Mythology of All Races VOL 3 Celtic & Slavic (1916)

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PRESENTED B^
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Volume I. Greek and Roman

William Sherwood Fox, Ph.D., Princeton University.
Volume
Axel Olrik, Ph.D.,
VoLXJME
Canon John
II.
Eddie
University of Copenhagen.
Celtic, Slavic
III.
A.
MacCulloch, D.D., Bridge of Allan, Scotland.

Jan MAchal, Ph.D., Bohemian University, Prague.
Volume
Uno Holmberg,
IV.
Finno-Ugric, Siberian
Ph.D., University of Finland, Helsingfors.
Volume
V.
Semitic
R. Campbell Thompson, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.G.S., Oxford.
Volume
VI.
Indian, Iranian
A. Berriedale Keith, D.C.L., Edinburgh University.

Albert J. Carnoy, Ph.D., University of Louvain.
Volume VII. Armenian, African

Mardiros Ananikian, B.D., Kennedy School of Missions, Hartford, Connecticut.
Alice Werner, L.L.A.
(St.
Volume
Andrews); School of Oriental Studies, London
VIII.
Chinese, Japanese
U. Hattori, Litt D., University of Tokyo.

(Japanese Exchange Professor at Harvard University, igis-igid)
Masaharu Anesaki, Litt.D., University of Tokyo.
(Japanese Exchange Projessor at Harvard University, igis-igis)
Volume IX. Oceanic

Roland Burrage Dixon, Ph.D., Harvard
Volume X.
University.
American {North of Mexico)
BLartley Burr Alexander, Ph.D., University
Volume XI.
Hartley Burr Alexander, Ph.D.,
Volume XII.
of
Nebraska.
American {Latin)
University of Nebraska.
Egyptian, Indo-Chinese
W. Max MtJLLER, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania.

Sir James George Scott, K.C.I.E., London^
Volume Xni.
Index
,^
,*
^^-^
1^
-*?*_
PLATE
Brug na Boinne
The tumulus
group
New Grange is the largest of a

Dowth, New Grange, and Knowth,
at
of three at
County Meath, on the banks of the Boyne in the

plain known to Irish tales as Brug na Boinne, the
traditional burial-place of the Tuatha De Danann
and of the Kings of Tara. It was also associated
with the Tuatha De Danann as their immortal
g. of Oengus of the Brug (see pp.
50-51, 66-67, 176-77)- The tumuli are perhaps of
the neolithic age (for plans see Plate VI, A and
B).
dwelling-place,
e.
THE MYTHOLOGY
OF ALL RACES
IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES
LOUIS HERBERT GRAY,

GEORGE FOOT MOORE,
A.M., PH.D., Editor
A.M., D.D., LL.D., Consulting Editor
CELTIC
SLAVIC
BY
BY
JOHN ARNOTT MACCULLOCH,

HON. D.D.
(ST.
ANDREWS)
JAN MACHAL,
ph.d.
WITH A CHAPTER ON BALTIC MYTHOLOGY BY
THE EDITOR
VOLUME
III
BOSTON
MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
M DCCCC XVIII
Copyright, 191 8
By Marshall Jones Company

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
All rights reservfd
Printed June, 191 8
w
^17
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
BOUND BY THE BOSTON BOOKBINDING COMPANY
CONTENTS
CELTIC
PAGE
Author's Preface
Introduction
Chapter
I.
11.
The
Strife of the Gods
23
Tuatha De Danann and Milesians.
...
42
III.
The Division of the
IV.
Mythic Powers of the Gods
54
Gods Helping Mortals
62
Divine Enmity and Punishment
68
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
Sid
49
The Loves of the Gods

The Myths of the
78
British Celts
....
The Divine Land
114
X. Mythical Animals and Other Beings.
XL Myths
XII.
of Origins
The Heroic Myths
The Heroic
124
135
I.
Cuchulainn and
HIS Circle
XIII.
92
139
Myths
11.
Fionn and the
Feinn
XIV. The Heroic Myths
160
III.
XV. Paganism and Christianity
Arthur
....
184
206
CONTENTS
vi
SLAVIC
PAGE
Editor's Preface
217
Pronunciation
219
Introduction
221
Part
I.
The Genii
Chapter
I.
II.
225
Belief in Soul and Genii
Worship of
the
Dead,
227
Especially An-
cestors
III.
233
The Household Gods
240
IV. Genii of Fate
V.
249
Navky and Rusalky
253
VI. ViLY
VII.
VIII.
256
Silvan Spirits
261
Field-Spirits
267
IX. Water-Spirits
Part
II.
273
The Deities
275
Chapter
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Part
270
X. Sun, Moon, and Stars
Svantovit
279
Triglav
284
Svarazic
286
Cernobog
288
Other Deities
289
The Deities
III.
Chapter
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Part IV.
Chapter
of the Elbe Slavs
of the Pagan Russians
Rerun
II.
291
293
Dazbog
297
SVAROZIC AND SvAROG
298
Chors
299
Veles, Volos, and Stribog
300
Cult and Festivals

I.
....
303
Worship of the Gods
305
The Koleda
307
CONTENTS
vii
PAGE
The Rusalye
IV. The Kupalo and Jarilo
Baltic Mythology
III.
Part V.
311
313
315
Notes, Celtic
333
Notes, Slavic
351
Bibliography, Celtic
365
Bibliography, Slavic
389
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE
Coloured
I Brug na Boinne
II Gaulish Coins
1. Horse and Wheel-Symbol
2.
Horse, Conjoined Circles and S-Symbol
3.
Man-Headed Horse and Wheel
4.
Bull and S-Symbol
5.
Bull
FACING PAGE
Frontispiece
Sword and Warrior Dancing Before it

7-8. Swastika Composed of Two S-Symbols (?)
9-10. Bull's Head and two S-Symbols; Bear Eating
6.
Serpent
Wolf and S-Symbols
II.
III
Gaulish Coins
2.
4.
Squatting Divinity, and Boar and S-Symbol or Snake

Horse and Bird
5.
Bull and Bird
3.
6.
Boar
7.
Animals Opposed
IV God with
14
Animals Opposed, and Boar and Wolf (?)

Man-Headed Horse and Bird, and Bull Ensign
1.
the
Wheel
SmertuUos
Brug na Boinne
B. Plan of the Brug na Boinne
50
VI A. Plan
of the
VII Three-Headed God

VIII Squatting God
IX A. Altar from Saintes
B.
20
Reverse Side of the same Altar
Incised Stones from Scotland

1.
2.
The"Picardy Stone"
The "Newton Stone"
50
56
72
86
86
94
ILLUSTRATIONS
X
PLATE
XI
FACING PAGE
Gauls and Romans
in
Combat
io6
XII Three-Headed God

XIII Sucellos
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
ii6
Dispater and Aeracura
120
(?)
Epona
Cernunnos
124
128
134
1.
The "Crichie Stone"
2.
An
XVIII Menhir
XIX
Ii2
Incised Scottish Stone

of
Kernuz
140
Bulls and S-Symbols

I, 6.
152
Carvings of Bulls from Burghhead
2-5. S-Symbols
XX
A. Altar from Notre Dame.

Altar from Notre
B.
XXI
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
Esus
Tarvos Trigaranos
Altar from Treves
XXII Page
XXIII
Dame.
of
an
Irish
Manuscript
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
158
166
Artio
176
186
Boars
188
Horned God
Sucellos
204
208
Zadusnica
237
XXVIII Djadek
XXIX
158
.
244
Setek
244
Lesni Zenka
261
Svantovit
279
Festival of Svantovit
281
XXXIII
Radigast
286
XXXIV
Idealizations of Slavic Divinities
288
XXXV
XXXVI
1.
Svantovit
2.
Ziva
3.
Cernobog and Tribog
Veles
300
Ancient Slavic Sacrifice
XXXVII The
Sacred
Oak
of
Romowe
305
305
CELTIC MItTHOLOGY
BY
JOHN ARNOTT MACCULLOCH,

RECTOR OF
ST. SAVIOUr's,
Hon. D.D.
(St.
Andrews)
BRIDGE OF ALLAN, STIRLINGSHIRE, AND HONORARY
CANON OF CUMBRAE CATHEDRAL
TO
DR. JAMES HASTINGS

Editor of the Encyclopedia of Religion and
THE Dictionary of the Bible, etc.
Ethics^
WITH THE GRATITUDE AND RESPECT OF THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
*
a former work
I have considered at some length the reancient

Celts; the present study describes those
ligion of the
Celtic myths which remain to us as a precious legacy from
the past, and is supplementary to the earlier book. These
rj
show, seldom exist as the pagan Celts knew them,

for they have been altered in various ways, since romance,
myths, as
pseudo-history, and the influences of Christianity have all

Still they are full of interest, and it
afi"ected many of them.
perceive traces of old ideas and mythical

conceptions beneath the surface. Transformation allied to
rebirth was asserted of various Celtic divinities, and if the
not
is
difficult to
myths have been transformed, enough of their old selves remained for identification after romantic writers and pseudohistorians gave them a new existence. Some mythic incidents
all
much
were
days of old, but

alike witness to the many-sided character of the life and
doubtless survive
as they
in the
thought of their Celtic progenitors and transmitters. Romance

and love, war and slaughter, noble deeds as well as foul, wordy
boastfulness but also delightful poetic utterance, glamour and
sordid reality, beauty if also squalid conditions of life, are found
side
by
The
side in these stories of ancient Ireland

illustrations are the
Culloch, and
Museum
tions;
work
of
my
and Wales.
daughter. Sheila
Mac-
have to thank the authorities of the British
for permission to
Mr. George
copy
illustrations
Coff"ey for permission to
from their publicacopy drawings and
photographs of the Tumuli at New Grange from his book New

Grange {Brugh na Boinne) and other Inscribed Tumuli in Ireland; the Librarians of Trinity College, Dublin, and the
*
The Religion of
the
Ancient
Celts,
Edinburgh, 191
1.
Bod-
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Library, Oxford, for permission to photograph pages

from well-known Irish MSS.; and Mr. R, J. Best for the use
leian
of his photographs of
MSS.
In writing this book
and to
it
has been some
relief to try to lose
over the pages of the

past, the dark cloud which hangs over our modern life in these
sad days of the great war, sad yet noble, because of the freely
offered sacrifice of life and all that life holds dear by so many of
oneself in
my
it
forget, in turning
countrymen and our heroic
allies in
J.
defence of liberty.
A.
MACCULLOCH.
Bridge OF Allan, Scotland,
May,
i6, 1916.
Ill-
INTRODUCTION
all
INan
lands whither the Celts
existing population with
have made
the
alliances.
came
as conquerors there
whom
They imposed
was
they must eventually
their language
upon them
are or were recently regions of Celtic
Celtic
regions
but
just as many words of the aboriginal vernacular
speech
must have been taken over by the conquerors, or their own

tongue modified by Celtic, so must it have been with their
mythology. Celtic and pre-Celtic folk alike had many myths,
and these were bound to intermingle, with the result that such
Celtic legends as we possess must contain remnants of the
aboriginal
mythology,
the aborigines, has
though
become
it,
Celtic.
like
It
the
descendants of
would be
difficult, in
the existing condition of the old mythology, to say this

Celtic, that of non-Celtic origin, for that mythology is
but fragmentary.
The gods
of the Celts were
is
of
now
many, but of
the Celts of Gaul and of

large cantles of the Celtic race
other parts of the continent of Europe
scarcely any myths
have survived.
few sentences of Classical writers or images

on monuments point to what
of divinities or scenes depicted
rich mythology. These monuments, as well as innames of deities, are numerous there as well as
with
scriptions
was once a
Roman Britain, and belong to the Romano-Celtic

In
Ireland, Wales, and north-western Scotland they
period.
do not exist, though in Ireland and Wales there is a copious
in parts of
Indeed, we may express the

condition of affairs in a formula: Of the gods of the Contiliterature based
many monuments and no myths;

Celts many myths but no monuments.
nental Celts
Insular
The myths
III
on mythology.
of those of the
of the Continental Celts were probably never
INTRODUCTION
committed to writing. They were contained in the sacred verses

taught by the Druids, but it was not lawful to write them
down;^ they were tabu, and doubtless their value would have
vanished if they had been set forth in script. The influences of
Roman civilization and religion were fatal to the oral mythol-
ogy taught by Druids, who were ruthlessly extirpated, while

the old rehgion was assimilated to that of Rome. The gods
were equated with
place;
the people
gods,
who tended
to take their
became Romanized and forgot
Doubtless traditions survived among the
beliefs.
may
Roman
still
their old
and
folk,
exist as folk-lore or fairy superstition, just as folk-
customs, the meaning of which
may
be uncertain to those
who
practise them, are descended from the rituals of a vanished

paganism; but such existing traditions could be used only
with great caution as indexes of the older myths.

There were hundreds of Gaulish and Romano-British gods,
as an examination of the Latin inscriptions found in Gaul and
Britain^ or of Alfred Holder's Altceltischer Sprachschatz^ will
show. Many are equated with the same Roman god, and most
of
them were
may
local deities with similar functions, though some

have been more widely popular; but we can never be sure
to what aspect of the Roman divinity's personality a parallel

was found in their functions. Moreover, though in some cases
philology shows us the meaning of their names, it would avail
little
that
to
speculate upon
meaning, tempting
a temptation
not always successfully
as this
resisted.
This
may
is
be
also
true of the symbols depicted on monuments, though here the

are
function, if not the myth, is more readily suggested.
Why
some
horned or three-headed, or why does one god carry

a wheel, a hammer, or an S-symbol.^ Horns may suggest divine
strength or an earlier beast-god, the wheel may be the sun, the
deities
hammer may denote creative power. Other symbols resemble

those of Classical divinities, and here the meaning is more obvious. The three Matres, or "Mothers," with their symbols of
fertility
were Earth Mothers; the horned deity with a bag of
PLATE
II
Gaulish Coins
Coin of the Nervii, with horse and wheel-
1.
symbol
(cf.
Plates III, 4, IV,
Gaulish
2.
and S-symbol
(cf.
Plates III,
3,
conjoined
IV,
XIX,
circles,
2-5).
Plate III, 2) and wheel.
(cf.
Coin of the Remi
4.
(?),
with bull
(cf.
Plates III,
B, XXI), and S-symbol.
IX, B, XIX, I, 6, XX,

Coin of the Turones, with
5.
Armorican
6.
dancing before
cf.
XV).
with horse,
Coin of the Cenomani, with man-headed horse
3.
5,
coin,
it
coin,
bull.
showing sword and warrior
(exemplifying the cult of weapons;
pp. 33-34)8.
7.
Gaulish coins, with swastika composed of
two S-symbols
(.'').
Gaulish coin, showing bull's head and two

S-symbols; reverse, bear (cf. Plate XXIII) eating
9, 10.
a serpent.
Coin of the Carnutes, showing wolf

i) and S-symbols.
II.
III,
(cf.
Plate
II
INTRODUCTION
was a
grain was a god of plenty. Such a goddess as Epona
divinity of horses and mules, and she is represented as riding a
horse or feeding foals. But what myths lie behind the representation of Esus cutting down a tree, whose branches, extending round another side of the monument, cover a bull and three
cranes
Tarvos
Trigaranos?
another monument with
which two birds are
Is this
a bull's
the incident depicted on
head among branches on
perched.^"*
Glimpses of myths are seen in Classical references to Celtic

gods. Caesar, whose information (or that of his source) about
the gods of Gaul is fragmentary, writes: "They worship chiefly
the god Mercury. Of him there are many simulacra;^ they
and guide of journeys and

marches, and they suppose him to have great power over the
acquiring of money and in matters of merchandise. After him
come Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. Concerning these
make him inventor
of
arts
all
much
the same opinions as other nations

Apollo
arts
and
of
the
teaches
Minerva
beginnings
repels diseases,
wars."^
Mars
directs
celestial
affairs.
crafts, Jupiter sways
they hold
There
Many
the Gauls worshipped a few gods.

local deities with similar functions but different names
is
no evidence that
all
the evidence of the inscriptions, and these are grouped colThere

lectively by Caesar and assimilated to Roman divinities.
is
Minervas, Apollos, and the like,

each with his Celtic name attached to that of the Roman god.
Or, again, they are nameless, as In the case of the Yorkshire
and paths"
inscription, "To the god who invented roads
are
many
local Mercuries,
an obvious Mercury. Caesar adds, "The Gauls declare that

they are descended from Dispater, and this, they say, has been
handed down by the Druids." ' If, as the present writer has
tried to show elsewhere,^ Dispater is the Roman name of a
Celtic god, whether Cernunnos, or the god with the hammer,
or Esus, or
all three,
myth resembles many
who
ruled a rich underworld, then this
told elsewhere of the first
from the earth, the autochthones. The
men emerging
parallel Celtic
myth
INTRODUCTION
lo
In Ireland, if it ever existed there, it gave

place to stories of descent from fictitious personages, like
Mile, son of Bile, invented by the early scribes, or from Biblical
has not survived.
patriarchs.
Apollonius, writing in the third century b. c, reports a

Celtic myth about the waters of Eridanus. Apollo, driven by
his father's threats from heaven because of the son whom
Karonis bore to him, fled to the land of the Hyperboreans;

and the tears which he shed on the way formed the tossing
Some Greek myth
here mingled with a local legend

about the origin of a stream and a Celtic god, possibly Belenos,
who had a neighbouring temple at Aquileia. In an island of the
waters.^
is
Hyperboreans (a Celtic people dwelling beyond the Rhipaean

Mountains whence Boreas blew) was a circular temple where
Apollo was worshipped. Every year near the vernal equinox
the god appeared in the sky, harping and dancing, until the
rising of the Pleiades.^" It
is
natural that this
"
circular temple
"
should have been found in Stonehenge.
Lucian (second century a. d.) describes a Gaulish god Ogmios, represented as an old man, bald-headed and with
wrinkled and sun-burnt skin, yet possessing the attributes of
the
Hercules
hung from
the club, the bow, and a sheath

He draws a multitude by beautiful
lion's skin,
his shoulder.
chains of gold and
amber attached
to their ears, and they follow

end
of
the
chains is fixed to his tongue,
him with joy. The other
and he turns to his captives a smiling countenance. A Gaul
explained that the native god of eloquence was regarded as
Hercules, because he had accomplished his feats through eloquence; he was old, for speech shows itself best in old age; the
chains indicated the bond between the orator's tongue
and the
ears of enraptured listeners. ^^
Lucian
Gaulish
may have
myth
seen such a representation or heard of a
of this kind,
Ogma, whose name
is
and
as
we
shall see,
an
Irish
god
akin to that of Ogmios, was a divine
warrior and a god of poetry and speech.
Ogma
is
called
INTRODUCTION
1 1
grianainech ("sun-faced," or "shining-faced"), perhaps a parallel to Lucian's description of the face of Ogmios. The head of
Ogmios occurs on Gaulish
and from one
coins,
of his eyes pro-
ceeds a ray or nail. This has suggested a parallel with the

Ulster hero Cuchulainn in his "distortion," when the Ion Idith
(? "champion's light") projected from his forehead thick and
long as a man's
fist.
Another curious
parallel occurs in the
Tain Bo Cualnge, or "Cattle-Spoil of Cualnge," where, among

the Ulster forces, is a strong man with seven chains on his neck,
and seven men dragged along at the end of each, so that their
noses strike the ground, whereupon they reproach him. Is this
a distorted reminiscence of the
myth
of Ogmios.'*
A British goddess Sul, equated with Minerva at Bath, is

mentioned by Solinus (third century a. d.) as presiding over
warm
In her temple perpetual fires burned and never

grew old, for where the fire wasted away it turned into shining
^^
The latter statement is travellers' gossip, but the
globes.
springs.
"eternal fires" recall the sacred
fire
of St. Brigit at Kildare,
tended by nineteen nuns in turn, a day at a time, and on the

twentieth by the dead saint herself. The fire was tabu to
males,
who must not even
breathe on
it.^^
This breath tabu in
found among Parsis, Brahmans, Slavs,

in Japan, and formerly in Riigen. The saint succeeded to the
connexion with
fire is
or ritual of a goddess, the Irish Brigit, or the Brigindo

or Brigantia of Gaulish and British inscriptions, who was like-
myth
wise equated with Minerva.

A tabued grove near Marseilles
Lucan, who wrote

his
account
is
in the first
based on local legends.
down and
The
sacrifices,
trees of the grove
and the hollow cav-
movement
of the earth; the
rose again; flames
burned but did not
erns were heard to roar at the

trees bent
mythically described by
and doubtless
century of our era,
were stained with the blood of
yew
is
consume the wood; dragons entwined surrounded the oaks.

