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Folklore the Marriages of the Gods at the Sanctuary of Tailltiu This article was downloaded by: [New York University] On: 29 April 2015, At: 10:51 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Folklore Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfol20 The Marriages of the Gods at the Sanctuary of Tailltiu Thomas Johnson Westropp Published online: 01 Feb 2012. To cite this article: Thomas Johnson Westropp (1920) The Marriages of the Gods at the Sanctuary of Tailltiu, Folklore, 31:2, 109-141, DOI: 10.1080/0015587X.1920.9719136 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.1920.9719136 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions Downloaded by [New York University] at 10:51 29 April 2015 THE MARRIAGES OF THE GODS AT THE SANCTUARY OF TAILLTIU THOMAS JOHNSON WBSTROI>l>. WHEN the gods of the Gaedhil invaded Ireland they are said to have found the Fir Bolg in possession and fought them to a finish. Though there can be no doubt that the Fir Bolg were a real tribe group, ill-defined, but, if one ynay use the terra, " non-Milesian," and some have even imagined that the Tuatha De Danann were also a human race (which is hard indeed to suppose possible),1 it is evident that the story is of a war of gods, not a mere mortal struggle, that the new faith took over the older sanctuaries was °nly to be expected, and, in the case of the Celts, as of most P°lytheists, the line of least resistance was to try and reconcile their new-come god3 with those of the soil. The sanctuary and assembly place of Taiiltiu, at Oristown and telltown, in Co. Meath, has preserved a most illuminating tradition, which it is well to study in some detail. The pagan Irish had a pantheon formed of divergent and everi discordant elements.* We have mountain deities like 1 So many are actual god» outside of Ireland, with identical epithets and eSends similar to what the Irish told of the Tuatha De. I uae the conventional crm '< Milesian " for the fair race with red or yellow hair and blue or green *yes> as contrasted with the dark Ernai and Flrbolg. 'Two races of gods divide the Sid mounds {Sttoa Gadelica, S. JI. O'Grady, • P- 1(6 j R.I.Acad. AIS. Series, i. p. 46). We have Foraorian, and Wtioniati, gods like Bress i Cruthnian gods, like Elherun, at Tara [ Ernean s™8.like"AiliUEranngodofth«bo!gga"(^w/r#A»W/Vwo<, xxvi. p. 133), 01 Downloaded by [New York University] at 10:51 29 April 2015 Deda (Prac, R.I.Acad, xxxiv. p. 159) j animal god* like "Tore Triagh," no The Marriages of the Gods Febra, Echtge, Mfs, Clfu and others, and river goddesses like Sinann, Segais and Boand, also the mound gods, viros side,1 like Cengus of the Brug and Bodb Dearg. Under this term Sid were eventually included a swarm of gods, also, unlike the former classes, adored in Britain and on the continent of Europe. Such were Lug, B61i, Nuada, Net, Ogma, Segomo, Nemed, Ana or Dana, and Brigid or Brigendo. There are even as in the epithet of Lug, " master of sciences " and patron of shoemakers ; Nuada, " silver arm," " Lord of the Wolf," and the warrior catching the salmon in presence of Nuada)a hints of common tradition and ritual in Ireland and abroad, though ritual was probably the feature, next to images, least tolerated by the otherwise wonderfully patient, tactful and tolerant Church of Ireland, as founded by Patrick in the fifth century. To show how the ritual of the marriage of the gods, Lug and Nuada, with personifications of Ireland, Eriu and Fal, was con­ tinued by the irregular, temporary marriages celebrated in the Telltown " Fair," is the object of this essay. the holy boar of the Torcraige tribe, cf. Twrch Trwylh (see Book of Lcinster, f?;b), and the Donn Bull (Gaulish Donnotaurus), Banbathepig, and the steeds of Cuchulaind and the cat-headed god of Cairbre Chinnchait (Coir Anmann, Iriuht Texte, iii. p. 385). 1 Tirechan's annotations (A. 11. 