHUR I AN LEGEND

BUT e the Ga lic myths, vital as they are , have yet caused no echo of themselves in the literatures i of the ou tside world . This dist nction has been left for the legendary tales of the Britons. The Norman minstrels fou nd the stories which they heard from their Welsh confreres so mu ch to their liking that they readily adopted them, and spread them from camp to camp and from cou rt

u to co rt, wherever their dominant race held sway. Perha ps the fin er qu alities of Celtic roma n ce made especial appeal to that new fashion of ‘ chivalry ’ which was growing u p under the fosterage of poe try and romance by noble ladies . At any

Ma tters dc Breta n e rate the g , as the stories of the r u British gods and heroes , and especially of A th r,

i s u o f were called , came to be the lead ng o rce poetic inspiration on the Continent. The whole vast Arthu rian literatu re has its origin in British

Celtic mythology . 6 8 THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND

We find the names of its chief characters , and u u r can trace the n cle s of thei stories , in Welsh songs and tales older than the earliest ou tbu rst of

u u u Arth rian romance in E rope . Arth r himself has , u as we have tried to show in a previo s chapter , several of the attribu te s and adventures of o u Gwydion son of D n , while the fig res most closely connected with his story bear striking resem blance to the characters which surround Gwydion

‘ ’ u Mabin o i1 u in the fo rth branch of the g , a res lt probably due to the same type of myth having been cu rrent in different localities and associated f diff in dif erent districts with erent names . f Arianrod , who is said to have been the wi e of a little - known and perhaps superseded an d half forgotten Sky - god called w vre Space seems ’ u Gw ar to be represented in Arth r s story by y , the

- u consort of the Heaven god Ll dd , and from com parison with later romance we may fairly as sume

’ ar u that Gwy was also Arth r s sister . In Gwalchmai Medrawt and , the good and evil brothers born of u re their nion , we shall probably be right in ’ s m a Arian rod s cogni ing si ilar ch racters to sons,

d u an d the go s of light and darkness , Lle ( Llew)

s Dylan . Thi body of myth has passed down

See Rh s S tudies in the Arth u ria n L e en d h a . i A th ur y , g , c p . r , ’ Hist i a l an d M h i al or c yt c . MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

s e u i almo t intact into the m diaeval Arth r an cycle . The wife of King Lot ( Lludd) is sister to Arth u r ; ’ 1 u c u a Lle s o nterp rt , Gwalchmai , appears as Sir

’ Gawain e c a l , ert in descriptions of whom in Ma ory s Marts Dafr'th u r are hardly comprehensible except as a misu nderstood fragment of a mythology in

‘ ’ which he appeared as a so lar hero ; Medrawt has scarcely changed at all , either in name or a e i re char cter, in b com ng Sir Mord d ; while the u u i o stately fig re of Math , r ler of the ch ldren of D n , i is paralleled by the maj estic Merl n , who watches u u over, and even dares to reb ke, his protégé, Arth r.

u u r i u We are pon nce ta n gro nd , however, in atte mpting to dis cover in the Arthurian cycle the

Mabin o ian other personages of the g stories. Pro fessor S tudies in the Arthur ia n Rhys , in his Legen d h as devoted great ingenuity and

n i to bu t lear ng this task, his identifications of Pw ll i Pr déri y , of Rh annon , of y , of Arawn , of a e Gwyn , and of Amaethon with char ct rs in the

ma mediaeval romances , whatever y happen to u u con them in the f t re , cannot at present be sid r as u e ed otherwise than hazardo s . The trans

ai u formations of Br n seem less open to do bt.