Hence people were afraid to approach the sacred grove, and
the priest did not venture within
its
precincts at midnight or
INTRODUCTION
12
"the destruction that

midday, lest the god should appear
In Galatia Artemis was thought to
wasteth at noonday."
wander with demons in the forest at midday, tormenting to
^'*
death those
whom
garded as a
midday demon who haunted
she met;
Whether these
uncertain, and their
ests.
suggested by the
of
Psalm
while Diana in
and
re-
for-
divinities represent a Celtic goddess
is
have been
midday aspect may

"midday demon" of the Septuagint
fateful
Both accounts occur
xc. 6.
Autun was
cross-roads
version
in lives of saints.
Several references suggest that the gods punished the taking

of things dedicated to themselves, and therefore tabu to men.
Caesar says that this was a criminal action punished by torture
and death, ^^ and
myth also discloses the

The awe of the priest of
Irish
the grove is parincidents of Celtic history. After the battle of AUia
of breach of tabu.
alleled
by
in 390 B.
disastrous results
c, where the Celts saw divine aid in the flight of the

stood awestruck before it, they were afraid of the
Romans and
^^
After the battle of Delphi (279 b. c.) "madness from

on them at night, and they attacked each other, no
night.
a god"
fell
^^
Another fear based
longer recognizing each other's speech.
on a myth is referred to in Classical sources, that of the future
The
Celts did not dread earthquakes or high tides,

which, indeed, they attacked with weapons; but they feared
cataclysm.
the
fall
of the sky
vail.
An
done
if
Irish
and the day when
vow perhaps
refers
and water must preto this: something would be

fire
the sky with its showers of stars did not fall or the earth
burst or the sea submerge the world. Any untoward event
might be construed
gous to
it.
coming of this catastrophe or analoHow, then, was the sky meanwhile supported.^
as the
Perhaps on mountain-peaks like that near the source of the

Rhone, which the native population called "the column of the
sun," and which was so lofty that it hid the northern sun from
the southern folk.^^ Gaidoz says that "the belief that the earth
rests
on columns
which we know
the sole debris of ancient cosmogony of

in Irish legends, but we have only the reflexion
is
INTRODUCTION
of
It
in a
hymn and
gloss of the Liber
Hymnorum. In vaunting
the pre-eminence of two saints who were like great gods of old
Christian Ireland, Ultan says of Brigit that she was 'half of
the colonnade of the kingdom (of the world) with Patrick the
eminent.'
The
in the world, so
more explicit
are Brigit and Patrick
gloss
is
'as there are

in Ireland.'"
two
^^
pillars
In some
of the romantic Irish voyages islands are seen resting on pillars,

and an echo of these myths is found in the Breton tradition that
the church at Kernitou stands on four columns, resting on a

congealed sea which will submerge the structure when it be-
comes liquid. ^
Divine help is often referred to
in Irish
myths, and a parallel
instance occurs in Justin's allusion to the guidance of the

Segovesi by birds to the Danubian regions which they cona horse
quered.^^ Such myths are depicted on coins, on which
appears led by a bird, which sometimes whispers in its ear.

Heroes were also inspired by birds to found towns. Birds were
objects of worship and divination with the Celts, and divinities
transformed themselves into the shape of birds, or birds formed
their symbols.
The
Irish
birth of heroes
myth. One
from a god and a human mother occurs in

is found in the ac-
Classical parallel to this
count of the origin of the northern Gauls given by Diodorus.

They were descended from Hercules and the beautiful giant
daughter of the King of Celtica, and hence they were taller and
handsomer than other peoples. ^^ This is perhaps the Greek

version of a native myth, which is echoed in the Irish tale of
the gigantic daughter of the king of Maidens' Land and her
love for Fionn.^^ Again,
when Diodorus speaks
of Hercules as-
advancing into Celtica, improving the

sembling
laws, and founding a city called Alesia, honoured ever since by
the Celts as the centre of their kingdom, he is probably giving
his followers,
in terms of Greek mythology.^^ Some native

was concerned, and his story fitted that of Herwho became popular with the Celts.
a native
myth
god or hero
cules,
INTRODUCTION
14
The Celts had beliefs resembling those of the Greeks and

Romans about incubi. Demons called dusii sought the couches
of
women out of lust,
The
a belief reported
by sub-Classical authors.
Classical evidence for Celtic belief in divine descent
is
also
by the form of several proper names which have

been recorded, while lineage from a river or river-god is associated with the Belgic Viridomar.^^
furnished
legend reported by Pliny concerns some natural product,

perhaps a fossil echinus, in explanation of the origin of which
this myth was current, or to it an existing serpent-myth had
been attached. Numerous serpents collected on a day in summer and, intertwining, formed a ball with the foam from their
bodies, after which their united hissings threw it into the air.
According to the Druids, he who would obtain it must catch it
on a mantle before
touched the ground and must escape

hastily, putting running water between himself and the pursuing serpents. The ball was used magically.^^
it
Classical observers cite vaguely
some myths about the other-
world and they admired profoundly the Celtic belief in immortality, which, if Lucan's words are correct, was that of the
soul animating a
new body
there.
Diodorus also affirms
this,
with the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration;^^ yet in the same passage he shows that the dead
passed to another world and were not reborn on earth. Irish
though he compares
mythology
it
has
living
was
tells
much
it
us nothing about the world of the dead, though
to say of a gods' land or Elysium, to which the
were sometimes invited by immortals. This Elysium

under the waters.
in distant islands, in the hollow hills, or
Plutarch, on the authority of Demetrius, who may have been a

Roman functionary in Britain, reports that round Britain are
many
desert islands,
named
after gods
and
heroes.
Demetrius
himself visited one island lying nearest these, inhabited by a

people whom the Britons regarded as sacred, and while he was
there, a
storm arose with
explained as the passing
fiery bolts falling.
away
This the people
of one of the mighty, for
when a
PLATE
III
Gaulish Coins
1. Coin of the Senones, showing on one side two
animals opposed, and on the reverse a boar and a
wolf (?) opposed (cf. Plates II, ii, XXIV).
2.
Gaulish coin, with man-headed horse and bird,
and, below, a bull ensign

B,
XIX,
3.
I,
6,
XX,
B,
(cf.
Plates II, 3-5, 9, IX,
XXI).
Coin of the Remi, showing squatting divinity
with a torque in the right hand (cf. Plates VIII, IX,

XXV), and on the reverse a boar and S-symbol or
snake.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Armorican
coin, with horse
and
bird.
Coin of the Carnutes, with bull and bird.

Gaulish coin from Greek model, with boar.
Gaulish coin of the Senones, with animals
opposed.
INTRODUCTION
15
great soul died, the atmosphere was affected and pestilences

were caused. Demetrius does not say whither the soul went,
either to the islands or elsewhere, but islands
named
after gods
and heroes suggest the Irish divine Elysium, and this is confirmed by what Demetrius adds, and by what Plutarch reports
in another work. On one of the islands Kronos is imprisoned,
and Briareos keeps guard over him,^^ along with many deities
What Celtic
(Saifiova^;) who are his attendants and servants.
or
divinities
heroes
lurk
under these names
is
unknown,
but the myth resembles traditions of Arthur in Avalon (Elysium), or of Fionn or Arthur sleeping in a hollow hill, waiting
up at the hour of their country's need. Elsewhere

Plutarch speaks of an island in which the barbarians say that
Kronos is imprisoned by Jupiter in a cavern. There Kronos
to start
sleeps, fed
by birds with ambrosia, while
his
son
lies
beside
him
guarding him. The surrounding sea, clogged with earth, appears to be solid, and people go to the island, where they spend
as
if
thirteen years waiting on the god.

is
no
toil
Many remain, because there

devote
their time to sacrificing,
or trouble there, and
singing hymns, or studying legends and philosophy. The climate is exquisite, and the island is steeped in fragrance. Some-
times the god opposes their departure by appearing to them

along with those who minister to him, and these divine min-
prophesy or tell things which have been

revealed to them as dreams of Saturn when they visit his
istrants themselves
Plutarch's alleged informant had waited on the god and

studied astrology and geometry, and before going to another
cave.
island he carried with
him golden
cups.^^ In this latter story
the supposed studies and ritual of the Druids are mingled with
some distorted tradition of Elysium, and the reference to cups
of gold carried from the island perhaps points to the myth of
man brought from
the land of the gods.^

The sixth century Byzantine historian Procopius has a
curious story about the island of "Brittia," which was divided
by a wall from north to south. West of the wall none could
things useful to
INTRODUCTION
was the
the vipers and evil beasts;

but in its inhabited part dwelt Angles, Frisians, and Britons.
The island lay between Britannia and Thule. Thule is problive,
so foul
air,
so
many
Scandinavia; Britannia, which is, strictly speaking,

Britain, is confused with the region lying between Brittany
and the mouths of the Scheldt and Rhine. Brittia is Britain;
ably
Roman
Wall, shown on Ptolemy's map running

north and south at the present Scottish border, because Scotthe wall
is
the
land was represented as lying at right angles to England. The

region beyond the wall, mountainous, forest-clad, and inaccessible,
was
easily conceived as a sinister place
by those who
heard of
only vaguely. Procopius then says that on the coast
of the Continent fishermen and farmers are exempt from taxait
tion because
it is
their
duty to ferry
souls over to Brittia, doing
At midnight they hear a knocking at their door

and muffled voices calling; but when they reach the shore, they
see only empty boats, not their own. In these they set out and
presently perceive that the boats have become laden, the gunwale being close to the water; and within an hour Brittia is
this in turn.
reached, though ordinarily it would take a day and a night to

cross the sea. There the boats are invisibly unladen, and al-
though no one has been seen, a loud voice is heard asking

each soul his name and country.^^ The Roman poet Claudian,
writing toward the close of the fourth and the beginning of the
fifth century of our era, had perhaps heard such a story, though
with that of Odysseus and the shades.^^ At the

extremity of the Gaulish coast is a place protected from the
he confuses
it
up the shades. There

is heard the murmur of their complaint, and the inhabitants
see pale phantoms and dead forms flitting about.^^ This
strictly concerns the Homeric shades, for Classical testimony
tides,
where Odysseus by
sacrifice called
to the Celtic other-world, as well as Irish stories of the return
phantoms." Claudian may

that of Procopius, though it is by
of the dead, never suggests "pale
have heard some story like

no means certain that the
latter
is
reporting a Celtic belief
INTRODUCTION
for other peoples
than the Celts dwelt
17
in his
time opposite
Possibly, however, the Celts believed that the dead

to distant islands. Even now the Bretons speak of the
Britain.
went
extreme point of Armorica, while

folk-lore tells how the drowned are nightly conveyed by boat
from Cape Raz to the isle of Tevennec.^* If the Celtic dead
"Bay
of Souls" at Raz, at the
went to an island, this may explain the title said by Pliny,

quoting Philemon (second century b. c), to have been given
by the Cimbri
to the northern sea,
Morimarusam = Mortuum
the
or possibly Mortuorum Mare (" Sea of the Dead")
an
to
sea which the dead crossed. The title may refer, however,
Mare
and such a sea has always been feared,

^^
or to the ice-covered sea, which Strabo
regarded as an impassable spongy mixture of earth, water, and air. The supposed Celtic belief in an island of the dead might also explain
unchangeably calm
sea,
why, according to Pliny, no animal or man beside the Gallic

a belief still current in Britocean dies with a rising tide ^^
tany; the dead could be carried away only by an outflowing
tide.
it is
But whether or not the
Celts believed in such an island,
Elysium connects
only with divine beings and
certain that no Irish story of the island
that with them, but associates it

favoured mortals who were lured thither in their lifetime.
Roman civilization was unchance

of survival. Yet here,
a
better
had
known, mythology
as in Gaul, it was forced to contend with triumphant Chriscuritianity, which was generally hostile to paganism. Still,
ously enough. Christian verity was less destructive of Celtic
In Wales and Ireland, where
myths than was Roman civilization, unless the Insular Celts

were more tenacious of myth than their Continental cousins.
Sooner or later the surviving myths, more often fragments than
finished entities, were written down; the bards and the filid
(learned poets) took pride in preserving the glories of their
race; and even learned Christian monks must have assisted in
keeping the old stories
alive.
their part in corrupting
Three
factors,
however, played
and disintegrating the myths. The
INTRODUCTION
first
of these
was the
dislike of Christianity to transmit
what-
ever directly preserved the memory of the old divinities. In

the surviving stories their divinity is not too closely descried;
they are made as
human
as possible, though they are still superand

deed; they are tolerated as a kind of
power
fairy-folk rather than as gods. Yet they are more than fairies
and they have none of the wretchedness of the decrepit, skinclad Zeus of Heine's Gods in Exile. Side by side with this there
was another tendency, natural to a people who no longer worshipped gods whose names were still more or less familiar.
They were regarded as kings and chiefs and were brought into
a genealogical scheme, while some myths were reduced to
annals of supposititious events. Myth was transmuted into
human
in
This euhemerizing ^^ process is found in all

decaying mythologies, but it is outstanding in that of the
pseudo-history.
ancient Irish.
The
the attempt of Christian

scribes to connect the mythical past and its characters with
persons and events of early Scriptural history.
third factor
is
These factors have obscured
Irish divine legends, though

remains
to
show
how
rich
and beautiful the mythology
enough
had been. In the two heroic cycles
those of Cuchulainn
and Fionn respectively

the disturbance has been less, and
in these the Celtic magic and glamour are found. Some stories
of the gods escaped these destructive factors, and in them these
delectable traits are also apparent. They are romantic tales
rather than myths, though their mythical quality is obvious.
Two mythical strata exist, one older and purely pagan, in

which gods are immortal, though myth may occasionally have
spoken of their death; the other influenced by the annalistic
scheme and also by Christianity, in which, though the unlikeness of the gods to
overcome and
the myths had
humankind
killed
is
emphasized, yet they
by men. The
literary class
who
may
be
rewrote
than even the Greek mythographers. They imagined some moving situations and majestic
episodes or borrowed these from the old myths, but they had
less
simple ideals
INTRODUCTION
little
sense of proportion and were infected
19
by
a vicious rhetori-
and exaggeration. Many tales revel monotonously in war and bloodshed, and the characters are spoiled by
excessive boastfulness. Yet in this later stratum the mythoas tales were written in
poeic faculty is still at work, inasmuch
cal verbosity
which heroes were brought into relation with the old divinities.
The main sources for the study of Irish mythology are the
documents contained in such great manuscripts as the Book
Dun Cow
{Leabhar na hUidhre),^^
written in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but based on
materials of older date. Later manuscripts also contain imof Leinster
of the
Floating tales and traditions, fairy- and folkare also valuable, and much of this material has now been
portant
lore,
and the Book
stories.
published.^^
the British Celts, or those of them who escaped the

influence of Roman civilization, the mythological remains are
Among
far less copious. Here, too, the euhemerizing process has been at
work, but much more has the element of romance affected the
old myths. They have become romantic tales arranged, as In

the Mabinogion, In definite groups, and the dramatis personae
are the ancient gods, though
It Is difficult
to say whether the
myths transformed or are fresh romantic invenmythic kind. Still, the Welsh Mabinogion Is of great
importance, as well as some parts of Arthurian romance, the
poems about Tallesin, and other fragments of Welsh literature.
The euhemerizing process is still more evident in those portions
of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History which tell of the names and
Incidents are
tions of a
deeds of kings
who were once
gods.
Thus If materials for Irish and British mythology are copious,

they must be used with caution, for we cannot be certain that
any one story, however old, ever existed as such In the form of
a pagan myth. As the mountain-peaks of Ireland or Wales or
the Western Isles are often seen dimly through an enshrouding
mist, which now Is dispersed in torn wisps, and now gathers
again, lending a more fantastic appearance to the shattered
INTRODUCTION
20
crags, so the gods
and
their doings are half-recorded
hidden behind the mists of time and
false history
and
half-
and romance.
Clear glimpses through this Celtic mist are rare. This is not to
be wondered at when we consider how much of the mythology
has been long forgotten, and how many hands have worked
upon the remainder. The stories are relics of a dead past, as
defaced and inexplicable as the battered monuments of the old
religion.
Romancers, would-be
historians, Christian
opponents
of paganism, biographers of saints, ignorant yet half-believing

folk, have worked their will with them. Folk-tale incidents
have been wrought into the

it.
Gods
new mythical past
part of
fabric,
perhaps were originally
figure as kings, heroes, saints, or fairies,
There
and
has been created out of the debris of an older

is little
of the limpid clearness of the
myths
and yet enough to delight those who, in our turbulent
modern life, turn a wistful eye upon the past.
To make matters worse, modern writers on Celtic tradition
have displayed a twofold tendency. They have resolved every
story into myths of sun, dawn, and darkness, every divinity or
mythology.
of Hellas,
hero Into a sun-god or dawn-goddess or ruler of a dark world.

Or those with a touch of mysticism see traces of an esoteric
faith, of mysteries performed among the initiate. In mediaeval
the idea of an esoteric wisdom

Wales the "Druidic legend"
formed itself
transmitted from old priests and philosophers
among half-crazy enthusiasts and has been revived in our own
time by persons of a similar genius. Ireland and the West Highlands have always been remarkably free of this nonsense,
though some Celts with a turn for agreeing with their interlocutor seem to have persuaded at least one mystic that he was on
the track of esoteric beliefs and ritual there. ^ He did not know
his Celt! The truth is that the mediaeval and later Welsh
crude
Druidists were themselves in the mythopoeic stage
of
the
creed
or
and
invented
stories
of
Blakes
Swedenborgs
the old Druids which had no place in It and are lacking in any
document of genuine antiquity, Welsh or Irish. This Is true
PLATE IV
God with the Wheel
This deity, wiio carries S-symbols as well as the
wheel, was probably a solar divinity (see p. 8; for
the wheel as a symbol cf. Plate II, i, 3, and for the
S-symbol Plates
The
II, 2, 4, 7-9, 11, III, 3,
XIX,
2-5).
statue was found at Chatelet, Haute-Marne,
France.
INTRODUCTION
modern "mythological"
also of the
school.
21
Not satisfied with

must mytholo-
the beautiful or wild stories as they stand, they
them
Hence they have invented
a pretty but
which
foist
own,
mythology
they
upon our
Celtic forefathers, who would have been mightily surprised to
hear of it. The Celts had clearly defined divinities of war, of
gize
still
further.
ineffectual
of their
and they
myths about them. But they did not make all
agriculture, of the chase, of poetry, of the other-world,
told romantic
their goddesses
dawn-maidens, or transform every hero into a
sun-god, or his twelve battles into the months of the solar year.
Nor is it likely that they had mystic theories of rebirth, if that
was a wide-spread Celtic belief; and existing examples of it

always concern gods and heroes, not mere mortals. They are
straightforward enough and show no esoteric mystic origin or
tendency, any more than do similar myths among savages, nor
do they set forth philosophic theories of retribution, such as were
evolved by Pythagorean and Indian philosophy. Modern investigators, themselves in the
mythopoeic stage, easily
reflect
back
upon old Celtic tales. Just as little had the Celts an

esoteric monotheism or a secret mystery-cult; and such genutheir ideas
its priests as have reached

which have been assumed to
by enthusiasts during the last two centuries.
ine notices of their ancient religion or
us
know nothing
exist
of these things,
MYTHOLOGY
CELTIC
CHAPTER
THE STRIFE OF THE GODS
I
THE
annallstic account of the groups of people
sively
main
came
to Ireland,
some to perish
who
succes-
utterly, others to re-
as colonists, represents the unscientific historian's
attempt
to explain the different races existing there in his time, or of

whom tradition spoke. He wrote, too, with an eye upon Biblical
and connected the descendants of the patriarchs with the

Three different groups of Noah's lineage arrived
successive waves. The first of these, headed by Noah's grand-
story,
folk of Ireland.
in
daughter, Cessair, perished, with the exception of her husband.

Then came the Fomorians, descendants of Ham; and finally
the Nemedians, also of the stock of Noah, arrived. According
to one tradition, they, like Cessair's people
unconnected with Noah
mew)
the
and another group
race of Partholan (Bartholo-
died to a man, although another legend says that they
returned to Spain, whence they

frequently in
tween
had come. Spain figures

these annalistic stories, and a close connexion be-
and Ireland
taken for granted. This may be a reminiscence of a link by way of trade between the two countries in
it
is
prehistoric days, of which, indeed, archaeology presents

proof.
some
Possibly, too, early Celtic colonists reached Ireland di-
rectly from Spain, rather than through Gaul and Britain.