656) in Tripartite Life of St. Patrick (ed. Whitley Stokes, ii. p. 315). Hymn of Fiacc, " the tribes lay in darkness and worshipped the tide" (Hid). •I refer to the catching of the marvellous salmon for Eogan, "foster son of Downloaded by [New York University] at 10:51 29 April 2015 Nuada," as told in the "Battle of Magh Leana" and the "Tochmarch Momera " ; the votive wolves in the temple of Nudens, his successor Bress was '' wolfman " ; the Welsh and Spanish assertion of Lug's interest in shoemaking i the carrying of the image of Brigendo (see Gregory of Tours) round harvest fields and of those of Brigid in Ireland till at least 1850 ; the identification of Neto with Mars by the Aquitani and his position as war god in Ireland. Had we the hymn to Brigendo named in the inscription at Beaunc (" Celtic Inscrip. France and Italy," Rhys, Brit. Acad. 1905) we might have parallels to Irish myths as in Caesar's "inventor of all the arts." If "Lougos" in Gaulish meant "raven," we see in the ravens of Lugdunum Covenarum and Lyons (on its coinage) and his raven spies on the Fomore in Irish myth another parallel. The name Lugbrann is perhaps another evidence for the Lug-raven- at the Sanctuary of Tailltiu. I X I THE GOD OF TAILLTIU. Among the conquering gods brought by the Celts from Europe, the most illustrious and attractive was Lug Lamhfada, " the long-handed," the source of all light, physical and mental. Traces of his worship are found in Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain and Britain, as well as in Ireland. At least fourteen places bore his name, as " Lugodunum" (Lyons, Leyden and Laon among others) and one " Luguballium," or Carlisle.1 In Ireland a we find " Lis Loga," or Naas, " Cro Loga," at Tara, " Long Loga," a sandbank in Dublin Bay, " Lug- mod " or Lowth, " Luglochta Loga," near Lusk in Co. Dublin, and " Lis Luigdech," or " Lis Loga," near Tara. His name was a favourite with his worshippers, though I °nly find a " Lug," son of Finn,8 and another ill-attested "Lug" among the crowd of mythic sons4 assigned to Oiloill Aulom by tribes striving to affiliate themselves to the great line of the Dergthene princes of Munster. We have, however, Fir Loga, Cuchulaind's attendant, Mucoi Loga, Lugucrit, or Lucrit, Lugaid or Lugudex (genitive Lugadec- cos, or Luigdech) in* Ireland, and in Britain Lugubelinus or Llewelyn, and Lugueslis or Llefelis the last apparently after a brother of Ludd or Nudd Lamereint, i.e. Nuada, " silver hand." When Caesar calls Lug (under the name of " Mercury ") " inventor of all the Arts," he may be repeating a hymn, perhaps recited by his friend the Aeduan Downloaded by [New York University] at 10:51 29 April 2015 druid, Divitiacus, which has many an echo in Ireland and elsewhere. We have a votive tablet to Mercurius Cultor 'Holder, "Alt Celtische Sprachzatch," under Lugdunum. 8 British Academy, 1910, p. 254, see also I logon's "Onomasticon Goedelicum," "Msche Texte, iii. p. 377, from Acallamh. We have a "Loga" on an °gham. ' Like Delbaoth the fire god and Cian, probably Lug's father (see Coir Anmann, Irische Texle, iii. p. 359). I find, however, that St. Iarlath's father is called " Lug" in some documents, though usually "Iren." 112 The Marriages of the Gods at Wurtemburg; the Irish versions sing of " Lug, master of all the arts " ; " Lug, with whom are all the arts " ; " Prince of the manifold sciences." At Tara, Lug asserts his mastery of all the arts and sciences of his day—champion, harper, antiquary, professor, artificer and carpenter.1 In Welsh legend he is a skilled shoemaker, and the shoemakers of Corduba regarded the Lugoves • as their patrons. In his present form as a fairy, the Lughprechan or Lughcropan, he js still an accomplished shoemaker. He had nine chariots in the Battle of Magh Tured8; in this like other solar gods, and the horse cultus and races and chariots of which there are evident traces connected with Tara( Tailltiu, Brug (the " prison of Liath Macha," Cuchulaind's divine steed)*; Carmun; the pillars called " Eclasa," or horse rod, at Knockainey, " Echlainn Loga" and " Echlasc Chon Chulainn."s Indeed it is probable that pious clerics or chiefs at Tara and Tailltiu emulated Josiah when " he took away the horses of the Sun" at Jerusalem and " burned the chariots of the Sun with fire," for Lug was inventor of the denach, or sacred race-course, and the horse rod.9 First we may note how many Irish sanctuaries are said to bear the names of women (queens, heroines or goddesses), and that the place-names, being probably pre-Celtic and so irreducible by Celtic philologists, were thus artificially 1 De Hello Gallico, vi.
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