‘ ’ In e lsh le e n d G al h ai th e Ha Ma h as a W g , w c m ( wk of y ) b t h e Gwalch ave d th e Ha h se n a e ro r, ( wk of w o m ‘ ’ i. th e i in al Galah ad or g of . 7o THE ARTHURIAN LEGEN D

Th e name of King Bran degore may probably be

t Bran dile s resolved in o Bran of Gower, and of Sir into Bran of Gwales (Gresh olm Island) ; he is per Ben w k u haps King Ban of y , and Bron, who bro ght a u the Gr il to Britain ; as Balan, he is bro ght into c i ontact with Bal n , who seems to be the Gallo British Bélén os ; while Uther Pendragon himself ’ may have be en originally Bran s ‘ Wonderfu l ’ Head ( Uth r Ben ) which lived for eigh ty~ seven o years after it had been severed from its b dy . But there can be little qu estion as to other per so n ages who su rrou nd Arthu r both in the earlier e and lat r legends . Myrddin as Merlin ; March as King Mark ; Gwalch aved as Sir Galahad ; Kai as Sir Kay ; and Gwe n h wyvar as Guinevere have o bvi

r o usly been directly taken over f om Welsh story . But here we are confronted with a notable ’ a u exception . It is of Sir L ncelot, King Arth r s

e n u u p erless k ight and the lover of ' een G inevere,

that no trace can be found in earlier legend . He is not heard of till the latter part of the twelfth

u as cent ry, when he appears a knight who was

u u - stolen in infancy, and bro ght p by , a water fairy 1 Du Lac bu t (whence his title of ) , thenceforward he su persedes in popu larity all the others of the

’ n s The L e en d o Sir L a n cel t D u Se e iss J L . e st M . W o g f o

a c L n d n 1901 . L . o o , 7 1 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

his o Table Round . In r le of the lover of the

u u e ' een, he p shes his way into , and shatt rs, the i older traditions . Accord ng to early story it was

Melwas n u , the Cor ish eq ivalent of the Welsh

w udd Gwen h w var G yn ab N , who stole y , and

u Bu Arthur him self who recapt red her . t in the

Mom Darth 'wr u Me lwas , tho gh , whose name has ’ Melia raun ce u become Sir g , is still the abd ctor of

ue u Sir ' en G inevere , it is Lancelot who appears

l r as her de iverer . Nor can Sir Mord ed , or ’ Medrawt di Ar u , another tra tional rival of th r s ,

n - o hold his own agai st the new c mer . s i Probably we shall never olve th s mystery . Some literary or social fashion of which all re cord ’ is di lost may have ctated Lancelot s prominence . t It mat ers less , as it is not the core and centre of

the Arthu rian legend . What has given the cycle

u n as c its end ri g interest, testified by its attra tion u c for a thor, artist , and omposer down to the

e is o pr sent day, not the somewhat c mmonplace ue bu t love of Lancelot and the ' en , the mystical

u can a q est of the Holy Grail . And here we cle rly trac e the direct evolu tion of the Arthu rian legend l from the myths of the Celts.

l Th e ch ie f auth orit ies for t h e stu dy of t h e Grail le ge n d in ’ its relat ion to Ce ltic myth are Profe s s or Rhys s S tud ies in the ’ Arthuria n Le en d an d Mr Al red u tt s tud ies on the L g . f N S egen d ra of the H oly G il. 7 2

MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

‘ ’ Is it not the cau ldron of the Chief of Annwn ' ’ ' h ard l What is its fashion asks the Ta iesin , and

es as e he goes on to d cribe it rimm d with pearls , and gently warmed by the breath of nine maidens . It will not cook the food of a coward or one for ’ u hi u s as s u sworn , he contin es , w ch allows to me

’ u s g u r that, like s ch ve sels as the Da da s ca ld on or

Gw ddn eu Garan h ir u the basket of y , it wo ld provide generou sly for the brave and tru thful It was u u u kept in a sq are fortress s rro nded by the sea ,

l u u e and ca led by vario s names , s ch as the R volving

Caer S al/ii U ern Castle ( ) , the Underworld ( f ) , the

u - Caer Ped fr va n Fo r cornered Castle ( y ) , the Castle

Cae r Vedw d of ( y ) , the Castle

Caer Ri o r Caer W d r ( g ) , the Glass Castle ( y y ) , and

aer olu d the Castle of Riches ( C G ). This strong ule Pw ll Pr déri re re hold, r d over by y and y , is p sented as spinning rou nd with su ch velocity that

s was it was almost impo sible to enter it, and in pitch - darkness save for a twilight made by the u but t lamp b rning before its gate , its inhabi ants , s who were exempt from old age and disea e, led u ff lives of revelry, q a ing the bright wine . Evi den tl as c a i y, may be as ert ined from compar son t s lVo rld wi h similar myth , it stood for the Other , as conceived by the Celts . This cauldron of pagan myth has alte red 74 THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND

strangely little in passing down through the centu ries to become the Holy Grail which had