Still another tradition makes Nemedian survivors wander over
the world, some of their descendants becoming the Britons,

while others returned to Ireland as a new colonizing group
Fir-Domnann, and Galioin. A third group of

descendants who had learned magic came to Ireland
in 3
Firbolgs,
their
the
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
24
Tuatha De Danann. Finally the Milesians, the ancestors

the Irish, arrived and conquered the Tuatha De Danann,
these had defeated the Fomorlans.^
Little of this
Is
and how much
Is
the past,
is
of
as
actual history, but how much of It is invention,

based on mythic traditions floating down from
uncertain.
What
certain
Is
is
that the annalists,
partly as a result of the euhemerlzing process, partly through
misunderstanding, mingled groups of gods with tribes or races

of
men and
regarded them as more or
various traditions are Introductory to

battles of
human. These
the story of the two
Mag-Tured, enlarged from an
An
less
earlier tale of a single
between the
in
diiferent
were
and
battles,
they
parts of Ireland
fought
bearing the same name, one In Mayo and the other in Sligo, the
first battle being fought against the Flrbolgs, and the second
against the Fomorlans, by the Tuatha De Danann.
Having reached Ireland, the Tuatha De Danann established
conflict.
Interval of twenty-seven years elapsed
two
themselves at Mag-Rein In Connaught. The Flrbolgs sent a

huge warrior, Sreng, to parley with them, and to him ap-
proached Bres, son of Elatha, of the Tuatha De Danann. The

warriors gazed long upon each other; then they mutually admired their weapons, and
finally
exchanged them, Bres receiv-
ing the heavy, broad-pointed spears of the Firbolg, and Sreng

the light, sharp-pointed lances of Bres. The demand of the in-
vaders was surrender of the half of Ireland, but to this the Flrbolgs would not agree. Meanwhile the Tuatha De Danann,
heavy Firbolg spears, retreated to Mag-Tured,

Badb, Morrigan, and Macha, three of their women, producing
frogs, rain of fire, and streams of blood against the Flrbolgs,
By mutual agreement an armistice was arranged for preparation, and some from each side even engaged In a hurling match.
Such were the tactics of the time Each party prepared a healing well for the wounded. In which medicinal herbs were placed.
Dagda led the forces on the first day, when the Tuatha De
terrified at the
Danann were
defeated;
but under the
command
of
Ogma,
25
Bodb Dearg, Diancecht, Aengaba
of Norway, Badb,
were
successful on the
Macha, Morrigan, and Danann, they
second day. On the third day Dagda again led, "for in me you
have an excellent god"; on the fourth day badba, bledlochtana,
Midir,
and amaite
aidgill
("furies," "monsters,"
"hags of doom")
and their voices resounded

and hollows of the earth. Sreng severed the arm of Nuada,
king of the Tuatha De Danann; Bres was slain by Eochaid,
in the rocks, waterfalls,
cried aloud,
who, overpowered by thirst, sought water throughout Ireland,

but the wizards of the Tuatha De Danann hid all streams from
him, and he was slain. The Firbolgs, reduced to three hundred,
were
prepared to
still
offered
fight,
but when the Tuatha
them peace and the province
of
De Danann
Connaught,
this
was
accepted.
As we
shall see, the
Tuatha De Danann were gods, and
their
strife against the Firbolgs, a non-Celtic group,

probably
based on a tradition of war between incoming Celts and aborigines. Meanwhile the Tuatha De Danann made alliance with
is
Ethne, daughter of Balor, married Cian, son

of Diancecht, her son being the famous Lug. Nuada's mutila-
the Fomorians.
tion prevented his continuing as King, for no

could reign; and the women insisted that the
maimed person
Fomorian Bres,
adopted son, should receive the throne, since he was son

of Elatha, the Fomorian King.
Eri, sister of Elatha, was
counted of the Tuatha De Danann, perhaps because their
their
mother was
female
line;
an instance of succession through the

would account for Bres becoming King,
also of them,
and
this
though these genealogies are doubtless inventions of the annalBres was son of Elatha and Eri. Such unions of brother
ists.
and sister (or half-sister) are common in mythology and were
not
unknown
means
in royal houses,
e. g.
Egypt and Peru, as a

One day Eri saw a silver
in
of keeping the dynasty pure.

boat approaching. A noble warrior with golden locks stepped
ashore, clad in an embroidered mantle and wearing a jewelled
golden brooch, and five golden torques round his neck.
He
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
26
two
carried
silvery pointed spears with bronze shafts,
golden-hilted sword
inlaid with silver.
and a
Eri was so overcome
by
appearance that she easily surrendered to him and wept

Then he drew from his
bitterly when he rose to leave her.
his
finger a golden ring
whose
finger
it
and bade her not part with it save to one

fit.
Elatha was his name, and she would
should
At seven
bear a son Eochaid Bres, or the Beautiful."

old Bres was as a boy of fourteen.^
years
Bres was miserly and caused much murmuring among the

Tuatha De Danann, "Their knives were not greased by him;
and however often they

of ale."
No
visited
him
their breaths did not smell
poets, bards, or musicians were in his household,
and no champions proved
their prowess, save
Ogma, who had
the slavish daily task of carrying a load of fuel, two-thirds of

which were swept from him by the sea, because he was weak
through hunger.^
Bres claimed the milk of
all
brown, hairless
cows, and when these proved to be few in number, he caused

the kine of Munster to pass through a fire of bracken so that
they might become hairless and brown,^ this tale being possibly
connected with the ritual passing of cattle through fires at Beltane (May-Day). Another version of the tale, however, makes
it less
pleasant for Bres.
He demanded
a hundred men's drink
from the milk of a hornless dun cow or a cow of some other

colour from every house in Ireland; but by the advice of Lug
and FindgoU, Nechtan, King of Munster, singed the kine in a
fire of fern and smeared them with a porridge of flax-seed.
Three hundred wooden cows with dark brown pails in lieu of
udders were made, and the pails were dipped in black bogstuff.
out
When
like
Bres inspected them, the bog-stuff was squeezed

milk; but since he was under geis, or tabu, to drink
whatever was milked, the result of his swallowing so much bogstuff was a gradual wasting away, until he died when traversing
Ireland to seek a cure. Stokes conjectures that Bres required
the milk of one-coloured cows as a means of removing his wife's
barrenness.^
27
Another account of Bres's death tells how Corpre the poet

came to his house. It was narrow, dark, and fireless, and for
food the guest received only three small unbuttered cakes.
Next morning, filled with a poet's scorn, he chanted a satire:
food quickly on a dish.
a cow's milk whereon a calf grows,
a man's abode under the gloom of night,
paying a company of story-tellers,
Let that be the condition of Bres."
"Without
Without
Without
Without
This was the
first satire
made
in Ireland,
but
it
had
all
the
and Bres declined

and going to his
from that hour. Surrendering
mother, he asked whence was his origin; and when she tried
the ring on his finger, she found that it fitted him. Bres and she
then went to the Fomorians' land, where] his father recognized
the ring and upbraided Bres for leaving the kingdom. Bres
effect
which
later belief attributed to satire,
his sovereignty
acknowledged the injustice of his rule, but asked his father's

help, whereupon Elatha sent him to Balor, grandson of Net,
the Fomorian war-god, and to Indech, who assembled a huge
force in order to impose their rule on the Tuatha De Danann.'^
Some curious incidents may be mentioned here. While Bres
Fomorian Kings, Indech, Elatha, and Teth*ra, bound

tribute on Ireland and reduced some of the Tuatha De Danann
to servitude. The Fomorians had formerly exacted tribute of
the Nemedians, and it was collected by one of their women in
an iron vessel
fifty fills of corn and milk, of butter, and of
flour. This may be a memory of sacrifice. Ogma had to carry
ruled, the
and even Dagda was obliged to become a builder of raths^

In the house where he lived was a lampooner named
Cridenbel who demanded from him the three best bits of his
ration, and thus Dagda's health suffered; but Oengus, Dagda's
son, hearing of this*, gave him three gold coins to put into Cridenbel's portion. These would cause his death, and Bres would
be told that Dagda had poisoned him. Then he must tell the
story to Bres, who would cause the lampooner's stomach to be
fuel,
or forts.
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
28
opened; and if the gold were not found there, Dagda would
have to die. In the sequel Oengus advised Dagda to ask as
reward for
and
seemed weakness to Bres, the astuteness of Oen-
his
although this
ra^/i-building only a
black-maned
heifer;
gus was seen when, after the second battle, the heifer's lowing
brought to Dagda the cattle exacted by the Fomorians.^
This mythical story of Bres's sovereignty, and of the servitude of beings who are gods, is probably parallel to other myths
temporary eclipse of deities, as when the Babylonian

high gods were afraid of Tiamat and her brood, or cowered in
It may also represent an old nature
terror before the flood.
of the
the
apparent paralysis of gods of sunshine and

fruitfulness in the death and cold of winter; or it may hint at
dualism
some temporary defeat of Celtic invaders, which even their

gods seemed to share. Whatever the Fomorians be, their final
defeat was at hand.
When Bres retired, Nuada was again made King because his
hand was
restored.
Diancecht
(a divinity of leechcraft), as-
by Creidne, god of smith-work, made for him a silver

but
Miach, Diancecht's son, not content with this, obhand,
tained the mutilated hand and by means of such a spell as is
sisted
common
he set
hand.
to
many
races
"joint to
joint,
sinew to sinew"
to the stump, caused skin to grow, and restored the

In another version he made a new arm with a swine-
it
herd's arm-bone.^
Through envy Diancecht struck Miach
four blows, three of which Miach healed, but the fourth was
fatal.
His father buried him, and from his grave sprang as
herbs as he had joints and sinews.
Airmed, his sister,

separated them according to their properties, but Diancecht
confused them so that none might know their right values.^"
many
about magico-medical skill, and

the last may be a myth of divine jealousy at man's obtaining
knowledge. Nuada now made a feast for the gods, and as they
banqueted, a warrior, coming to the portal, bade the door-
These incidents
reflect beliefs
keepers announce him as Lug, son of Cian, son of Diancecht,
29
of Ethne, Balor's daughter. He was also known as samilddnach ("possessing many arts"), and when asked what he
practised, he answered that he was a carpenter, only to hear
and
the door-keeper reply, "Already we have a carpenter."

In
succession he declared himself smith, champion, harper, hero,
poet, magician, leech, cup-bearer, and brazier, but the Tuatha
De Danann
possessed each one of these. Lug, however, beall these arts, gained entrance and among other
feats played the three magic harp-strains so often referred to
cause he
knew
and laughter-strain,
which In turn caused slumber, mourning, and joy.^^
In another version of Lug's coming, from The Children of
in Irish texts
sleep-strain, wail-strain,
Tuirenn {Aided Chlainne Tuirenn), as he approached, "like the

setting sun was the splendour of his countenance," and none
could gaze on it. His army was the fairy cavalcade from the
Land of Promise,^- and with them were his

Manannan's sons.
Lug rode Manannan's
foster-brothers,
steed,
Enbarr,
the spring wind, and on whose back no rider could

be killed; he wore Manannan's lorica which preserved from
fleet as
which no weapon could pierce, and his

sword, the wound of which none survived, while the strength
of all who faced it became weakness. When the Fomorlans came
wounds,
his breastplate
for tribute.
Lug
Cethlionn, told
killed some of them, whereupon Balor's wife,

him that this was their grandson and that It
had been prophesied that when he arrived, the power of the

Fomorlans would depart. As Lug went to meet the Fomorlans, Bres was surprised that the sun seemed rising In the west,
but his Druids said that this was the radiance from the face of
Lug, who cast a spell on the cattle taken for tribute, so that they
returned to the Tuatha De Danann. When his fairy cavalcade
life on condition of bringing over the
while
he
offered sun, moon, sea, and land as guarFomorlans,
antees that he would not again fight; and to this Lug agreed.
The guarantee points to an animistic view of nature, for it
arrived, Bres begged his
means that
sun, etc.,
would punish Bres
If
he was unfaithful. ^^
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
30
To
and
return to the other account,
for a year the gods
ards,
leeches,
remained
and smiths.
Nuada gave Lug
his throne,
in council, consulting the wiz-
Mathgen the wizard announced

them and that he would cast
that the mountains would aid
them on the Fomorians; the cup-bearer
said that through his
power the Fomorians would find no water in lough or river;

Figol the Druid promised to rain showers of fire on the foe and
to
remove from them two-thirds of their might, while increase

would come to the Tuatha De Danann, who would
of strength
not be weary if they fought seven years; Dagda said that he

would do more than all the others together. For seven years
weapons were prepared under the charge of Lug.^^
At this point comes the episode of Dagda's assignation with
the war-goddess Morrigan, who was washing in a river, one
foot at
Echumech
in the north, the other at
Loscuinn
in the
This enormous size is a token of divinity in Celtic

and
the place where Dagda and Morrigan met was now
myths,
known as "the couple's bed." She bade him summon the men
of knowledge and to them she gave two handfuls of the blood
as well as
of Indech's heart, of which she had
deprived him,
These men now chanted spells
valour from his kidneys.
a practice invariably preceding
against the Fomorians
south.
battle
among
the Celts.
-^^
Another incident shows that the Celts, like other races, could
recount irreverent stories about their gods. Dagda had been
sent to spy out the Fomorians'
camp and
to ask a truce.
Much
porridge was made for him, boiled with goats, sheep, and
swine, and the mess being poured into a hole in the ground, he
was bidden to eat it under pain of death. Taking a ladle big
man and woman
he began his meal and

ate it all, after which sleep overcame him, and the Fomorians
mocked his distended paunch. When he rose, uneasy was his
enough
for a
to
lie in,
movement, but he bravely bore his huge branched fork or club,

dragging it till its track was like a boundary-ditch, so that men
call
that "the track of Dagda's club."
An
obscene story
fol-

lows regarding his
31
amour with Indech's daughter, who agreed
to practise magic against her father's army.^^

Before the battle each chief promised Lug prodigies of val-
weapons, and armour in unfailmagic

of the enemy,
ing abundance, enfeeblement and destruction
the power of satire upon them, magical healing of wounded or
slain.
Lug's two witches said, "We will enchant the trees and
our, craftsmanship, or
the stones and the sods of the earth so that they shall become
arms against the foe"; but Lug was prevented

from going to the fray, because "they feared an early death for
the hero owing to the multitude of his arts." Preliminary coma host under
bats occurred in which the superior magic of the Tuatha De

Danann was apparent. Weapons were restored or new ones
made
in
Goibniu
(cf.
twinkling by Goibniu, Luchtine, and Creidne.

Old Irish goba, "smith") had promised that though
the battle lasted seven years, he would replace every broken

sword or spear-head no spear-head forged by him would miss,
;
pierced would continue in life. He kept his

and repromise, making weapons by three turns in his forge,
newed the blunted or broken instruments of war. Elsewhere we
and none
whom
it
learn that Goibniu's immortal ale, Hke nectar
and soma, made
the equivalent of the

Greek Hephaistos, god of craftsmen, who poured out nectar
for the gods at their banquet, and of the Vedic deity Tvastr,
the divinities immortaV^ so that he
is
the cup from which the gods drank.^^ Why divine

smiths should be associated with the drink of the gods is not
who made
but probably we have here different forms of a myth

common to the Indo-European peoples. Goibniu is still reclear,
membered
in Irish folk-tales.
Creidne, the cerd, or brazier, promised to supply rivets for

the spears, hilts for the swords, and bosses and rims for the
the rivets in three turns and cast the rings to
them. Creidne, whom euhemerizing tradition described as having been drowned while bringing golden ore from Spain to
shields; he
Ireland,
made
may
be compared with Len Linfiaclach, cerd of the
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
32
god Bodb, who lived in Loch Lein, making the bright vessels
of Fand, daughter of Flidais.
Every evening he threw his
a
as
as
far
eastward
anvil
grave-mound at Indeoin na nDese
and it in turn cast three showers toward the grave, of water,
and of purple gems.^^

Luchta the carpenter (saer) promised to supply all the shields
and javelin-shafts required for the battle. These shafts he
made with three chippings, the third completing them and setof
fire,
ting
them
threw them with
in the rings of the spears, or he
marvellous accuracy at the sockets of the spear-heads stuck by

Goibniu in the door-lintels, this being precisely paralleled by
the art of Caoilte, the survivor of the Feinn.^"
The mortally wounded were placed in a well over which
Diancecht and
his children
sang
spells,
or into which he put
healing herbs; and thus they became whole.^^ The Fomorians

sent Ruadan, son of Bres and of Brig, daughter of Dagda,
to discover the reason of these things; and a second time he
was sent to kill one of the divine craftsmen. He obtained one
and wounded Goibniu, who slew Ruadan

and then entered the healing well, while Brig bewailed her
of the magic spears
son with the
first
death-keen heard in Ireland.
often, the origin of mourning chants and runes
Here, as so
is
ascribed to
divinities.^^
Lug escaped from his guards and heartened the host by circumambulating them on one foot with one
Before the battle
the attitude
eye closed, chanting a spell for their protection
of the savage medicine-man, probably signifying concentration. Then came the clash of battle, "gory, shivering, crowded,
sanguineous, the river ran in corpses of foes."
cha were slain by Balor,
who
possessed an
personification of the evil eye, so
Once when
his father's
much
Nuada and Ma-
evil eye, or
feared
by
was
the Celts.
Druids were concocting magic potions,
the fumes gave his eye poisonous power, and his eyelid was
raised by four men, but only on the battle-field, where no army
could resist it. When Lug appeared, Balor desired it to be
33
it was carried
some
of
his
own
men.^^
In a ballad
through
account of this, Balor was beheaded by Lug, but asked him to
set the head upon his own and earn his blessing. Fortunately
for himself, however, Lug set it on a hazel, and it
dropped
poison which spHt the hazel in two. The tree became the abode
of vultures and ravens for many years, until Manannan caused
it to be dug up, when a poisonous vapour from its roots killed
and wounded many of the workmen. Of the wood Luchta
made a shield for Manannan, which became one of the famous
shields of Erin. It could not be touched in battle and it always
caused utter rout. Finally it became Fionn's shield.^*
lifted,
but Lug cast a stone at the eye, so that

his head, blasting
The war-goddess Morrigan sang a magic rune to hearten

the host, and the battle became a rout for the Fomorians,
though not before Ogma and Indech had fallen in single combat.
Bres was found unguarded by
three offers for his
life;
Lug and
and made
others,
but two of these that Ireland's kine
should always be in milk, and that corn would be reaped every

were rejected. Life was offered him, however, if he
quarter
would tell how the men of Erin should plough, sow, and reap;
and when Bres said that these things should always be done on
a Tuesday, he
was
set free.^^ In
another account four Fomorians
escaped, ruining corn, milk, fruit, and sea produce; but on
November Eve (Samhain) they were
expelled by Bodb, Midir,

Oengus, and the Morrigan, so that never more should their depredations occur.^^ This points to the conception of the Fomorians as powers of blight; that of Bres suggests rather that they
were pre-Celtic gods of fertility.
Two
curious incidents, revealing the magic powers of weapwhich

were worshipped by the Celts, and of musical instruons,
ments, occur here. Ogma captured the sword of the war-god
Tethra, and when unsheathed it told the deeds it had done,
as
was the custom with swords
tian compiler adds, "the reason
in those days, for, as the Chris-
why demons
spake from weapons was because weapons were then worshipped and acted as
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
34
safe-guards." The other incident tells how Dagda's harp was

carried off and was found by Lug, Ogma, and Dagda in the
No melody would
sound
uttered a charm; but then the harp
came
house where Bres and
from
it
until
Dagda
his friends were.
to him, killing nine men on its way, after which he played the
three magic strains of sleep, mourning, and laughter.^^ This
harp resembles that of Teirtu in the Welsh tale of Kulhzvch

and Olzven, which played or stopped playing of itself when so
desired. ^^
Thus the Tuatha De Danann conquered, and the Morrigan

proclaimed the victory to the royal heights of Ireland, its hosts
a reminisof the side, its chief waters, and its river-mouths
cence of the animistic view or the personalization of nature.

Then she sang of the world's end and of the evils to come
one of the few eschatological references

it is
most
in Irish
mythology,
^^
likely of Christian origin.
though
This curious story is undoubtedly based on old myths of
divine wars, but what these denoted is uncertain. Both Tuatha
De Danann and Fomorians

cern behind the legend a
are superhuman.
Vaguely we
dis-
anthropomorphic figures of
summer, light, growth, and order, with powers of winter, darkness, blight, and disorder. Such powers agree but ill. There
is
strife
between them,
as,
in the parts of nature for
dualism
is
reflected
strife of
to the untutored eye, there
which they stand; and
on the
life
of the beings
who
this
is
strife
apparent
represent the
powers of nature. All mythologies echo the strife. The Babylonian Marduk and the gods battle with Tiamat and her brood;
gods and Titans (or Jotuns), Re' and 'Apop, fight, and those
hostile to gods of light and growth, gods dear to man's heart,
are represented in demoniac guise. If Tuatha De Danann and
Fomorians were both divine but hostile groups of the Irish
Celts, the sinister character of the latter
gotten by
the annalists,
who
would not be
for-
regarded both with puzzled eyes
and sought vainly to envisage them as mortals. Or, again, the

two may be hostile sets of deities, because divinities respec-

and aborigines. The Fomorians
tively of Celts
35
are, in fact, called
gods of the menial Firbolgs, who are undoubtedly an aboriginal race, while Fomorians are described in later Christian
times as ungracious and demoniac, unlike the Tuatha De
Danann; and the pagan Celts must already have regarded them
The gods
as evil.
of a conquering race are often regarded as
hostile to those of the aborigines,
myths
In either case the close
arise.
and now new

relationship in which the
and
vice versa,
groups stand by marriage or descent need not be an Invention

of the compiler. Pagan mythology Is Inconsistent, and comInevitable.
promise
Is
coalesce,
and
this
Is
Conquerors and conquered tend to
true of their gods; or, as different tribes of
one race now intermarry, now fight, so also may their evil and
their friendly divinities. Zeus was son of the Titan Kronos,
yet hostile to him. Vile, Ve, and Odin, father of the gods, were
sons of a giant, and the gods fought with giants. Other paralbut what Is certain Is that gods of an
lels might be cited;
orderly world
of
and eloquence.
If
growth, craftsmanship, medicine, poetry,
also of
magic and war
are
opposed to
beings envisaged, on the whole, as harmful. In this combat

some of the gods are slain. If this were told of them in the old
myths, probably It did not affect the continuance of their cult.

Pagan gods are mortal and Immortal; their life is a perennial
drama, which ever begins and ends, and is ever being renewed
reflexion of the
life
of nature
itself.
In another story the strife of powers of light and growth with

those of darkness and blight Is suggested, though the latter are
euhemeristically described as mortals. Three men came from
Athens with their mother Carman
Valiant,
Black, and Evil,

sons of Extinction, who was son of Darkness, and he son of Ailment. By her incantations Carman ruined every place where
she came, while her sons destroyed through plundering and dishonesty. They came to Ireland to blight the corn of the Tuatha
De Danann, who
lampooner, Lugh
sent against them Ai, a poet, Cridenbel the

Laebach, a wizard, and Bechuille, a witch,
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
36
some of
whom
have already played a part in the story of MagBy spells they drove the men oversea, but not until
they gave the Seven Things which they served as security that
they would not return, and left their mother as a hostage. She
died of grief, begging the gods to hold an annual festival at her
Tured.
burial-place and to call it by her name; and as long as they

kept it the Leinstermen were promised plenty of corn, fruit,
milk,
and
fish.^
No
is
explanation
"
were.
given as to what the
Seven Things
mysterious
In other tales groups of gods are seen at
and
in their conflict
strife
with each other
they were sometimes not too mighty to
seek the help of heroes.
An example
of this occurs in the story
In spite of the prowess of the

god Labraid, sung by the goddesses Fand and Liban, the time
has come when he must give battle to supernatural foes
of Cuchulainn's visit to Elysium.
Senach the Unearthly, Eochaid, Eol, and Eogan the Stream,

the last mentioned in the Book of Invasions {Leahhar Gabdla) as
hostile to the Tuatha De Danann.^^ These were united, apparently, with Manannan, whose consort Fand, Labraid's sister,
had
left him.^^
doubtful issue.
lainn's aid,
and
Labraid was afraid, for the contest would be of

Glad indeed would he be of the hero Cuchufor that assistance
he was willing to give him
Fand. When Cuchulainn arrived in the gods' domain

welcomed
and was
by Labraid, they gazed on the vast armies of
the foe, while two ravens, skilled in Druidic secrets, announced
the hero's presence to the hosts. Next morning Eochaid went
to wash at a stream, when Cuchulainn slew him; and a great
fight followed between Cuchulainn and Senach, who also was
slain. Cuchulainn then put forth all his might, and so great
was the carnage that Labraid himself entreated him to end it;
and then Labraid sang:
his sister
"A
mighty host, with multitudes of horses,

Attacked me on every side;
They were the people of Manannan, son of the
Whom Eogan had called to his aid."
sea,

Another instance occurs
37
in the story of Loegaire, son of the
people of Connaught were met in

assembly near the Loch of the Birds in the plain of Ai, when a
stranger approached them through the mist which rose from
of Connaught.
King
the lake.
The
He wore
his shoulders.
a purple cloak, and his yellow hair fell upon

golden-hilted sword hung at his side; in his
a shield with a golden boss.

told
and on his left arm

Loegaire welcomed him, and he
hand he carried a five-pointed
right
spear,
how he had come from
the gods' land to seek the aid of

Fiachna was his name, and he had slain his wife's
warriors.
but had been attacked by his nephew, GoU, son of the

king of the fort of Mag Mell, and in seven battles had been
vanquished, so that in view of a new conflict he had come for
ravisher,
succour.
He
sang of the beauty of the land and of the bloody
combats fought there among the people of majestic race, and

how silver and gold awaited those who would help him. Beautiful
were the divine warriors, with blue eyes of powerful
sight,
teeth brilliant as glass, and red lips. Mighty in conflict, in

their assemblies they sang in melodious verse of learned mat-
Fiachna disappeared into the lake, and now Loegaire

appealed to his men. Fifty warriors plunged with him into the
ters.^^
water and in the divine land under the loch joined Fiachna
against his foe, besieging the fort of Mag Mell, where his wife
The
defenders released her, and she followed

the vanquishers, singing of her love for GoU. Fiachna gave
his daughter, Sun Tear, to Loegaire, and each of his men also
was a
prisoner.
received a wife.
For a year they remained
in the divine land,
became home-sick; and as they left him Fiachna

bade them mount on horseback and not alight on the earth if
until they
they wished to return to him. The people of Connaught rejoiced to see them again, for sorely had they mourned them,
but now Loegaire announced their return to the gods' land,
nor would he remain, although his father offered him the kingdom, its gold, and its women. The unmoved son sang of the
divine land, where beer
fell in
showers, and every
army was
of
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
38
a hundred thousand warriors, while as one went from kingdom

to kingdom, the melodious music of the gods was heard. He
told of his goddess wife and those of his comrades and of the
cauldrons and drinking-horns taken from the fort; for one

night of the nights of the sid he would not accept his father's
kingdom. With these words he quitted the king for ever and
returned to
Mag
sovereignty
Fiachna a noble divine reward to a mortal.
In the heroic
Mell, there to share the
with
^^
cycle of Fionn other instances of heroes helping gods will be
found.
War between
different divine groups
is
also
found
in the
story of Caibell and Etar, Kings of the side (divine or fairyfolk), each of whom had a beautiful daughter. Two Kings who
sought the maidens in marriage were offered battle for them.

If, however, the combat was fought in the sid, the sid would be
an idea contrary to that of these other instances of

polluted
war in the gods' land; and if the sid-iolk were seen among
men, they would no longer be invisible at will. The fight,
therefore, took place at night, lest there should be
no
distinc-
them and men; and the side took the form of deer.
was the struggle that four hillocks were made of the
hoofs and antlers of the slain; and to quell it, water broke
forth from a well and formed Loch Riach, into which if white
tion between
So
terrible
sheep are cast every seventh year at the proper hour, they
become crimson. Etar alone of the kings survived.^^
Christian scribes were puzzled over the Tuatha De
Danann. The earliest reference to them says that because of
The
knowledge they were banished from heaven, arriving in

the smoke of their burning ships,
Ireland in clouds and mists
an
tradition.
Eochaid ua Flainn, in the tenth
says
euhemerizing
their
them "phantoms" {siabhra) and asks whether

came
from
heaven or earth; were they demons or men.
they
They were affiliated to Japhet, yet regarded as demons in the
Book of Invasions. Another tradition makes them a branch
century, calls
of the descendants of
Nemed who,
after being in the
Northern
39
learning wizardry, returned to Ireland. The annalists

treated them more or less as men; official Christianity more or
isles
less as
demons; popular
tiful fairy
race with
D'Arbois
belief
much
and romance as a kind of beau-
of their old divine aspect.

De Danann as "people of the
translates Tuatha
god whose mother
is
called
Danu";^^ Stokes renders
it
"folk
^^
Stern prefers to regard Danann
or folks of the goddess Danu";
as a later addition and to take the earlier name as Tuatha De or
"the
divine tribe," or "the men of the god." ^^

Three insignificant members of the group, Brian, luchar, and
lucharba, are sometimes called "three gods of Danu"; and
Fir
Dea
also, perhaps, the whole group is designated "men of

three
the
gods." Brian, luchar, and lucharba are also termed
tri dee ddna, or "three gods of Jiw," i. e. "knowledge," or
hence
Danand (Danu)
"fate."
is
mentioned with Bechuille as a
separate goddess, and both are called foster-mothers of the

gods. Cormac's Glossary knows nothing of
of a goddess Anu, mater deorum hihernensium
nursed the gods"
while he
refers to
two
Danu, but speaks

It was well she
"
hills in
Kerry
as
"the
paps of Anu," which a later glossary calls "the paps of Danu."

Ireland is called lath n'Anann, and Anu is mentioned with
Macha, Morrigan, and Badb, the war-goddesses, though other

passages give Danu along with these. Possibly Danu is a mistake for Anu, through confusion with dan, "knowledge,"
knowledge as a function of Brian, luchar, and lucharba being
personified as Danu, so that they would then be called gods or
sons of Danu, though they were actually sons of Brigit. As
Stem points out, Danu can scarcely be mother of the whole
group, since she herself is daughter of Delbaeth, who was

brother of Dagda, Ogma, Bres, etc. If Anu was mother of the
group, the likeness of her name to Danu would also lead to the
and Anu
as goddess is perhaps a personification of

mother. On the whole, the general
kind
of
earth
Ireland, a
relationship of the euhemerized gods evolved by the annalists
mistake;
is
as mythical as the
Ill
pagan
stories themselves.
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
40
In the story of The Children of Tuirenn Brian, luchar, and
lucharba are sons of Tuirenn, son of Ogma. One day Cian, at

enmity with them, saw them approaching. Striking himself
with a Druidic wand, he became a
pig,
but Brian noticed
this
and changed himself and his brothers into hounds which chased
and killed Cian with stones, because he said that weapons
would tell the deed to his son. They buried his body seven
times ere the earth ceased to reject it. Lug, Clan's son, was
told of this deed by the earth, and he forced the children of
Tuirenn to bring many magical treasures, in getting which

danger was incurred. By their father's advice they crossed the
sea in
Manannan's canoe and succeeded
in obtaining the treas-
ures, but now had to give "three shouts on Cnoc Miodhchaoin," a hill on which Miodhchaoin and his sons prohibited
shouting. Here, then, they were wounded by these men,

and their father asked Lug for the magic pig's skin which
healed all wounds. He refused it, even when Brian was carried
all
before him, and thus the murderers perished miserably.^^

Most of the names of the chief gods have already been
tioned Dagda or Eochaid OUathair, who
an "earth god" to the Tuatha
"god
of wizardry"
in
one place
De Danann, and
is
mencalled
also their
probably a deity of fruitfulness and
fer-
tility; Oengus; Nuada; Ogma, god of poetry; Goibniu, god of

smiths; Creidne, of braziers ; Diancecht, of medicine; Manan-
nan, son of Ler; Midir; Bodb Dearg; Lug, perhaps a sun-god;

and other lesser divinities. Of goddesses there are Anu or Danu
and primitive culture; Etain; and the

Morrigan, Macha, and Neman, while Badb
Brigit, goddess of poetry
war-goddesses
constitutes a fourth or sometimes takes the place of one of the

triple group.
The Tuatha De Danann had power over
agri-
and cattle, but they had other functions, while all of

them had great magic potency. Unfortunately few myths
about these functions exist, and their precise nature must be
culture
matter of conjecture.
The mythico-magical nature
of the
gods' possessions survives even in records which regard
them
PLATE V
Smertullos
This deity
is
perhaps a god of the underworld,

is a chthonian creature.
particularly as the serpent
See p. 158.
Paris.
From an
altar found at
For other Celtic
Plates VII-IX,
deities
of
Notre Dame,
Elysium see
XII-XIV, XVI, XXV-XXVI.
41
The
preface to the story of the battle of Mag-Tured

tells how from Falias was brought the stone of Fal, which
roared under every king who would assume the sovereignty.
as mortals.
Gorias was brought Lug's spear; no battle was ever won

against it or against him who bore it. From Findias came
From
Nuada's sword, which none could escape when it was drawn.

From Murias came Dagda's cauldron, from which no comTheir magic food and
pany ever went away unthankful.
later.
Some things of
will
be
mentioned
other possessions
which no myths remain are said to have been in the Brug na
"^^
the
bed of Dagda, the two paps of Morrigan, the

comb and casket of Dagda's wife (i. e. two hills), the stone wall
Boinne
of Oengus, the shot of Midir's eye,
and the
like.
CHAPTER
II
TUATHA DE DANANN AND MILESIANS

annalistic account of the conquest of the
THEDanann by
Tuatha De
the Milesians cannot conceal the divinity of

the former nor the persistence of the belief in Druidic magic
and supernatural power. M. d'Arbois has shown that the

scheme which makes the Tuatha De Danann masters of Ireland for one hundred and sixty-nine years until the Milesians
came is the invention of Gilla Coemain, who died in 1072.

The Book of Invasions adopted it, and it assumes that the gods
reigned in succession as kings until 1700 b. c. Even in Gilla
Coemain's time, however,
this
scheme was not always ac-
Annals knows no
historic Irish date

cepted, for Tigernach
before 305 b. c, while current tales showed that the gods were
in his
still
alive at a
much
later date, e. g. in the
and Cuchulainn, alleged
When
Danann
time of Conchobar
Irish contemporaries of Christ.^
the Milesians arrived, three Kings of the Tuatha De

MacCuill ("Son of the Hazel"), MacCecht
ruled
and MacGreine ("Son of the Sun"),

married respectively to Banba, Fotla, and Eriu, whose names
are ancient names of Ireland, the last still surviving as "Erin."
Were these old eponymous goddesses, from whom parts of
("Son
of the Plough"),
Ireland were supposed to have taken their names, or were they

inventions of the annalists, derived from titles given to the
country? The former is suggested by an incident in the story.
been gods of nature and agriculture,

and in fighting the Milesians they were respectively slain by
Eber, Airem ("Ploughman"), and Amairgen, singer of spells
and giver of judgements. The Milesians were descendants of a
The
three Kings
may have
43
Scythian noble expelled from Egypt, who came to Spain, where

his descendant Bregon built a tower and was father or grandfather of Mile, whose father
son, Ith,
is
sometimes called
Bile.
Another
gazing one evening from the tower, saw the coast of
Ireland. With ninety followers he sailed thither and was welcomed by the Kings, who begged him to settle a dispute. Very
different was his fate from that of folk-tale heroes called in to
adjust quarrels. While bidding the Kings act according to justice, he so praised the fertility of the land that they suspected
upon it and slew him. His followers carried

his body to Spain, and the chiefs of the Milesians, resolving
to avenge him, sailed to Ireland, but the Tuatha De Danann
him
of designs
made a magic
back
hence
mist, so that the island appeared like a hog's

name Muic-Inis, or "Pig Island." At last
its
they landed, and the poet Amairgen, son of Mile, sang:
am
am
am
am
am
am
am
am
am
am
am
"I
I
I
I
I
I
I
T
I
I
Some
a wind at sea,
a wave of the sea,
a roaring of the sea,
an ox
in strength,
a bird of prey on a cliff,

a ray of the sun,
an intelligent navigator,
a boar of fierceness,
a lake on a plain,
an effective artist,
a giant with a sharp sword hewing down an army,"
see in this a species of Celtic pantheism,
but
if
so
etc.^
it is
pantheism of a curious kind, for it is, rather, the vain-glorious

bombast of the Celt, to which there are parallels in Welsh
poems, where Taliesin speaks of the successive forms which
he has assumed. The comparison should not be made with the
pantheism of the Irishman Erigena, but with the bragging

utterances of savage medicine-men.
The
Milesians
whom
met
in succession
Banba, Fotla, and Eriu,
asked that they would call the isle after her

name. The Kings then begged an armistice, ostensibly to dis-
each of
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
44
cuss the question of battle or capitulation, but really in order

to give their Druids time to prepare incantations; while they
agreed to accept the judgement of Amairgen, save that, if it

were false, he must die. Amairgen then told the Milesians that
they must embark for the magic distance of nine waves; and
if they succeeded in returning, the land would be theirs. This
judgement ever given in Ireland. The Milesians

now returned to their ships, but no sooner had they gained the
desired distance than the Druids and poets of the gods raised a
storm. Eber recognized it as a Druidic storm, which did not
was the
first
rage beyond the top of the masts; and Amairgen now invoked
the aid of the natural features of Erin
an archaic animistic
rune,
embedded
in the later story,
and one which preserves
primitive stage of thought:
"I invoke thee, Erin,

Brilliant, brilliant sea,
Fertile, fertile hill.
Wood
with valleys.
Flowing, flowing stream,"
Now
would
etc.
the storm ceased, and Eber joyfully boasted that he

and sword; but that
strike the people of Erin with spear
moment
the tempest burst forth again, scattering and wreck-
ing the ships, and drowning many. The survivors landed at the
Boyne and gave battle to the Tuatha De Danann. The three
queens are said to have created a magic army which was a

delusion to the Milesians,^ as Lug's witches had done to the
Fomorians; but
in spite of this the
Tuatha De Danann were
defeated.
"We
boldly gave battle

the sprites {siahhra) of the isle of Banba,
Of which ten hundred fell together
By us, of the Tuatha De Danann."
To
At another
conflict a further rout took place, in
which the
three Kings and Queens were slain; and it was now that the
survivors of the Tuatha De Danann took refuge in the underground sid, the Milesians remaining masters of Ireland.^

On whatever
account
this
is
based,
it is
worshipped by men
not
itself
45
an ancient
are not defeated
by
pagan myth,
them or by their supposititious ancestors. By the annalists,
real races, imaginary races, and divine groups were regarded
more or less from one standpoint; all were human and might
for gods
be
made
Next came the question
to fight each other.
How
were the old gods abandoned, and why had they been, or were
even now, supposed popularly to live in the sid? It was known
that the Christianized tribes had forsaken the gods, though
these had come to be regarded by them as a kind of fairy race
whom
time of need and suh rosa they

might appeal. Obviously, then, Christianity must have caused
their defeat. To this idea we may trace one source of the acliving out of sight, to
count just summarized.
It
in
is,
in effect,
what
is
said in the
Colloquy with the Ancients {Acallamh na SenSrach), in which,

regardless of the annalistic scheme, the gods are powerful long
after their
supposed defeat. Caoilte, survivor of the Feinn into
the days of St. Patrick, says that soon the Tuatha De

will be reduced in power, for the saint "will relegate
the foreheads of
hills
and
rocks, unless that
Danann
them to
now and
again
thou see some poor one of them appear as transiently he revisits the earth," i. e. the haunts of men.^ Hence, perhaps, the
Colloquy elsewhere represents them as possessing not so much
land as will support themselves.^ In St. Patrick's Life this
victory is dramatically represented. He went to Mag Slecht,

where stood an image of Cenn Cruaich (" Head of the Mound "),
covered with gold and
silver,
and twelve others covered with
image bowed downward when he
bronze.
The
crozier,
and the earth swallowed the
chief
raised his
others, while their in-
dwelling demons, cursed by the saint, fled to the hill.