’ been filled by Joseph of Arimathea with Chris t s

Blood . It is still kept in a mysterious castle by

’ a mysteriou s king . In Malory s Morte Da/rthu r k l this ing is called Pelles, a name strangely ike

a Pw ll u th t of the Welsh y , and tho gh in other i versions of the Gra l story , taken perhaps from variant British myths , the keeper of the mystic f vessel bears a dif erent name, he always seems to u be one of the r lers of the Other World, whether

a Peleur Pr déri he be called Bron (Br n) , or y ) , or w Goon G yn) , or the Rich Fisher, in whom 1 w ddn eu Garan r Professor Rhys recognises G y hi . It still retains in essence the qu alities of ‘ the

’ u w ca ldron of the Chief of Ann n . The savage cooking- pot which would refuse to serve a coward

u or perj rer with food , has been only refined , not e n l altered , in b coming the heave y vessel which

u co ld not be seen by sinners , while the older idea

u is still retained in the acco nt of how , when it u appeared, it filled the hall with sweet savo rs , while every knight saw before him on the table the food he loved best . Like its pagan prototype, u u u it c red wo nds and sickness , and no one co ld

i . u grow old wh le in its presence Tho gh, too, the

1 A h ia 1 - 31 t ur n L e en d . 3 5 r g , pp 7. 7 5 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN place in which it was kept is bu t vaguely pictured

u by Sir Thomas Malory , the thirteenth cent ry

Norman - French romance called the S ein t Grea t preserves all the characteristics which most strike

’ u u u s in Taliesin s poem . It is s rro nded by a great water ; it revolves more swiftly th an the wind ; and its garrison shoot so stou tly that no u armo r can repel their shafts , which explains

u why , of the men that accompanied Arth r , except

’ u seven , none ret rned from Caer Sidi . ‘ u ff n The kingdom of heaven s ereth viole ce , ’ and the violent take it by force ; this is the u s n e spirit ali ed meani g of the C ltic myth , and in this has lain the lasting inspiration of the sto ry which attracted Milton so strongly that it was almost by chance that we did not have from him

r a Kin g A thwr instead of Pa/radise Lost. In our own times it has enchanted the imagination of

n w u Te nyson , while S inb rne , Morris, and Matthew Arnold have also borne witness to the poetic valu e of a tradition which is as national to

to Britain as the Veda India, or her epic poems to Greece .

1 i an an slat ed b h e v R be t illia s M Ed te d d t t Re . A. r y . o r W m ,

n d n 1 6 . Lo o , 87 C H R O N O L O G I C A L S Y L L A B U S — HIS TO RICAL Arrival in Britain of th e e arliest Celts — G i els ab ut 1000- 500 B o B th n s an d Bel ae in ( o d ) o . . ry o g , com g in h n n en u l u e u t e 2 d a d 3rd t ie B . C la e s ov r d r g c r s . , rg y p — plan t th e Goidels B elgic settle rs still crossin g ove r from Gaul in th e ti e J ulius aesa wh o a e his st in asi n m of C r, m d fir v o 5 c —B itain e la e a R an in e un e lau iu 5 B . s . r d c r d om prov c d r C d — — i A . D 41 ban n un e H n us . 0 D u idism D . 43 A ed A. do d r o or r f i en to R an itiz e un e Tibe ius ei n ed A D b n s . or dd om c d r r (r g . 1 43 7) an d its complete suppre ssion orde re d by Clau dius — n A D 41 - 54 Th e hie st n h l th e D uids (reig ed . . ) c f ro g o d of r t e un uet n ius Paulin us A D 6 1 in Britain des roy d der S o , . . h istian it in t u e un e th e R an ule a es a ual C r y, rod c d d r om r , m k gr d h ea a —Gil as itin in th e six th e n tur es ibe s dw y d , wr g c y, d cr x tin t in i ilise B itain —E ra St Pat i pagan ism as e c c v d r of . r ck — lumba i h e in I elan th en tu St . a es t s el to r d, fif c ry Co c rr go p i ix th en tu n ts s . th e North er P c , c ry — TRAD ITI O NAL Fictitious dates assign e d by th e Irish com