Why, then, was the defeat ascribed to the Milesians.''
Of
the different hostile Celtic groups dwelling in different parts of
became pre-eminent shortly before St. Patrick's time, governed by great dynastic families and reigning
respectively at Cashel and Tara. It was for their aggranIreland,
two at
last
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
46
dizement that the legend of descent from Mile and his ancestors was invented; but as the gods had come to be regarded as
a powerful race who had conquered earlier races in Ireland,
so it became necessary to show that the Milesians had over-
come them. This pushed the Milesians back to remote antiquity and showed that they had been masters of Ireland since
1700 B.C., while the Tuatha De Danann, whose power had
passed at the coming of Christianity, were now alleged to have
been conquered by them. Thus the central theory of those
mediaeval reconstructors of Irish history was "that Ireland

had been subjected to the Milesian race for ages before the
Christian era." Later, the Ulster heroes were brought into
relationship with Mile, as at last were all the Irish aristocracy.^
Mile (Latin miles, "soldier") and Bile are men of straw
in the older mythology, and hence the attempts
d'Arbois
to equate Bile with Balor and with a
and
Rhys
Celtic Dispater, as god of death and ancestor of the Celts, are
nothing but modern mythologizing. The account of the con-
with no place
of
quest doubtless
made
use of earlier conceptions of supernatural

still apt to consider the Tuatha De
power and magic, while
Danann
as
somehow
different
from men
{siabhra, "sprites"),
popular view and also current in literary tales

embodying older myths. The gods were a superhuman race,
the side, helping men on occasion; and this influenced the
this being the
view, for euhemeristic documents tell how, after their

defeat, the Tuatha De Danann retired to subterranean palaces, emerging now and then to help or to harm mortals. Even
official
the Milesians were not yet free of their power, especially that
of Dagda. Their corn and milk were being destroyed by the
Tuatha De Danann, and to prevent this in future they made

friends with Dagda, so that now these things were spared to
This story seems to be the late form of the earlier
idea
that corn and milk depend on the gods, who, when
mythic
offended by men, withhold these gifts. They were also obtained
them.^
by
sacrifice, e. g.
by
offerings of children
and animal
firstlings
47
to Cenn Cruaich;^ and elsewhere we find that the Fomorians

exacted two-thirds of their corn and milk annually from the
Nemedians,^ Perhaps there
is
here a mingling of the idea of
by gods of blight with that of the withholding of

such gifts and with that of the offering of these things.
survival of such sacrifices occurs in the food and milk left out for
destruction
the fairies in Ireland and in the
The
functions of
tility are
by
some
suggested by references of this character, as well as
the symbols on Gaulish
collected
West Highlands.
of the divinities as controllers of fer-
by Mr. D. Fitzgerald
monuments; and some

in
Limerick shows how the
mem-
under a romantic
dress.
ory of these functions vaguely persisted
Cnoc Aine {Knockainy,
folk-lore
or "Aine's Hill") has always been con-
sidered the dwelling of Aine, queen of the fairies of South Munster and daughter of Eogabal, of the Tuatha De Danann. Aine,
"the best-hearted woman that ever lived," is still seen in Loch
Guirr or on Cnoc Aine.
She married Lord Desmond after he
the usual fairy bride incident

had captured her
and bore
him a son. Both she and the son left him, but appeared from
time to time afterward, the son becoming Earl of Desmond in

due course. Once he spoke to his mother about the barrenness
of the
hill,
and next morning
her at night a
it
was planted with pease
significant hint of her functions.
set
by
Remnants
of the agricultural ritual survived into last century in the form

of a procession round the hill on St. John's Eve with clears
bunches of straw tied on poles and
these being afterward

carried through fields and cattle to bring luck to both. One
year this was neglected, but a mysterious procession, with clears,
lit,
headed by Aine, was seen on the hill. On another occasion girls

who had remained after the usual procession had gone met
Aine, who thanked them for the honour done to her but begged
them to depart as "they wanted the

being Aine's retinue, seen by the
she
produced.
fertility-rites.
^^
hill
to themselves,"
"
they"
through a ring which
Aine was thus obviously associated with
girls
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
48
It
now remains
to be seen how, according to the annalistic
account, after their defeat and retirement to the hollow hills

among themselves, while at the
or sid, the gods divided these
same time one of
their
number acted
as king.
CHAPTER
THE
hills
the Boyne; and

gods,
it
who
THE
DIVISION OF
SID
may have been
associated in pagan times

pre-historic tumuli^ especially those near
within these was the subterranean land of the
deities
CELTIC
with
III
and
also dwelt
on distant
islands.
If this
were the case,
would help to explain why mounds were regarded as the reTuatha De Danann, and why they are still sup-
treats of the
posed to emerge thence as a kind of fairies. If the folk believed

that the old gods had always been associated with mounds,
it was easy for the euhemeristic writers to evolve a legend of
their having retired there after being defeated
by the Milesians.
and mounds were their gorgeous palaces,

Elysian joys. These hollow hills were known as
5id, a word possibly cognate with Latin sedes, and hence perhaps meaning "seats of the gods"; and their divine inhabitWithin these
replete with
hills
all
ants were the des side, fir side,

or
"women"]
mnd
side,
of the jz^," or simply
"the people
"the side^
[or
"men"
These are
everywhere regarded as the Tuatha De Danann or their descendants.

Men used to worship the side, says St. Fiacc's
hymn, while the daughters of King Loegaire regarded St.

Patrick and his white-robed bishops as des side, appearing on
In later times the side were held to be fairies and were
earth.
^
by various names, but these fairies closely resemble

the earlier side, the Tuatha De Danann, while they are not
called
necessarily of small stature.

of
mediaeval French
belief
In this
they
romantic
are very like the fees

survivals
of earlier
goddesses.
In some stories the side are associated both with the sid and
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
50
with the island
these
as
synonymous
Elysium,
being regarded
the goddess with
whom Connla elopes of the des
is
she comes from the island overseas.
side,
yet
The confusion may be
due to the fact that the gods were supposed to have various
dwelling-places, not necessarily to the priority of one belief
over the other.
On the
other hand, the Mesca Ulad, or Intoxi-
cation of the Ulstermen, says that after their defeat the
Tua-
De Danann went underground to speak with the side,^

although this may be only the confused notion of an annalist
who knew of the side, yet regarded the Tuatha De Danann as
tha
human.
The mingled
De Danann
romantico-annalistic view was that the
retired to the sid.
An
early text,
Tuatha
The Conquest of
Sid {De Gahail int sida), tells how Dagda apportioned the
sid among them, his son Oengus, who was absent, being omitted.
the
upon an
myth which narrates

how the chief god divided their various spheres among the
divinities, as the Babylonian Marduk prepared the mansions
of the deities and made them inhabit these as their strongholds.
This story
is
Of Dagda's
*'
clearly based
sid another
Behold
document
the sid before
earlier
says:
your eyes,
manifest to you that it is a king's mansion

Which was built by the firm Dagda;
It was a wonder, a court, an admirable hill." ^
It is
Mac
"
Ind Oc, or Son

of the Young Ones," viz. Dagda and Boann, was then with his
foster-father Midir, but soon claimed his abode as Esau did his
This was the Brug na Boinne. Oengus
The
claim, however, could not be granted,
whereupon
Oengus asked to spend the night in Dagda's palace, to which his
father agreed, granting him also the next day. When this had
elapsed, Oengus was bidden to go, but refused, because, time
being composed of day and night, his tenancy must be perpetual. Thus Dagda was dispossessed; and the sid, passing to
Oengus, took his name, Brug Maic Ind Oc.^
In another version of this story from the Book of Fermoy, inblessing.
PLATE VI
A AND B
Plan of the Brug na Boinne
1.
General view of the tumulus.
mound.
2.
Cross-section of the
3.
Plan of the central chamber.
4.
View
of the stone-work of the
Brug and
entrance, after the removal of the earth.

5. General ground-plan of the Brug.
See also Plate I and cf. pp. 66-67, ^7^77-
its
T.
THE DIVISION OF THE

fluenced
died as
SID
51
Tuatha De Danann had

mortals, Dagda has long since passed away, and the
by the view that some
of the
are places of sepulture, perhaps a reflection of the fact

that kings were interred there. Yet they are apportioned by the
mounds
chief survivors,
Bodb Dearg and Manannan,
the latter having
These he found in
round
them an invisible
and
drew
valleys,
and impenetrable wall, though the Tuatha De Danann themselves could see and pass through it. He gave them Goibniu's
and death,
ale, which preserved them from old age, disease,
the task of selecting concealed dwellings.
beautiful
and
his
hills
own
and
and eaten one day, were alive

Thus even from this euhemeris-
swine, which, killed
the next and

tic
fit again for use.

narrative the real divinity of
In this account
De Danann,
Bodb Dearg
as he
is
its
personages appears.^
sovereign of the Tuatha
made
also in the story of The Children of Ler
is
{Aided Chlainne Lir). Ler, disgusted at the choice, retired,

whereupon the others resolved to punish him, but were overruled by Bodb, who gave Ler his daughter Aobh as wife, pro-
vided he would pay allegiance to him. Aobh bore him two

daughters and two sons before her death, and to comfort him
Bodb now gave him
her sister Aoife who, jealous of her step-
children, transformed
them
into swans
a shape which they
must keep for nine hundred years, though they retained speech
and reason and the power of exquisite song. As a punishment
Bodb changed Aoife into a "demon of the air." Not till the
time of St. Patrick and St. Mochaomhog did Ler's children
resume their own form. Withered and old, they now accepted
the Christian faith and died, after having found their father's
palace a roofless ruin.^
In the version given in the Book of Fermoy Elcmar, fosterfather of Oengus, received the Brug na Boinne, and Manannan
advised Oengus to ask it from him. Through Manannan's
magic power Elcmar was expelled, and Oengus gained the sid,
where he dwells invisibly, eating the swine and drinking the ale
of immortality. In still another version a curious account of the
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
52
origin of
Oengus
is
He was
a natural son of Dagda, by

sent Elcmar on a journey and wrought
given.
Elcmar's wife. Dagda

spells, bringing darkness and "strayings" upon him, and warding off hunger and thirst from him. He obtained access to the
goddess, perhaps because, like Uther and Manannan on like
occasions, he assumed the appearance of the real husband.
Elcmar was still absent when Oengus was born, but he may
later have discovered the truth, for Oengus was taunted, as
Merlin was, with having no parents. He went in tears to the
god Midir, who took him to Dagda, and the latter acknowledged him as his son, bidding him go to Elcmar's sid and
threaten him with death if he would not promise him "the
the same trick
sovereignty of a day and night in his land"
which Oengus played on Dagda in the first version.^ This story
introductory to the beautiful myth of Etain, to be told later;

but here it should be noted that in a poem by the euhemerizing
monk, Flann Manistrech, Elcmar slew Midir and was himself
is
by Oengus.^ This, however, need be no part of an earlier

myth.
Still another account is given in verse by the tenth century
poet, Cinaed ua hArtacain. Boann, Nechtain's wife, came to
slain
stay with her brother Elcmar, vassal of Dagda, who sought her
love in vain. His Druids advised him to send Elcmar on a
should not keep him

"kept the sun in the lofty
mission, but the latter bargained that
away over
it
whereupon Dagda
Elcmar
till the end of nine months."
thought that only a day had passed, but on his return he saw by
the change in the flowers how long the time had been. Meanwhile Dagda and Boann had deceived him, but now they were
afraid, and birth-pangs seized the faithless wife. They left her
child Oengus by the road-side near Midir's sid, and there he
night,
ridge of the heavens
was brought up until his companions jeered at his unknown

origin. Taxed by Oengus, Midir told the truth, and taking him
to Dagda's sid, obtained it for him for a day and a night, thus
tricking him.^
THE DIVISION OF THE

Whether the
earliest story told of
SID
53
Dagda's or of Elcmar's
Oengus is a god who tricks his father or his fosterand

father,
perhaps the latter was the sufferer in the primitive
form. Rhys makes Dagda an equivalent of Kronos and Oengus
of Zeus; but apart from the disinheriting incident, which is not
dispossession,
^^
exactly parallel in the respective Greek and Celtic stories,
Dagda and Oengus have no

and Zeus, nor
is
clear traits in
common with Kronos
there the slightest evidence that Dagda, like
Kronos, ruled over the dead, either before or after his expulsion. The possible basis of the story, as the present writer has
suggested elsewhere,
god came
is
myth
explaining
to supersede that of another."
why
the cult of one
CHAPTER IV
MYTHIC POWERS OF THE GODS
have powers which
reflect those supposed to be possessed by medicine-men,
as well as others peculiar to themselves. These were the subject
AS
of
in
most mythologies, the
Celtic deities
myths taught by the Druids, who knew many things concern-
ing the might of the immortal gods.^ The gods were undying,
and their abode was that of "the ever-living ones," where none
Tuatha De Danann to St.

Patrick as beings "who are unfading, and whose duration is
perennial" in contrast with himself or men;^ or they are
"fairies or sprites with corporeal forms, endowed with immortality." Yet immortality is said to have been given them by
ever died.
Caoilte describes the
Manannan through
that
"no
their drinking Goibniu's
immortal beer, so
disease nor sickness ever attacks them," nor
"decay
^
of
Bodb
The
them."
nor old age comes upon
Dearg
daughter
was asked by St. Patrick what it was which maintained the gods
in form and comeliness, and her answer was, "All such of us as
partook of Goibniu's banquet, nor pain nor sickness troubles
them." ^ Elsewhere this immortality seems to be dependent
upon the eating of certain fragrant berries, of which it is said
that
"no
disease attacks those
who
eat them, but they feel the

and were it at the age of a
and old mead;

return again to be thirty years old."
would
century, they
Once the Tuatha De Danann had played a match with the
Feinn and brought from the Land of Promise crimson nuts,
catkin apples, and these fragrant berries; but one of them fell
to earth, and from it grew a quicken (rowan) tree, whose ber-
exhilaration of wine
ries
possessed these virtues.
The gods
sent one of their people

to guard the tree
lannach,
who
a savage, one-eyed
giant,
55
Searbhan Loch-
could not be slain until struck with three blows of
and around the tree he made a wilderness, sleeping in it by night, and watching at its foot by day. Fionn
demanded as eric, or fine, from two warriors either the head
of Diarmaid or a handful of these berries; but Diarmaid overcame them, and then asked the giant for the berries. Searbhan
refused them, but by skill and strength the hero seized his club
his iron club;
and slew him.^

Yet, even in their own immortal land, gods are slain. Perhaps this was not altogether the result of the annalistic view of
the gods, for myth may have told of their death, as it did of
Dionysus, Attis, Balder, Osiris. The analgods elsewhere
istic view did not hinder the continuance of myths, and divini-
ties
whose death
is
recorded in the Annals are found to be alive
long after, while gods and goddesses born in pagan times appear thousands of years later to persons living in the Christian
In spite of this perennial duration, they remained

youthful and beautiful. Yet while the gods' land was picperiod.
tured as a deathless, peaceful place, men still gave it certain of

the traits of human life. War, wounds, and death were there,
according to some stories; gods might even be slain by men;
and
as gods
human
have human passions, so they
may
also
have
weaknesses. Such
is always the inconsistency of myth.

was
another
divine power, innate, or acquired by
Invisibility
a
or
from
Manannan's spell, Feth Fiada, which
donning mantle,
was known also to Druids, poets, and Christian saints, who by it
became unseen or took other forms. When the sons of Midir,
by the Feinn, fought against Bodb, Midir's son and

went to the sid of Oengus for a physician to heal Oscar's
wounds; and then "there arose a Feth Fiada around us, so that
we were invisible." In one passage Dagda is invisible, and Midir
said, "We behold and are not beheld." When Manannan
came to fetch his consort Fand, none saw him but the goddess,
and when Lug arrived to assist Cuchulainn, he was unseen by
assisted
Caoilte
III 5
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
56
the hero's foes.
the Tuatha
Divinities sometimes hid in a magic mist, as
De Danann
did on arriving in Ireland; they could
appear to such mortals as they pleased, remaining unseen by

others. Gods were probably not regarded as spiritual beings.
Like the dead in Celtic
belief,
they had resplendent corporeal
forms and ate and drank; but their bodily form differed from
men's in that it could become invisible and was not subject to
the laws of gravitation. The gods trav'elled through the air or
appeared above men's heads.
How,
then, did they appear
when
visible.?
Sometimes
in the
magnificence of divinity, yet still in anthropomorphic form.

Sometimes they were of vast size, like the Morrigan or the Welsh
Bran, while a goddess who sought the aid of Fionn was enormous compared even with the gigantic Feinn. Sometimes they
appear merely as mortals and are not recognized as gods. Instances of this are found in the story of Cuchulainn's birth,
mortal host in a mysterious house, and
in that of Merlin's father; invisible to all but his mother, and
where Lug
is
seen, as a
human
Sometimes a disguise was assumed. Oengus and Midir appeared to Rib and Eochaid in the
shape of hospitallers, with a haltered pack-horse, and bade
later
taking
shape.
them begone. Gods also took the appearance of particular

mortals, as when Midir appeared to Etain as her lover Ailill,
or Manannan as Fiachna to the latter's wife, or as when Pwyll
and Arawn exchanged forms.^
Animal forms were also assumed. Of these one favourite
shape was that of birds. Morrigan appeared to Cuchulainn as
a bird; so also do Devorgilla and her handmaid, the former
being in love with the hero.
Llew took the form
of
an eagle;
when the former

wished to visit his paramour, whose husband Nar slew them.
Midir and Etain, Fand and Liban were seen as birds Hnked
together. The gods, or side, appear as deer in one story. Again,
Bude and
his foster-brother that of birds
the idea of divine shape-shifting, expressed, however, in the

well-known folk-tale formula of the "Transformation Com-
PLATE
VII
Three-Headed God
This triple-headed divinity (cf. p. 8) may possibly
be another form of Cernunnos (see Plate XVI).
For another representation see Plate XII, and for a
three-headed deity of the Elbe Slavs
cf.
pp. 284-85
From a block of stone

and see Plate XXXIV, 3.
found at Paris, now in the Musee Carnavalet in that
city.
57
combined with the Celtic idea of rebirth in Welsh and

and the Welsh story, Hanes Taliesin, a sixteenth
century tale, is based on earlier poems in which this formula is
bat,"
is
Irish tales;
already prefixed to the rebirth incident. Shape-shifting is so

commonly ascribed to Taliesin that it is no wonder that the
formula was attached to
myth
poem
his story, as it also
was to the Greek
and the Hindu story of Vikramaditya:

Taliesin describes his transformations and adds,
of Proteus
In the
"I have been a grain discovered

Which grew on a hill
A hen received me
With ruddy claws and parting comb.
.
rested nine nights

womb a child."
In her
The Hanes
'
Taliesin represents earlier
myths about the hero
and Cerridwen, the latter being a Brythonic goddess. Cerridwen, who dwelt below a lake, became hostile to Gwion Bach
because he obtained the inspiration which she had intended for
her son. The goddess pursued him, but he changed himself to
a hare, and she took the form of a greyhound, after which the
pair successively became fish and otter, bird and hawk, grain
of
wheat and hen. Cerridwen
as a
gave birth to a beautiful child,
hen swallowed the grain, and

she cast into the sea, but
whom
he was rescued by Elphin and obtained the name of Taliesin.^

In most versions of the Transformation Combat the opponents are males, and therefore one cannot give birth to the
other; but by an ingenious device the compiler of the Irish
Two Szvine-Herds {Cophur in da muccida), an introductory story to the Tain Bo Cilalnge, surmounted this difficulty. The swine-herds were subordinate divinities
Friuch,
myth
of The
herd of the god Bodb, king of the sid of Munster, and Rucht,
herd of Ochall Oichni, king of the sid of Connaught. They
could take any shape, and there was friendship between them.
When there was mast in Munster, Rucht fed his swine there;
and Friuch brought
his
herd to Connaught in the same way.
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
58
People stirred up a quarrel between them, however, and Friuch

put spells on Rucht's swine so that they should not eat the mast
to Friuch's pigs. When
the swine became thin, the gods took their office from the herds,
and Friuch and Rucht turned themselves into ravens and for a
of Munster, while
Rucht did the same
year reviled each other in Connaught and for a year in Munster.

Resuming their own shape, they announced that there would
yet be many corpses and much wailing because of them. Now
they took the form of water-beasts and were seen for a year in
the Suir and.for another in the Shannon, devouring each other,
and appearing as large as hills, until they came ashore as men,
strength.
They
other of Fergna,
they must
take other shapes to test their

became champions, one of Bodb's host, the
telling Ochall that
King of the
still
sid of Nento-fo-hiuscne, their
term
form ending with a fight which lasted three days and

in which they gave such wounds that their lungs
and
nights,
were visible. Next they became demons, a third of the people
in this
dying with fright at seeing them;
while in another version
transformations into stags and dragons are added. Finally

they became worms, one in a spring in Connaught, the other in
the river Cruind in Ulster. Queen Medb came one day to the
spring to draw water, and the little animal, speckled with all
jumped into her dish. She spoke to it, and it told her
had been in many shapes, and bade her take Ailill as her
husband, after which it returned into the spring. That day
Fiachna washed in the river Cruind and was frightened at
colors,
that
it
seeing a tiny beast which told him of the luck about to befall
him, and how it was Bodb's swine-herd. It besought Fiachna to
had begged of Medb, and later

it told him of a future combat with the other beast. Next day
one of Fiachna's cows would swallow it when drinking, as one
of Medb's kine would swallow the other; and as a result
Medb's cow bore Findbennach ("White-Horn"), and Fiachna's
feed
the
it
for a year, as the other
Donn
or
Brown
Bull of Cualnge.
before either, and great
No
war was caused
bull dared bellow
in Ireland
on their
59
The Dindsenchas speaks of seven shapes which the

swine-herds took, but describes five only
swine-herds, birds,
account.^
and it also tells

wolves, trout, and worms
the Donn's was killed by White-Horn. ^
analogy to this myth occurs
folk-tale
how
in a
a bull-calf of
West
Irish col-
Two
heroes at enmity fought until they were old men,

as
then
puppies until they were old dogs, then as young bulls,
lection.
as stallions,
and as
on the other and
one was
birds, until
The
killing him.
slain, his
body
rebirth incident
is
falling
lacking
here.^^
how King Mongan
In the story which narrates

wife from the
recovered his
of Leinster his feats were originally those

Taking the form of a cleric, he gave
King
of a divine namesake.
that of another cleric to his attendant and
King's fort
and to
his wife.
He
won
entrance to the
kissed her, but
when the ather, and what
tendant hag cried out, he sent a magic breath at

s.he had seen was no longer clear in her mind, after which he
shaped a sharp spike on which she
tempt
fell
and was killed. His atand at a later time
to recover his wife failed, however,
he took the guise of Aed, son of the King of Connaught, transforming a hag into the shape of Aed's beautiful wife, Ibhell.
The King
of Leinster
fell
in love
pretended Aed
with her.and exchanged Monbut the pair escaped,
gan's wife to the

and great was the King's disgust to find Ibhell in the form of a
hag. Mongan also made a river with a bridge over it, where
none had ever been before, and

^^
shapes he had borrowed.
The gods
for her;
in it he set the
two
clerics
could likewise transform each other.
changed by Fuamnach into an

rebirth, and we have seen how
whose
Etain was
insect, as a preliminary to her

the children of Ler were trans-
formed into swans by their jealous step-mother.
Ler heard
them
singing, yet god though he was, he could not disenchant'

them, just as Manannan was unable to change Aoife from the
shape of a crane into which the jealous luchra had turned her.^^
The gods remained
for three
hundred years
listening to the
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
6o
music of the swans, which caused happiness to

it;
and
after
who spoke
many
to
them
sufferings the birds
all
who heard
met the sons
of
Bodb,
of the divinities, while Fionnghula sang of
her former happiness when she enjoyed the guileless teaching

Manannan, the convocations of Bodb, the voice of Oengus,
of
and the sweetness of
his kisses.
We
have seen how the
chil-
dren, after their disenchantment, died in the Christian faith.
This old and touching myth has received a Christian ending:
how
it
originally told the further fate of Ler's children
is
unknown.
The gods
also transformed mortals.
Morrigan brought a
bull to a cow over which Odrus watched, and which followed
the bull when Morrigan went into the cave of Cruachan. Odrus
pursued through the cave to the sid within, but there she fell
asleep, and the goddess awoke her, sang spells over her, and
made
of her a pool of water.^^ This is partly paralleled by

another story in which elves, or siabhra, transformed Aige into
fawn and sent her round Ireland. Later she was killed, and
nothing remained of her but a bag of water which was thrown
into a river, thenceforward named after her.^^ A more curious
transformation is that by which the god Oengus changed his
a
four kisses into as
many
birds, in order that
they might
satirize
the nobles of Erin, until a Druid by a stratagem stopped

them.^^ As has been seen, the kisses of Oengus were dear to
Fionnghula. The souls of the righteous appear sometimes as

white birds, and those of the wicked as ravens, in Christian
documents
a conception which
Finally, to
is
probably of pagan
^^
origin.
show how the memory of the Tuatha De Danann
and their powers survived into later centuries the story of

0' DonnelF s Kern may be cited. In this, Manannan appears
as a kern, or serving-man, at the houses of historic personages
of sixteenth century Ireland.
was heard, bewitching
men
He
plays such music as never
to slumber;
he
is
a marvellous
conjuror, producing out of his bag hound, hare, dog-boy, and

lady, who all climb a silken thread which he tosses upward to a
6i
cloud; he performs miracles of healing; he takes off a man's
head and puts
it
on again; and from each place where he goes
he suddenly disappears from human sight, none knowing

whither he has vanished.^^ Folk-memory thus preserved much
of the old conception of the gods.
CHAPTER V
GODS HELPING MORTALS
Greek mythology the gods were represented as coming to
man's help, and in Christian legend saints were seen hovering above an army in battle and giving it substantial aid. So
in Celtic myth deities were often kindly disposed toward men
or assisted them, sometimes for ends of their own.
Such a myth is associated with the historic King Mongan
of Ulster in the sixth and seventh centuries. He is shown to
be son of the god Manannan by a mortal mother, and as has
been seen, he had powers of shape-shifting, and besides being
brought up in the divine land, had free access to it. He was
IN
also regarded as a rebirth of the hero Fionn; hence the stories
told of this king of the Christian historic period must already

have been narrated of some far earlier mythic king or god,
perhaps possessed of the same name. Two of these legends narrate
how
the god assisted Mongan's putative father out of

In the shorter story Fiachna, King of Ul-
desire for his wife.
had gone to help Aedan
Saxon hosts
and during the fight a
noble stranger appeared to Fiachna's wife and asked her love.
She refused him with scorn, but later relented in order to save
her husband's life, which, said the visitant, was in danger from
the terrible warrior. "Our son will be famous, and his name
will be Mongan. I shall tell thy husband our adventures, and
ster,
who had with them
in Scotland against
a terrible warrior,
me to his help." This the stranger did,

the
warrior and giving victory to Fiachna;
afterward slaying
and when Mongan was born, he was known as Manannan's
that thou didst send
son, for
Queen
Manannan had announced
at dawn.^
his
name when
leaving the
63
In the longer version Fiachna had become security for the

exchange of four kine offered by the King of Lochlann to a
for her cow, the flesh of which alone could cure his
Later the hag compelled Fiachna to fight with the
King, who had broken his promise to her; but all went well
Black
Hag
disease.
until the
King
of
Lochlann
which Fiachna's men

cloak fastened
by
fell
in
let lOose
venomous
hundreds.
sheep, before
warrior in a green
a silver brooch, with a circlet of gold
on
his
head and golden sandals on his feet, appeared and asked what
reward Fiachna would give him who would drive off the sheep.
Fiachna repHed that he would give anything he had, whereupon
the warrior begged his ring "as a token for me when I go to
Ireland to thy wife to sleep with her," to which the com-
Manannan
anplacent Fiachna assented. The stranger
nounced that he would beget a glorious child, called Mongan
Finn, or the "Fair"; "and I shall go there in thy shape, so
that thy wife shall not be defiled by it." Fiachna would also
become King of Lochlann. Taking a venomous hound from
his cloak, Manannan launched it successfully at the sheep and
then appeared to the Queen as Fiachna. On the night of Mongan's birth the Queen's attendant had a son, Mac an Daimh,
while the wife of Fiachna's opponent, Fiachna the Black, bore

a daughter, Dubh Lacha, these possibly also being children of
the amorous god. When Mongan was three days old, Manannan took him to the Land of Promise and brought him back
when he was
sixteen.
Meanwhile Fiachna Dub having
killed
the other Fiachna, the Ulstermen bargained that Mongan

should retain half the province, with Dubh Lacha as his wife.
One day when he and

dark, black-tufted
little
his
Queen were playing
cleric" reproached
together,
Mongan
"a
for his
and offered to help him to regain his land. Mongan

went with him; they slew Fiachna; and all Ulster became
Mongan's. The cleric was Manannan, though his transformainactivity
tion, in this as in the other version,
of the story
by a Christian
scribe.
is
the result of the revision
At
a later time
Mongan
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
64
exchanged Dubh Lacha for the kine of the King of Leinster,

but she, while living in the King's house, persuaded him to
wait a year ere she was
his
his.^
How Mongan regained her through
magic powers learned in the divine land has already been

A prophecy about Mongan is put into Manannan's
described.
The Voyage of Bran, where he tells Bran how he will

go to Fiachna's Queen, that by her he will have a son who will
delight the folk of the sid, will make known secrets and take
mouth
all
in
forms
god
dragon,
wolf, stag, salmon, seal
will place the valiant
and
how
the
hero with princes and will be his
tutor.
Apart from the Christian colouring in these tales, they are

of pagan origin and reflect pagan ideas about semi-divine sons
of gods and the help given by gods to men. The late Mr. Nutt
maintained that the story of Mongan was one form of a Celtic
myth which might be
fitted to
any
real or
imaginary hero
that of a wonder-child, born of a mortal mother and a supernatural father, gifted magically by him, associated with him
in the divine land, and passing thence at death. He assumed
gone there, basing this assumption on

verses which mention Mongan's wandering with Manannan
that
Mongan had
finally
"the land with living heart," and his coming thence to see
St. Columba. Mongan was the hero of such a myth in Ulster;
in
Fionn of another
local
myth,
later popular all over Ireland;
Arthur of a similar Brythonic myth.^
The myth
by gods to mortals Is seen again

son
of the god Lug, who assists him
in the story of Cuchulainn,
in time of need. Cuchulainn stood alone against Medb's hosts,
of the help given
because she invaded Ulster when

sickness.^
its
men were
in their periodic
He had slain hundreds of them and was now distorted
with fury and in sore distress, when Loeg, his charioteer, announced that he saw a warrior approaching, fair, tall, with
yellow hair, clad in a green mantle with a silver brooch. Shield,
five-pointed spear, and javelin were in his hands. He plied
these as he came, but
"no one
attacks
him and he attacks no
65
one," for he was Invisible to Medb's warriors. Cuchulainn

cried that this must be one of his friends of the side coming to
his aid,
and
so
Lug from the
it
sid.
turned out, for the warrior was
"My
wounds
his father
are heavy," said Cuchulainn,
time they were healed." Lug bade him sleep for three
while
he himself fought the hosts; and as he sang a charm,
days
the hero slept. Lug not only battled for him, but as he had
"It
Is
claimed the power of healing in the story of the battle of MagTured, so now he cured his son's wounds with medicinal herbs;
and when Cuchulainn awoke, he was refreshed and strong. The

god, however, would not stay to help him further, lest the
fame of the deeds wrought by both should accrue to Cuchulainn;
and the hero now donned a dress of invisibility given him by
Manannan, a
Manannan
Is
precious
garment
of
the
Land
also called his foster-father in
ardry,^ and Cuchulainn's "friends
of
Promise.
Druidism or wizmay be com-
of the side^'
pared with the leannan sighe, fairies who befriend mortals when
human powers fail them.^ His opponent, Ferdia, reproached
him
aid
for not telling him how his friends of the side came to his
when he thought of them, but Cuchulainn replied that
since the Feth fiada was shown to all by the sons of Mile, the
Tuatha De Danann could not use Invisibility or work magic. ^
This passage, however, from the Stowe manuscript of the

Tain Bo Cualnge is, In its final statement, inconsistent with the
Incidents of the other manuscripts.
Other heroes were helped by Manannan. In The Tragic

Death of the Sons of Usnech {Longes mac nUsnig) NaisI has a
sword given to him by the god, its virtue being that it leaves
no trace of stroke or blow behind It;^ and some of his weapons
were possessed by the Felnn. DIarmaid had his crann buidhe
a yellow-shafted spear
but its properties were less power-
than another magic spear with a red shaft, the gai dearg.
It could do nothing against the boar which slew DIarmaid, and
ful
he lamented that he had not taken with him the gai dearg, as
Gralnne advised. With the shafts of these spears he twice
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
66
leaped beyond the ring of his surrounding enemies and escaped

them, and he also used "Manannan's magic staves" on an-
other occasion to leap up a precipice. Besides these he possessed the moralltach, the sword of Manannan or of Oengus.^
Of Diarmaid it is said that "with most potent Manannan
mac Ler thou
studiedst
and wast brought up
in the
Land
of
Promise and in the bay-indented coasts; with Oengus too, the

^
Dagda's son, thou wast most accurately taught."
Oengus
freely helped
Diarmaid when he and Grainne were pursued by
Fionn. Oengus learned that they were surrounded in a wood,

and passing through the foe, unknown to the Feinn, he bade
the eloping pair come under his mantle, when he would remove
them without
their pursuer's knowledge. Diarmaid refused to

but
asked
the god to take Grainne, which Oengus did,
go,
reaching a distant wood unseen. There Diarmaid came to
them and found a fire and a meal prepared by Oengus, who ere
he left them warned Diarmaid of the places into which he must
not go. When Diarmaid and Grainne took refuge in the
quicken-tree of Dubhros, Oengus came invisibly as before, but
now
as each warrior in succession climbed the tree to take
Diarmaid's head, he gave them the hero's form as he threw

them down. When the Feinn cut the heads off, however, their
true form
would
fain
and the ruse was discovered. Oengus

have carried both away, but again had to be satis-
was
restored,
with taking Grainne, bearing her invisibly in his magic

cloak to the Brug na Boinne, where Diarmaid joined them,
carrying the head of the witch whom Fionn had sent against
fied
Oengus now made peace between Diarmaid and Fionn,

arranging the conditions which his foster-son demanded.
Finally, when Diarmaid's death was caused by Fionn's craft,
the latter advised that he and the others should escape lest
Oengus and the Tuatha De Danann should capture them.
Oengus, aware of the tragedy, arrived with the swiftness of the
wind, and seeing the body, cried: "There has never been one
night, since I took thee with me to the Brug na Boinne, at the
him.

age of nine months, that
keep thee against thy
67
did not watch thee and carefully
foes, until last night,
Diarmaid; and
Fionn hath done thee, for all that

thou wast at peace with him." Then he sang a lament, and
"
bearing the body to his Brug, he said, Since I cannot restore
alas for the treachery that
him
send a soul into him, so that he may talk to

me each day." Oengus has less power than savage medicinemen or gods in myth, who bring the dead back to life, or than
Demeter, who gave life to Dionysos after he was dismembered
to
life, I
will
^^
by the Titans. But the story
an almost unparalleled example

of a god's love for a mortal. Fionn himself bears witness to the
love which Oengus had for Diarmaid as a child in his Brug,
and how when spells were put upon a boar that it should have
the same length of
life
is
as he, the
god conjured him never to
hunt a boar.^2
Another interesting instance is found in the story of Fraoch,
whose mother was a goddess. When he killed a dragon, women
came and carried him there, curing him of his wounds;

and so, too, when he was slain at a ford by Cuchulainn, those
divine women, clad in green, came and lamented over him and
of the sid
Fraoch should not have gone

near water, for this was dangerous for him, and his mother's
sister, the goddess Boann, had said, "Let him not swim Black
carried his
Water, for
body
in it
into the sid.
he will shed his blood."
^^
In another story the
goddess Morrigan helped Tulchainde, Conaire's Druid, who

wished Dil, daughter of Lugmannair, to elope with him from
the Isle of Man regarded as the divine land.

the Isle of Falga
Dil loved an ox born at the same time as herself and insisted
that Tulchainde should take
was friendly
to
him and
at his
The Morrigan was both
with her; and the Morrigan

wish brought it to Mag mBreg.^^
it
and friendly to Cuchulainn,

thus resembling that supernatural but ambiguous personage,
the Lady of the Lake in Arthurian tradition, now helping, now
opposing.
hostile
CHAPTER VI
DIVINE ENMITY AND PUNISHMENT
gods were sometimes hostile to men, not always for
obvious reasons, as is curiously illustrated in the Echtra
THE
Nerai, or Adventures of Nera, an introductory tale to the Tain

Bo Cualnge. Here the gods are regarded as demons appearing
with great power on Samhain Eve (Hallowe'en). King Ailill

offered a reward to anyone who on that night would tie a withe
round the foot of a captive hanged the previous day; and several tried, but were afraid. Nera was bolder, but his withe kept
springing off the corpse until it told him to put a peg in it, after
which the dead body asked him to carry it on his back to the
nearest house for a drink, because "I was thirsty when I was
hanged." The house was surrounded by a fiery lake, and into

it and a second, surrounded by a lake of water, they could not
In a third house the corpse found water and squirted it
on the faces of the sleepers so that they died, after which Nera
carried the dead body to the gallows. This part of the story
enter.
connected with the vampire belief. Nera returned to Ailill's

fort, but found it burnt, and a heap of human heads lay near
is
it.
He
followed a
of Cruachan,
leaving it and thus came to the sid

king sent him to a woman in one of its
company
where
its
dweUings, bidding him bring firewood daily to the royal house.

this task he noticed a lame man carrying a blind man to a
well, and daily the blind man asked, "Is it there.?" to which
At
answered, "It is indeed; let us go away." The

woman told Nera that they were guardians of the king's crown
in the well, and when he described his adventures and the de-
the lame
man
struction of Ailill's fort, she explained that this
was merely the
69
glamour of an elfin host {sluag siabhra), but that It would happen, unless he warned his friends. When he returned, he would
a clear proof that he was in a timefind them as he left them
less region. They must watch next Samhain Eve, unless they
first destroyed the sid, and as proof of his statement he must
take from the sid fruits of
wild garlic, primrose,

summer
came
to destroy the sid, he
people
and golden fern. Before his

must warn her so that she with
would bear him might not

obtained the reward, and
his cattle
lose their lives.

Ailill
and the child she

Nera returned and
resolved to destroy the sid.
Meanwhile the woman carried the firewood, pretending that

Nera was 111; and when he came to warn her, she bade him
watch the cattle, one of which was to be his son's after his
birth. The goddess Morrigan stole this cow while Nera slept
and took it to the bull of Cualnge, by whom it had a calf.
Cuchulainn Is now Introduced pursuing Morrigan and restoring the cow; and on its return the woman sent Nera back to
his people
reduplication of the
first
sending back.
sid-io\k could not destroy Ailill's fort until next
The
Samhain Eve
the sid would be open, and Nera now told his people of
how its dwellers were coming to attack
the fort. Ailill bade him bring anything of his own out of the
when
the wonderful sid and
and from it he fetched the cattle. Including his child's bullcalf which now fought the famous Findbennach, or whitehorned bull. Warned to beware of its sire, the bull of Cualnge,
sid,
Medb
swore by her gods that she would not rest until her bull
Meanwhile
Ailill's
men
destroyed the
sid, taking
the crown, Loegaire's mantle, and Dunlaing's shirt;
but Nera was left in the sid and will not come thence till doom
it.
fought
from
It
other mortals, he has become an inhabitant of the

Here also, as in the story of Etain, mortals wage
like
gods' land.^
war with hostile divinities. Nevertheless the deities

and only the outer works of their sid are destroyed.
successful
survive,
The
Morrigan to the hero Cuchulainn is seen in

the Tain Bo Regamna, or Cattle-Raid of Regamon. In his sleep
hostility of
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
70
he heard a great cry, and setting

to discover
its
off
with his charioteer Loeg
meaning, they came to a chariot drawn by a
one-legged horse, the chariot-pole passing through its body and

emerging from its head. On it was a red woman, clad in red,
and near it marched a giant in a red tunic, carrying a spear

and a huge forked branch, and driving a cow. Cuchulainn
maintained that
all
the cows in Ulster were
his,
but the
woman
denied this, and when he asked why she spoke for the man, she
announced that his name was Uar-gaeth-sceo Luachair-sceo.
Then the giant cried out that her name was Faebor beg-beoil
cuimdiuir folt scenbgairit sceo uath. Irritated at this gibberish
an instance of the well-known concealment of divine
the hero leaped Into the chariot, placing his feet on

names
the woman's shoulders and his spear at her head, and demanded her true name, to which she replied that she was a
sorceress and that the cow was her reward for a poem. Cuchulainn begged to hear It, and the woman consented, provided
that he would retire from the chariot. After the poem was recited, Cuchulainn prepared to leap again into the chariot, when
woman, giant, cow, and chariot vanished; but on the branch
the woman changed to this form.
of a tree was a black bird
Now he recognized her as Badb or the Morrigan, the battlegoddess, and she told him that for his conduct she would pursue him with vengeance. She was carrying the cow from the
it might be covered by the bull of Cualnge

and when their calf was a year old, Cuchulainn would die.
She would attack him when facing his opponent at the ford
sid of Cruachan, that
during the foray of Cualnge, and as an eej she would twine

round his feet. "I will crush thee against the stones of the
ford,
and thou
Cuchulainn.
wilt never obtain healing
"As a
she-wolf
I will bite
from me," answered

thy right hand and
devour thee," she replied. "I shall strike thee with my lance
and put out an eye, and never wilt thou obtain healing from
me," he returned. "As a white cow with red ears I will enter
the water, followed by a hundred cows. We shall dash upon

Thou
71
and thy head will be taken." "I shall

throw a sling-stone at thee, and thy heel shall be broken, and
no help wilt thou get from me," cried Cuchulainn; and with
that Morrigan disappeared into the sid of Cruachan.^
thee.
wilt
fall,
In a variant of this tale (where the cow-driving incident is

perhaps the one which is mentioned in the Echtra Nerai) a
different reason for this hostility Is given. Morrigan appeared
woman offering Cuchulainn her love, her treasand

her
ures,
herds, but he replied that the opportunity was
not fitting, since he was engaged in a desperate contest, and
contemptuously refused her help. She uttered threats as in
the previous version; and when he was fighting at the ford, he
was overturned by an eel which he crushed in his hand, and
again as a wolf and a heifer Morrigan was defeated. Now no
one wounded by Cuchulainn could be healed save by himself,
and Morrigan therefore appeared as a lame and blind old
woman milking a cow with three teats. Cuchulainn asked for
milk, which she gave him from each teat, and at every draught
he pronounced the blessing of "gods and not-gods"^ upon
her. At each benediction one of her wounds was healed, and
now she revealed herself, but was told that, had he known, she
would never have had healing from him.^ Perhaps because of
as a beautiful
because of a subsequent reconcilement, before