pilers of pseudo - an n als for all th e myth ical e ras an d e ven ts Possibly auth en tic may be the placin g of th e h eroic age of n u A D an d th e e h th Ulste r in th e first ce t ry . . poc of e Fen ian s — in the se con d an d third B ritish gods en rolle d as early kin gs M n uth a e th e un e s by Geoffrey of o mo or m d —fo d r of powerful or sain tly families by Welsh gen ealogists Th e historic Arthu r

fh - ix may h ave live d in th e fi t s th ce n turies. I —Th ix th en tu n is th e t a i i e s a . t n al e i L TE RARY . c ry r d o p r od th e ba s M in An eu in Taliesin an d Ll warch Hén of rd yrdd , r , , y , poe ms ascribe d to wh om are foun d in th e Welsh me diaeval 77 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

M hile I is h le en asse ts hat th e Tdin B6 Chua il SS . w r d r n e , g t — g was first redu ced to writin g in th e se ve n th Gradual accumu lati n I ish an d elsh thi al sa as in lu in the F u o of r W my c g , c d g o r

an h th e Mabin i e i h th - ele en th— e Br c es of og , g v Th Irish Book of the D un Cow an d Book of Lein ste r an d th e Welsh Black B a a th en ile durin th e t elfth the elsh ook of C rm r , comp d g w W Books of An e urin an d of Taliesin du rin g th e th irtee n th ; an d th e Iris h Book of Ballymote an d th e Y ellow Book of Le can an d th e — Welsh Red Book of He rgest du rin g th e fourtee n th Abou t 1136 Ge ff e M n uth n ish e his H ist ria B riton wm an o r y of o mo fi d o , d d urin g this cen tu ry an d th e on e followin g British mythical a n d h eroic legen d w as moulde d in to th e Con tin en tal Arthurian — roman ces About 1470Sir Th omas Malory compose d his Morte — Darth ur from Fr en ch so urces Th e workin g- up of Gaelic tradition al mate rial en de d probably in the middle of th e — eigh teen th ce n tury J am es MacPh erson produ ce d his pse udo ’ — Oss ian i e i s 1760- 6 3 In 183 8 - 49 La h a l t e Guest c p c , dy C r o t bli h e h e Mabin i n an d this ate th e re n pu s d r og o , from d aissan ce of Ce ltic study an d in spiration may be to have com