Cuchulainn went to the last fatal fight, the goddess broke his
chariot, "for she liked not his going to the battle, knowing
this healing, or
that he would not

also
shows how
though
it
come again
divinities
to
Emain Macha."
have the
does not always avail
them
The
story
gift of shape-shifting,
against the prowess of a
hero.
The
idea that gods punish neglect of their worship or commands, or avenge other sinful actions, is found in most reli-
and some stories seem to be derived from it, as when

Welsh legend knows of Nynnyaw and Peibaw transformed to
a probable substitution for a
oxen for their sins by God
Instances
the
destruction of corn and milk
of
pagan divinity.^
gions,
III
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
72
by
divinities
ishment
have been
cited,
and these perhaps
signify
pun-
for neglecting the gods, seeing that, in the case of the
Milesians with Dagda, this was followed by a compact made

the equivalent of the fresh covenant made with
with him
God by His
careless worshippers in the
sibly stories like that of Allien
Old Testament. Pos-
mac Midhna
of the
Tuatha De
Danann, coming out of the sid every year to burn Tara,^ point
to the same conception. The gods even punished members of
own group
their
for
wrongdoing, as
in the case of Aoife,
who
was transformed by Bodb; and Becuma was banished from

the gods' land because of her sin with Manannan's son. She
came to earth in a self-moving boat and by spells bound Conn,
high king of Ireland, to do her will and to banish his son Art;
but while she remained
in dalliance
with
Conn
for a year, there
a direct divine punishwas neither corn nor milk in Ireland

ment, for it was held that an evil king's reign was marked by
famine and destruction. The Druids told Conn that nothing
would avail save the sacrifice of "the son of a sinless couple,"
the son of the queen of a divine land, whom Conn brought

thence. To rescue the boy his mother came with a marvellous
i.
e.
cow, which was accepted as a sacrifice, while the queen told

Conn that he must renounce Becuma, else Ireland would lose
corn and milk. Later, when the j-f^-folk stole the
chess-men with which Becuma was playing with Art, she put
from
spells on him not to eat until he had brought Delbchaem
a third of
its
He
women
a mysterious island, intending thus to cause his death.
he reached an Elysian island, whose fair

how to escape the dangers before him and to find
him
taught
Delbchaem; but when he brought her to Tara, Becuma In
disgust left Conn for ever.^ Punishment of a divine bel'ng is also
seen in the story of Manannan's slaying Fer Fedail because of
sailed
till
misdeed, which resulted In the drowning of Tuag.^ Conchean slew Dagda's son Aed for seducing his wife, and though
his
Dagda
did not
kill
him, he
he found a stone as long as
made him carry the

Aed to put upon his
corpse until
grave.^
PLATE
VIII
Squatting God
The
deity has torques on his neck and lap, and

encircled by two serpents with rams' heads.
Traces of horns appear on his head. He
is
may
possibly be a form of Cernunnos (see Plate XVI),

and would thus be a
divinity of the underworld.
From an altar found at
Saone-etLoire.
Autun,
For a representation on a Gaulish coin see
Plate III, 3;
cf.
also Plates IX,
XXV.
73
Trespass on a sacred place is implied in the story of Eochaid,

who eloped with his step-mother. Oengus, in disguise, told
him not
to
camp on
his
meadow; and when he
god sent plagues upon him,
killing his cattle
persisted, the
and
horses,
and
threatening to slay his household if he would not go. Oengus

then gave him a horse on which to depart with his goods, and
the lake which was formed afterward from the bursting of an
uncovered well produced by the micturation of this horse
drowned Eochaid and
household, save his daughter

Liban. This, as well as the similar story told of Eochaid's
brother Rib, who trespassed on the ground of Oengus and
all
his
Midir, has affinity with tales of the bursting of a sacred well

upon the impious trespasser, as in the legend of Boann.^^
Oilill pastured his cattle on the exterior of a
which
of
the sid-iolk now destroyed. While
the
sid,
grass
Oilill watched there with Ferchess, he saw fairy cattle leaving
the sid, followed by Eogabal, son of its King, and his daughter
In another story
Eogabal was slain by Ferchess, and Aine was outraged

by Oilill, but she struck his right ear, leaving no flesh on it,
whence his epithet "Bare Ear." Aine promised vengeance,
which was wrought thus. Eogan, Oilill's son, and Lugaid
Aine.
mac Con heard music proceeding from
a yew formed by magic

for
means
employed
vengeance, and in it
part
was found a little harper, who was brought by them to Oilill.
Before he went away, however, he made contention between
Eogan and Lugaid; the latter was slain, and this caused the
^^
battle of Mag Mucrime, where Oilill's seven sons perished.
as
of
the
In this story gods are within men's power, though the latter
finally escape punishment. So also is it in the tale of
cannot
Macha, "sun
of women-folk," daughter of Midir, or of Sainred,

son of Ler, who came to the house of the rich peasant, Cronnchu, and served him, bringing him prosperity and living with
him as his wife. Cronnchu went to a feast of the Ulstermen,
but was bidden by Macha not to say an imprudent word or

mention her name. At the horse-racing, however, he boasted
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
74
that his wife was swifter than the horses, whereupon King
Conchobar insisted that she should be sent for, and though
she was with child, forced her to run against his chariot. She
said that all who saw it would suffer for the deed, and when at
the goal she gave birth to twins, she condemned every Ulsterman to undergo for five days and four nights each year all the
pangs which she had felt, and to have no strength during that
Cuchulainn alone escaped the curse. ^^
time.
The automatic working out
of
punishment
tragic results of the breaking of personal tabus,
and
of Cuchulainn
Fionn.^'*
This
is
is
seen in the
e. g.
in the case
sometimes regarded as the
inevitable operation of fate or as divine vengeance for wrong

done to gods, not necessarily by the victim, and it receives
its
most mysterious
the long tale of

origin
is
Da
illustration in the
while
god
his
of Conaire
Mor
in
In some versions Conaire's
Derga's Hostel.
connected with incest
doom
itself
caused by a vengeful
death at the height of
his prosperity
is
re-
done by his ancestor to

the god Midir, whose wife Etain was retaken from him by
garded as the consequence of injury
Conaire's forefather Eochaid.^^
Through a trick of Midir's,

Mess
child,
Buachalla, by his daughter Ess,
and Mess Buachalla was mother of Conaire. Who, then, was
Conaire's father.^ One account regards him as King Eterscel,
while Mess Buachalla is here daughter of Ess and one of the
Eochaid had a
side,
or of Ess and Eterscel
the
latter version thus intro-
ducing the incest incident in another form. Another account

how Eochaid married Etain, daughter of Etar, King of
the cavalcade from the sid; and their daughter Etain became
tells
but was put away because she bore him no son.

Cormac ordered his infant daughter to be slain, but she smiled
Cormac's
wife,
on
they took her to King Eterscel's

cowherds, who guarded her in a hut with a roof-light, whence
her name Mess Buachalla, or "the Cowherds' Foster-Child."
so sweetly
his thralls that
Through the roof-light Eterscel's people saw her when she was
grown up, and told the king of her beauty. Now it was proph-
DIVINE ENMITY
esied that he
AND PUNISHMENT
75
would have a son by a woman of unknown
race,
but before he sent for her, a bird flew through the roof-Hght,
and doffing Its plumage, became a man, to whom Mess BuachBefore leaving her he told how she would
have a son, Conaire, by him, who must never hunt birds; and
Conaire was regarded as Eterscel's child when born. At
alla yielded herself.
Eterscel's death the
new king was
at the "bull-feast."
and
bull
was
to be selected
by divination
probably as a sacrifice,
flesh, he dreamed of the
killed,
had eaten Its

naked man with a sling coming to
Tara. Meanwhile Conaire hunted a flock of wonderful birds,
which suddenly became armed men, one of them telling him
that he was Nemglan, King of the birds, his father, and that
he was breaking his geasa (tabus) in hunting his kinsmen.
after the diviner
future king
In this case a
Conaire replied that he knew nothing of this geis, whereupon

Nemglan bade him go naked toward Tara, where watchers
would meet him. In this incident there is doubtless some dim
memory
of clan totem-myths.
different
Buachalla
tell
account of
him
his
for the first
becoming king makes Mess

time
who
his father
Is,
viz.
own father, when he had just died. His succesmust fulfil certain apparently impossible conditions, but
Conaire met the terms and became king. Mysterious hosts
brought to him by his mother stayed with him for a time and
then departed, none knew whither; they were side from Bri
Eterscel, her
sor
Leith, Midir's sid}^
This appears to mean that Conaire was
divinely assisted to become king, so that the approaching disaster might be all the greater.
To
return to the other account,
Nemglan
told Conaire the
geasa which he must observe. He became king, and none ever

had a more prosperous reign; plenty abounded, and murder
and rapine were banished. At last, however, the vengeance
of the god began to work.
resist
serfs,
Through a fate which he could not

Conaire one day settled a quarrel between two of his
thus breaking one of the geasa, and on his return he saw
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
^6
the whole country in flame and smoke

a delusion of the
side. To avoid the fire he and his men went sunwise round
Tara and counter-clockwise round Bregia. These were tabued

directions; and as he went, he pursued the evil beasts of Cerna,
disobeying another tabu. Then, belated, he resolved to stay in
the hostel of Derga ("Red"), and three red-haired horsemen
clad in red
and on red steeds
house of Red another of
them begging them

faster and]
to
announced:
^^
were seen preceding him to the
He sent messengers after

but
behind,
they only went the
"We ride the steeds of Donn Tethis geasa.
fall
scorach (Midir's son) from the s'ld. Though we are alive, we

are dead. Great are the signs. Destruction of life. Sating of
ravens. Feeding of crows. Strife of slaughter. Wetting of
Shields with broken bosses in hours after sun-
sword-edge.
down.
my
son!"
With
boding prophecy they vanished, and the gods themselves thus caused the violation of
Conaire's geasa. After arriving at the hostel he broke yet anLo,
this
a hideous woman who, standing on one

one
foot, holding up
hand, and casting an evil eye on Conaire
and his men, foretold their doom. Then she begged to be taken
other, for there
in,
in,
came
appealing to Conaire's generosity, and he said, "Let her

though it is a geis of mine."
At this time Ingcel, whose single eye had three pupils, invaded Ireland with Conaire's foster-brothers, and they were
now on their way to attack the hostel. Ingcel is described as
going toward
upon the inmates, returning with ever

fresh reports of the wonders and the people seen by him, some
of them gigantic and monstrous, with magic weapons. When
the hostel was surrounded, a terrible battle began. Conaire
was parched with thirst, but no water was to be obtained,
though his ally MacCecht sought It in all Ireland. Lakes and
rivers had been dried up, apparently by the gods, as at the first
battle of Mag-Tured, and one loch alone was reached before its
it
to spy
water disappeared.
all
too
late.
MacCecht returned with
a draught, but
Conaire's host was scattered and dead, and he
^'j
himself was being decapitated by two of his foes, whom MacCecht slew, and then poured the water into Conaire's mouth.
The head thanked him

through no fault of
geance.^^
less
The
story
consummate.
his
is
and thus perished Conaire,

victim
of fate and of a god's venown,
as tragic as a Greek drama, if its art is
for his act,
CHAPTER
VII
THE LOVES OF THE GODS

the gods of Greece and India, the deities of the Celts
had many love adventures, and the stories concerning
LIKE
these generally have a romantic aspect. An early tale of this

class records that one night, as Oengus slept, he saw a beautiful maiden by his bed-side. He would have caught hold of
her,
ill.
but she vanished, and until next night he was restless and
Again she appeared, singing and playing on a cymbal, and
it continued for a year till Oengus was sick of love. Fergne,

a cunning leech, diagnosed the cause of his patient's illness
and bade Boann, Oengus's mother, search all Ireland for the
so
maiden, but though she sought during a whole year, the girl
could not be found. Fergne therefore bade Boann summon
Dagda, Oengus's father, and he advised him to ask the help

King of the side of Munster, famed for knowledge.
Bodb discovered the maiden, and Oengus set out to see whether
of Bodb,
he could recognize her.
By
the sea they found
many
girls,
two and two by silver chains; and one, taller than the
was
the maiden of the vision, Caer, daughter of Ethal of
rest,
sid Uaman. Dagda, advised by Bodb, sought help from Ailill
and Medb, King and Queen of Connaught
another instance
linked
of mortals aiding gods;
but Ethal refused
Ailill's
request to
give up Caer, whereupon Dagda's army with Ailill's forces

destroyed his sid and took him prisoner. Still he refused, be-
cause he had no power over his daughter, for every second

year she and her maidens took the form of birds at Loch Bel
Draccan (the "Lake of the Dragons' Mouths"); and thither

Dagda bade Oengus go. At this loch, says incidental refer-
79
ence to the story, the maidens were wont to remain all the
year of their transformation, Caer as the most lovely of all
wearing a golden necklace, from which hung an hundred

and fifty chains, each with a golden ball.^ When Oengus saw
birds,
the birds, he called to Caer. "Who calls me?" she cried. "It
is Oengus that calls thee; come to him that he may bathe with
thee."
The bird-maiden came, and Oengus
also took the
form
Together they plunged three times in the lake, and

Brug na Boinne, singing so sweetly that everyone
asleep for three days and nights. Caer now became Oen-
of a bird.
then flew to
fell
gus's wife.^
In this story the god Bodb is famed for knowledge, and in

the incidental reference cited he is said for a whole year to have
kept off by his magic power the harper Cliach, who sought his
daughter's hand.^ Possibly the shape-shifting of Caer and her
maidens was the result of a curse or spell, as in other instances,
unless
being goddesses the power was
The myth
in their
uses the folk-tale formula of the
own
hands.
Swan-Maiden,
though its main incident is lacking, viz. her capture by obtaining the bird-dress, which she has doffed.
In the story of Oengus's disinheriting Elcmar, he later appears as a suitor for Etain, daughter of Aihll, who refused her
but Midir was more successful, whence there was

enmity between him and Oengus. The long tale which follows
to him;
extant in several manuscripts and is here pieced together

mainly from the versions in the Egerton Manuscript and the
is
Leabhar na hUidre.
Besides Etain, Midir had another consort,
Fuamnach, who was jealous of her. With the help of a Druid's

spells and by her own sorceries she changed Etain into an inand by a magic wind blew her about for seven years; but
Oengus found her in this state and made for her a grianan, or
bower filled with shrubs and flowers, on which she fed and
thrived. Perhaps by night she was able to resume her true
form, for Oengus slept with her; and when Fuamnach heard
of this, she caused Midir to send for Oengus, so that a reconsect
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
8o
Meanwhile, however, Fuamnach

went to the grianan and again by a magic wind ejected Etain,
who was blown upon the breeze until she fell through the roof
ciliation
might be
effected.
of Etair's house into his wife's golden cup.
and
She swallowed the
gave birth to the divinity as an infant called

Etain, who, more than a thousand years before, had been born
insect
later
as a goddess.
When
she
now grew
up, as she and her maidens
were bathing, a warrior appeared, singing about Etain, and

then vanished, this being Midir, or possibly Oengus, who had
discovered Fuamnach's treachery and struck off her headHere, however, is interpolated a verse telling how not Oengus
but Manannan slew or burned her, as well as her grandson^

SiugmalL*
The next section of the story exists in two forms and relates
how Etain was married by Eochaid Airem, King of Ireland.
His brother, Ailill Anglonnach, fell in love with her, and when
at last he disclosed this to Etain, she, after much persuasion,
arranged a meeting-place with him. At the appointed time
however,
Ailill
in his likeness
did not come, being hindered by sleep; but one

appeared to Etain on successive occasions and
at last announced himself to be Midir,
and told her how she was
who had
thus dealt with
parted from him

by magic. Nevertheless, she refused to go with him; but
when she told Ailill, he was cured of his love. The Egerton
Ailill,
version then relates

carried off Etain
how
his consort,
Midir, appearing in hideous form,

his sid of Bri
and her handmaid Crochan to
Leith, near the rising of the sun, first staying on the
way
at the
and when Crochan comMidir said that this sid would
sid of his divine relative Sinech;
plained of wasting time there,

now bear her name.
In the version given by the Leahhar na hUidre the incident of

Midir's disclosing himself is more mythical in character. He
invited Etain to the gods' land, "the Great Plain," or Mag
Mor
graceful,
marvellous land, wherein
and nothing
is
called
is
"mine"
music.
Its
or "thine."
people are
The
plains

of Ireland are fair, but fairer
Is
8i
more Intoximead and wine,
this plain, its ale
cating than that of Erin! There is choice of

and conception is without sin or crime (hence Segda in the
story of Becuma was "son of a sinless couple"). Its people
are invisible: they; see but are not seen, and none ever grows
unThe magic food of the gods' land will be Etaln's

salted pork,, new milk, and mead. Midir now met Eochaid
and proposed a game of chess with him, allowing him to win,
whereupon Eochaid demanded that Midir and his folk should
old.
perform four tasks
clear
the
plains
of
Meath, remove
the forest of Breag, and build a causeway

moor of Lamrach. In the Dindsenchas, a topographical treatise, these tasks are an eric, or fine, on Midir for
taking Eochaid's wife, and in performing them the divine folk
rushes, cut
across the
down
taught a new custom to the men of Erin, viz. placing the yoke
over the oxen's shoulders instead of on their foreheads, whence
Eochaid's cognomen, Airem ("Ploughman").^ In a. second
game Midir won and asked that he might
hold Etain and kiss
her. Eochaid would not consent until a month had passed,

and then Midir arrived in splendour for his reward, surrounded
by armies. Etain blushed when she heard his demand, but he
reminded her that by no
will of hers
had he won
me
Eochaid
willing to give
then," said she, "if
is
"Take
her.
me up."
may cast
I am not willing," cried Eochaid, "but he

thee." So Midir took her and then rose with
around
arms
his
her through the roof, and the assembly saw the pair as two
swans winging their way to the sid.
"For that
The Egerton
version ends
by
telling,
how through
the div-
ination of a Druid, Eochaid discovered Midir's sid, destroyed

The version in the Leahhar na hUidre
it, and recovered Etain.
is
defective after narrating
how Eochaid and
his
men dug up
several sid one after another; but the Dindsenchas relates that
Ess, Etain's^daughter, brought tribute of cattle and was fostered by Midir for nine years, during which Eochaid besieged
the
sid,
thwarted by
his
power. Midir brought out sixty
women
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
82
among them
Ess, Eochaid's daughter; but