me n ce d. S E LE C T E D B O O K S B E A R I N G O N C E LT I C M Y T H O L O G Y

To give in th e space that can be spare d an y ade quate list of boo ks d ealin g with th e wide subj e ct of Celtic Myth ology uld be i bl Th e ea e in te es te d in mat wo mpossi e . r d r r th e te r can h a dl be tte than n s ult N 08 1 3 4 6 8 1 1 an d 14 r y do r co . , , , , , , th e Po u la S tu ies in M th l R man e an d F lkl e of p r d y o ogy o c o or , blish e b th u Nutt . In ese si n n b le t p d y Mr. x pe y ook s h e will fin d n ot n l s h la l in tr d u ti n to th e ae li T at , o y c o r y o c o s G c u hs Dé Dan an n u h ulain n an d Ossian i les th e e lsh Mabin o , C c c cyc , W i n an d th e A th u ian le en d but als bibli a h i g o , r r g , o ogr p cal appe n dices poin tin g out with su fficie n t fuln ess th e chie f works h ul h e be n te n t ith a to con sult . S o d co w more su pe rficial ’ su e h e i h t btain it th e ese n t ite Th rv y, m g o from pr wr r s e M h l o the British Islan s Lon n 1905 hi h ai e yt o ogy f d , do , , w c m d at i in in a u la man n e s e tch es th e diffe e n t g v g, pop r r, k of r le an d e te llin s th ei in i al st ies ith a e tain cyc s, r g of r pr c p or , w c r t en t amoun t of ex plan a ory comm . ’ th e st ies th e sel es h e ma turn to La G e For or m v , y dy r gory s a n M u irthe mn e Lo n d n 1902 an d G ds an G uch u l i of , o , , o d F htin Men Lo n n 1904 hi h i e in att a ti e ig g , do , , w c g v r c v pa raph rase all of th e most importan t legen ds dealin g with th e Red Bran ch of Ulst e r an d with th e Tuaths Dé Dan an u an d M e ex a t t an slati n s th e Ulste an es the Fen ian s . or c r o of r rom c ’ Hull s The Cu ch u ll will be fou n d in Miss E . in Saga in ’ u L n n 1898 in M n sieu H. d Arboi Irish L iterat re, o do , ; o r s ’ ’ ’ ville s L E o ee elti u e en Irla n de Pa is 1892 de J ubain p p C q , r , ’ th u s de Litté atu e e lti ue an d in Miss vol . e ( . v of Co r r r C q ) 79 MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN

’ Fa a a s tle id u aln e L n n L . The at Ra o C 1904. W. r d y C f g , o do , Th e Fen ian sagas are be st studied in th e six volumes of th e

T an sa tio n s o th e Ossia n i S iet Dublin 1854- 6 1 in r c f c oc y, , ’ ' Mr H Grad s Silva Gadel L n n 18 2 an in . S . . O ica y , o do , 9 ; d ’ h Re v a ll v t J . G be s The Fian s L n n 18 1 o i e . . 9 v l. . C mp , o do , ( ‘ of Waifs an d S trays of Celtic Lady Charlotte ’ Guest s Mabin ogion can n ow be obtain e d in se ve ral ch e ap ’ i n h il M n s i u Lo h la M e it s e e J . t s t an s ti n Les d o , w o r r o , abin o is l i Pa 1889 s . i i an iv h u d i i n s . d t e s e L ttéra g o , r , , form vo . of Co r ’ tu e elti u e r C q . iti l stu ie o n th e ub e t in h an ar a e t fe w Cr ca d s s j c dy form e s y . ’ We may men tion De J ubain ville s Le Cycle Mythologique h i ti ue 1 8 4 v M t l e el Pa is 8 o ii. th I lan dais et la l. e r y o og C q , r , ( of R B t s l b Mr. The I ish M h l i tra a e . e s a t o n s t d y I. r y o g cal le an d elti M th l D ublin 1903 P e ss Cyc C c y o ogy, , rof or ’ J Rh s s L e tu es on the O i in a n d G wth o Reli i n as . y c r r g ro f g o Illustrated by Celtic H eathend o m( Th e H ibbert L ectu res for L n n 3 e dit 1898 ith th ei se ue l S tudies in th e o do , rd , , w r q , ’ u ian L e en d x 1 89 1 an d Mr. Al e Nutt s The Arth r g , O ford, fr d

l 5 - ba 2 ls . L n n 18 9 Th V a e o B an son o F e 9 7 . e oy g f r , f , vo , o do , sult s e e en t an d u en t e sea h ill b e un in re of mor r c , c rr , r rc w fo d ia ubli ati su h as th e lu es th e I ish Tex ts spe c l p c on s, c vo m of r S iet an d the n u be s th e R evu e elti u e th e Zeits h i t oc y, m r of C q , c r f r Celtisch e Phil l ie an d th e T an saction s o th e G mmro fu o og , r f y S ocie t dorion y.

Pr n te d b T an d Go s sman . A. n te s to H i y , Pri r is Maye sty at th e Ed in b urgh Un iversi ty Press