Eochald mistook her for Etain and by her had a daughter
in Etain's
form,
Mess Buachalla, mother of Conaire. Recognizing his mistake,

he went to Midir, who restored Etain to him; and in revenge
Siugmall, Midir's grandson, afterwards killed Eochaid,^
Although folk-tale formulae are found in this story,
it
is
based on myths of divine love and magic power and of a goddess's rebirth as a mortal. Midir's poetic description of the
gods' land is archaic and may only later have been connected
with the underground sid. Curious, too, is the idea, which we
have noted above, of the subjection of gods to mortals

performing tasks and permitting their abode to be spoiled or a
consort taken from
magic power
to
them
but
which even
it
may
divinities
reflect the belief in
must
yield.
Never-
get their own back: Etain's recapture is

the
incest
incident; Midir is slain; and his depreceded by
scendant, Conaire, dies because the god causes him to break
theless, the deities
his tabus, as already described.
The story of the birth of the hero Cuchulainn is based on

the love of a god. Lug, for a mortal, Dechtere, sister of Conchobar.
King
of Ulster.
It
Is
told In
two
versions, one found in
recensions, the Leahhar na hUidre and the Egerton Manuscript; the other is also given in the Egerton Manuscript.
two
We
noting the chief points of dlfiêrence

between it and the others {a and h). Dechtere, with fifty
maidens, left Conchobar's house for three years, at last returning in the form of birds which devoured everything, so that
follow the latter
(c),
Conchobar organized a hunt which continued unsuccessfully
The other version begins with the devastation

nine
flocks of mysterious birds, joined two and
wrought by
two by silver chains, the leading pair in each group being
till
nightfall.
many-coloured;
but these birds are not Dechtere and her

she accompanies Conchobar in his chariot on
companions, for
the hunt. The next incident
comparing
it
with the other,
is
obscurely told In version c, but

evident that the hunters en-
it is
83
man and a woman, and that

was
it
suddenly enlarged, beautified, and filled with all desirable things, for it was one of the gods' magic dwellings, which
they could produce on earth by glamour. The man was Lug,
the woman Dechtere, though this was known only to Bricriu.
Conchobar beheved that they were his vassals and demanded
tered a small house where were a
with the woman, who escaped by saying

she was enceinte; and in the morning an infant was discovered,
the child of Dechtere by Lug, though it had the appearance of
his right of sleeping
Conchobar. The child was called Setanta, but afterward was

known as Cuchulainn.
In version b the host told his guests that his wife was in
childbed. Dechtere assisted her and took the child to foster
him; and at the same time the host's mare gave birth to two
common folk-tale coincidence. In the morning all

had vanished, and Conchobar's party returned home with the
child, which died soon after. When the funeral was over, Dechtere in drinking swallowed a mysterious tiny animal, and that
night Lug appeared, telling her that she was with child by him,
foals
for
it
was he who had carried her
birds an incident lacking
in
with her companions as

this version. His was the child
off
whom
fostered, and now he himself had entered her
as the httle animal. Her child, when born, would be called
Setanta. Here Setanta is at once Lug's son and his rebirth;
she had
but the two ideas are not exclusive
if
we take
into account
In early Indian belief the father became an

embryo and was reincarnated in his first-born son, whence
funeral rites were performed for the father in the fifth month
ancient ideas.
^
of pregnancy, and he was remarried after the birth.
Probably
in
after
it
was no
Celtic
a
similar
for
reason, preserved
myth
longer believed of mortals, a god who had a child by a mortal
was thought to be reborn while still existing separately himself; and this explains why the Ulstermen sought a wife for
Cuchulainn so that "his rebirth might be of himself."
various texts Cuchulainn is called son of Lug.
In
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
84
When
Dechtere was found to be with
child,
it
was thought
that Conchobar himself was the father, for she slept by him
a glimpse of primitive manners in early Ireland. Elsewhere
his father,^ and this may represent

the
another form of
story, with Conchobar as Cuchulainn's
parent by his sister Dechtere. Dechtere was meanwhile
Cuchulainn
calls
Conchobar
Sualtam, but ashamed of her condition, she

vomited up the animal and again became a virgin; yet the
child whom she bore to Sualtam was the offspring of the three
affianced
to
years' absence
is
much
Setanta
or Cuchulainn.
distorted myth, but
On
the whole this
two things emerge from
it
Lug's amour with Dechtere and his fatherhood of Setanta.^

Another tale, with Christian interpolations, tells how
Connla, son of Conn,
who
reigned from 122 to 157 a.
d.,
one
day saw a strange woman who announced that she was from
Tir na mBeo ("the Land of the Living"), where was no death,
but perpetual feasting, and her people dwelt in a great sid,
whence they were called des side, or "people of the jz^." The
goddess was invisible to all but Connla, whence Conn asked
him with whom he

one
who
spoke, to which she replied that she was
looked for neither death nor old age and that she
loved Connla and desired him to come to
Mag Mell ("the

Pleasant Plain"), where reigned a victorious king. Conn bade
his Druid use powerful magic against her and her hrichta ban,
or "spells of women," against which at a later time St. Patrick
made
his
prayer.
The Druid pronounced an
hinder Connla from seeing, and
others from hearing, the
He
goddess,
would eat nothing but this, nor did it ever grow less; and in a
month the love-lorn Connla saw her reappear in a boat of glass,
calling him to come, for "the ever-living ones" invited him,
who withdrew
'
all
incantation to
after giving an apple to Connla.
so that he might escape death.
Conn again
called his Druid,
whereupon the goddess sang that the Druids would soon pass
away
Christian inter-
and Conn then spoke
to his son, but
before a righteous one, St. Patrick
polation, post eventum;
85
the goddess sang that once on the waves Connla's grief at leaving his friends would be forgotten, and the land of joy would
soon be reached, where there were none but women. Connla
sprang into the boat, which sped across the sea into the un^
In this tale the land
known, whence he has never returned.
women
obviously but a part of the divine land, since that

is ruled by a king; and there is also confusion between the
idea of an overseas region of the immortals
Mag Mell
of
is
men-
and that of the subterranean
sid.
tioned in the Coir
or Fitness of Names, where an-
Anmann,
Connla's adventure
is
^^
given, viz. that he was slain by enemies.
parallel myth, perhaps of Celtic origin, is found in one of the
Lais of Marie de France concerning the knight Lanval, with
other account
whom
is
When
she declared herself, he sprang

on horseback behind her and went away to Avalon, a beau-
a fairy
fell in
love.
the Elysium of the Brythonic Celts. ^^

Land of Ever-Living Women recurs in some tales of the
tiful island,
The
imm-rama, or romantic voyage, type, e. g. in The Voyage of

Maelduin, an old pagan story reconstructed in Christian
times. Maelduin and his companions went on a quest for his
father's
murderers and met with the strangest adventures,
one of which describes their arrival at an island where they

saw seventeen girls preparing a bath. A warrior appeared who,
on bathing, proved to be a woman and sent one of the girls

to bid the men enter her house. There a splendid repast was
given them, and the woman. Queen of the isle, desired each to
take the girl who best pleased him, reserving herself for MaelIn the morning she begged all to remain. Their age
would not increase; they would be immortal; and perpetual
She
feasting and excessive love without toil would be theirs.
duin.
had been wife of the King of the island, the girls were her
daughters, and now she reigned alone, so that she must leave
to judge cases for the people of the isle. The
remained
three months, when all but Maelduin grew
voyagers
home-sick; yet he consented to go with them, and all entered
them each day
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
86
their boat in the Queen's absence.
Suddenly she appeared and

threw out a rope which Maelduin seized, with the result that
they were drawn back to the shore, where they remained three
months
longer, escaping then once more.
Maelduin's
men caught
This time one of
the rope thrown
by the Queen, but the

others severed his hand, and seeing this, she wept bitterly at
their going.^^ These women were not mortals but goddesses,
eager for the love of men.
Another myth
tells
flock of beautiful birds
women
of a goddess's love for Cuchulainn.
appeared
to long for them.
in Ulster,
Cuchulainn,
and caused
all
A
the
in distributing his catch
Ethne, and to appease her

he promised that the two most beautiful birds which next appeared would be hers. Soon after, two birds linked together
among them, omitted
his mistress
flew over the lake, singing a song which
Cuchulainn
sleep.
He
pursued, but
made everyone but
failing to catch
them, he
and while sleeping saw

angry
two women approaching, one in a green mantle, and the other
in a purple, each armed with a horse-whip with which they
attacked him. When he was all but dead, his friends found
him, and on his awaking, he remained ill for a year. Then
appeared a stranger who sang of the healing which could be
given him by Aed Abrat's daughters, Liban and Fand, wife of
Manannan. Fand desired his love, would he but come to her
wondrous land; and had he been her friend, none of the things
seen by him in vision would have happened. The stranger,
Oengus, son of Aed Abrat, disappeared, and after the Ulstermen had persuaded Cuchulainn to tell his vision, he was advised to return to the pillar-stone. There he found Liban, who
told him that Manannan had abandoned Fand, and she
brought him a message from her own husband, Labraid, that
he would give him Fand in return for one day's service against
his enemies. ^^ Labraid dwelt in Mag Mell, and there Cuchulainn would recover his strength; but the hero desired his
charioteer Loeg first to go and report upon this land.
rested,
in soul, against a stone,
PLATE IX
A AND B
Altar from Saintes
A.
The obverse shows
The god
is
squatting
and holds a torque

cornucopia
(cf.
a seated god and goddess.

Plates III,
(cf.
Plates
male figure stands beside

B.
On
the reverse
is
3,
VIII,
XXV),
The goddess has a

XIV, XV), and a small fe-
in his
hand.
her.
a squatting
god with a purse
god with a hammer

(see Plates XIII, XIV, XXVI), and to the right is
a goddess.
Three bulls' heads are shown below
in his right
(cf.
hand; to the
Plates II, 4-5, 9, III,
From an
France.
altar
left is a
5,
XIX,
i, 6,
XX,
B,
XXI).
found at Saintes, Charente-Inferieure,

At
this point
we hear
of Loeg's visit
and
87
return,
and next
follows a long passage that has nothing to do with the story,

which then continues as if from another version in which
Liban's visit had not occurred.
Cuchulainn was
sent Loeg to
how women
destroyed
tell
Emer,
his strength;
his wife,
still
ill
of the side
but when she reproached him for
and
had
his
weakness, he arose and went to the enclosure (the pillar-stone

of the first part). There Liban appeared, singing of Labraid's
prowess and of his need for Cuchulainn, and striving to lead
the hero to the dwelling of the side or to Labraid's home on a
lake where troops of women came and went. Cuchulainn refused to go at a woman's call, whereupon Liban proposed that
Loeg should bring tidings of Labraid's land. The two visits of

Loeg are thus the same, but differently described-. In the first
Liban took Loeg by the shoulder, for he could not go in safety,
unless under the protection of a woman. In a bronze boat they
reached an island in a lake, and in a palace Loeg saw thrice
fifty
women who welcomed
him.
While he spoke with Fand,
Labraid arrived, gloomy because of the approaching contest,

but Liban cheered him by announcing that Loeg was there,
and that Cuchulainn would come.

all he had seen.
Now
Loeg returned to
tell
of
The other version describes how Loeg passed with Liban to

the plain of Fidga, where dwelt Aed Abrat and his daughters.
There Fand bade him at once bring Cuchulainn, for on that
day the strife would begin; and Loeg returned, urging Cuchulainn to go and recounting what he had beheld. In one house
were thrice fifty men; at the eastern gate were three purple
trees with birds singing; in the
forecourt was a silver tree
with musical branches; from sixty other trees dropped food to

nourish three hundred; and there was, too, a vat of unfailing
He
described Fand's marvellous beauty and still urged

Cuchulainn with accounts of the attractiveness of the land,
ale.
without any
its
women.
III
or injustice, and of the glory of its warriors and

Cuchulainn at last went there and by his might
lie
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
88
quelled the enemies of the god. Fand and Liban now sang In
praise of him, and he remained for a month with Fand, after
which he bade her farewell. She appointed a tryst with him in

Erin, but Emer heard of it and with fifty women came to attack Fand. Cuchulainn, however, bade Fand have no fear, and
Emer he told her how the goddess was more worthy

love. Emer reproached him, and when she added, "If
addressing
of his
only I could find favour in thy sight," Cuchulainn's love for

her returned: "Thou shalt find favour so long as I am in life."
Then began a noble contest between Fand and Emer as to

which of them should sacrifice herself for the other, and Fand
sang a beautiful lament. At this moment Manannan became
aware of Fand's predicament and arrived to rescue her, unseen
by all save her and Loeg. Fand again sang, describing the
coming of "the horseman of the crested sea-waves," and told

of her former love for the god and the splendour of their espousals. Now, deserted by Cuchulainn, she would return to
Manannan; but still her heart yearned for the hero, as she
told Manannan when he asked her whether she would depart
with him or no. Yet one thing weighed with her: Alanannan
had no consort worthy of him, while Cuchulainn already had
Emer. So she departed; and when the hero knew it, he bounded
thrice in air and gave three leaps southward, and abode for a
long time fasting in the mountains. Emer went to Conchobar,
sent his Druids to bind Cuchulainn; and when the hero
who
would have
and fettered him,

remembered Fand
no more. Emer also shared In this potion and forgot her
jealousy; "and Manannan shook his mantle between Cuchulainn and Fand, so that they should never meet again." ^^ In
giving him
this story
slain
them, they chanted
spells
a draught of oblivion so that he
Emer
addresses Loeg as one
who
often searches the
sid, while he speaks of the divine land as well-known to him

and seems to see Manannan when he is invisible to the others,
Manannan
rick called
what St. Patromance," was told to him
himself was an ardent lover, and
"a complicated
bit of
THE LOyES OF THE GODS
89
by Caoilte. Allien, of the Tuatha De Danann, became enamoured of Manannan's wife, while his sister Aine, daughter of
Eogabal, loved Manannan and was dearer to him than all
mankind. Aine asked the cause of her brother's sadness, and
he told her that he loved the goddess Uchtdelbh ("Shapely
Bosom"). Aine accordingly bade him come with her where
the divine pair were, and taking her seat by Manannan, she
gave him passionate kisses. Meanwhile Uchtdelbh, seeing
Allien, loved him; and Manannan gave her to him, himself
taking Aine.^
a
On
another occasion
maiden guarded by
since no man might
hosts of the
and
see her,
Manannan
King
desired Tuag,
of Erin's daughters;
Manannan
sent a divine
Druid, Fer Fidail, son of Eogabal, in the form of a woman to

gain access to Tuag. He remained with her three nights and
then, singing a sleep-strain over her, he carried her to the
shore and left her slumbering while he looked for a boat wherein
to carry her asleep to the Land of Ever-Living Women, or, in
another version, to go to take counsel of Manannan. But a
wave came and drowned
her, the
wave
in
one version
being
Manannan the sea-god himself a primitive piece of personalization of nature.
For
his
misdeed Fer Fidail was
by
was that he had

drowned
she
was
by the
explaining why
Manannan, and probably the cause

loved Tuag,^^ this
slain
of offence
disappointed god.
myth, connected with other personages, tells how

Clidna the Shapely went from the Hill of the Two Wheels, in
the Pleasant Plain of the Land of Promise, with luchna Curlyparallel
Mac Ind Oc. But luchna practised

that
she
slept in the boat of bronze through
guile upon her so
his music; and then he turned the boat's head, altering its
course till it reached the place called Clidna. At that time
Locks to go to Oengus
occurred one of the three great seabursts which spread through

all the world. It caught up the boat, and Clidna was drowned;
was called Clidna's Wave.^^ The

and
others were Tuag's
Rudraige's, or Ladru's and Baile's.
whence
this
seaburst
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
90
The
story of Crimthann NIa Nair shows that one who sojourns in the divine land or tastes its food may not be able to
return to earth with impunity, for he has become a member of
the other-world state and
is no longer fit for earth.

This is
and in stories of fairyland or the world
of the dead elsewhere. ^^ Crimthann was son of Lugaid Red
found
in other Irish tales
Stripes, of
whom
uncommon
one of those occasional
in primitive society,
at one time been
royal house.
common
is
stories of incest,
not
proving that it had

custom, perhaps in the
told,
in Celtic
Lugaid's mother was Clothru, a sister of Medb

Clothru and Ethne are both said to have been
and Ethne.
wives of Conchobar
Medb
him
and their
brothers, Bres, Nar, and Lothar, were called the Three Finns,
or White Ones, of Emuin. Once Clothru bewailed her childless
condition to them, and as a result of her entreaties she had a
after
left
for Ailill;
Clothru again bore a child to Lugaid,

Crimthann Nia Nair, or "Nar's Man," the hero of this story
and afterward supreme king, who fared on what is called "a
son Lugaid by
all three.
^"^
splendid adventure" with a goddess or witch called Nar.
He
went to a land overseas, where he remained with her for a

month and a half; and at his departure he obtained many
a chariot and a golden draught-board, a sword
love-tokens
richly ornamented, a spear whose wounds were always mortal,
a sling which never missed its aim, two dogs worth a hundred
female slaves, and a beautiful mantle. Soon after his return,
^^
an incident perhowever, he fell from his horse and died
in
of
the
of
terms
myths
Loegaire Liban
haps to be explained
and Oisin, who, in order to return to the divine land, were

warned not to dismount from their horses. ^^ On the other
hand, Cuchulainn was able to return to Ireland from Elysium
without hurt, and so also was Aedh, son of the King of Leinster, who was enticed into the sid by Bodb Dearg's daughters.
For three years the folk of the sid cared for him while his
father mourned, not knowing whither the divine people had
into the sky or down under the earth. He and
taken him
91
other youths escaped, however, and Aedh met St. Patrick, who restored him to his father and said that he would
fifty
eventually die as God willed, i. e. the Tuatha

would have no further power over him.^^
Sometimes mortals, or gods
later
De Danann
envisaged as mortals,
abducted daughters of gods. Garman took Bodb's daughter

Mesca from the sid; but she died of shame, and the plain
where her grave was dug was named after her, Mag Mesca. ^^
Men
of the sid, divine or semi-divine beings, but regarded as
on
had love-affairs with goddesses.

was harper to the King of the three
Rosses and made music at the sid of Femen to attract Conchenn, Bodb's daughter. For a year Bodb's magic prevented
the lover from approaching nearer, so that he "could do nothing to the girls" in the sid; but he harped until earth opened,
and a dragon issued forth, when he died in terror. This dragon
will arise at the end of the world and aflflict Ireland in vengeance for St. John Baptist
perhaps an altered fragment of
an old cosmogonic myth.^^ Another story has some resemattendants
men,
also
Cliach, from sid Baine,
blance to
this.
Liath, a
young Prince
who went with
of the side, loved MIdir's
him as
daughter Bri,
he approached. But the slingers on Midir's sid kept him back,
and their sling-stones were like "a swarm of bees on a day of
her attendants to meet
beauty." Liath's servant was slain, and because Liath could

not reach her, Bri turned back to the sid and died of a broken
heart.26
Besides these, a large number of Irish and Welsh tales Illustrate the amours of the gods, as may be seen elsewhere in this
volume.
CHAPTER
THE MYTHS OF THE
VIII
BRITISH CELTS
surviving myths of the British Celts (Brythons), as

distinguished from the Irish Celts (Goidels), exist in the
THE
form of romantic
stories
and
tales in the Mabinogion and similar Welsh

Arthurian and Tallesin literature, or are re-
in the
and Welsh poems. Have the

kings and queens, heroes and
ferred to in the Triads
who
there figure as
magicians and
functions?
fairies,
The
retained
question
is
any
divinities
heroines,
of their original traits
less easily
answered than
and
in the
same romantic and

euhemerizing processes. With religious and social changes it
was forgotten that the gods were gods, and they became more
or less human, for the mediaeval story-teller was "pillaging
an antiquity of which he does not fully possess the secret."
case of Irish divinities subjected to the
The composition
of the stories of the Mabinogion, like those of
the great Irish manuscripts, dates from the tenth and eleventh
centuries, yet in both cases materials and personages are
of far older date, the supernatural element
is
a mythical substratum surviving
Welsh
tales
all
belong to a systematized
cient traditions,
and were the
is
strong,
changes.
method
and there
Further, the
of treating an-
literary stock-in-trade of the
Mabinog, or aspirant to the position of a qualified bard.
This
process was still further carried out in Ireland, where myths

were recast into a chronological as well as a romantic mould,
the
file,
number
or
man
of letters, being estimated according to the

his power of harmonizing and synWelsh literature the euhemerizing,
seen at work less in the legends than in
of his stories
chronizing
them.
historical process
and
In
is
THE M\THS OF THE BRITISH CELTS

the
93
Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth, with

gods became kings having a definite date, as in
historians
whom some
the Irish annals.
Certain personages and incidents of Welsh story resemble

those of Irish tradition. Was there, then, once a common
mythology among the ancestors of Goidel and Brython, to

which new local myths later accrued.'* Or did Irish and Welsh
myths mingle because Goidels
existed either as a primitive
population in Wales, conquered by Brythons, or as a later

Irish immigration.^ Probably we are right in assuming that
the Alahinogion literature contains the debris of Brythonic
myths, influenced more or less from Goidelic sources, as the
occasional presence of Irish
names and episodes
suggests.
Arthurian and Taliesin cycles are purely Brythonic.

certain
is
that the
in character
tribes
dim
divinities of the
and belong to
settled
there.
The
What
Mahinogion are
is
local"
specific districts in
Celtic
Wales, gods of^

divinities were apt to be local,
though some had a wider repute. Few of the many British

divinities mentioned in inscriptions are known to Welsh story.
Nodons is Nudd or Lludd; Maponos is Mabon; the Belenos
and Taranos of Continental inscriptions may be respectively
Beli or Belinus and Taran of Welsh story, while the latter suggests the British idol called Heithiurun in the Dind'senchas.^
The Mabinogi
of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed,^ begins
by
tell-
he was called Pen Annzufn, or "Head of Annwfn"

(Elysium). One day he observed a strange pack following a
ing
why
and urged on his own hounds,

him for interfering with his
sport. Pwyll apologized, and presently he and the stranger,
Arawn, King of Annwfn, agreed to exchange their forms and
kingdoms for a year: Pwyll would have Arawn's beautiful
wife and would fight Arawn's rival, Havgan, giving him but
one blow, which would slay him, for a second would resuscitate him. All this happened satisfactorily; never had Pwyll's
kingdom been so well ruled, and complete friendship was
deer, but
when he drove them
off
a horesman appeared, rebuking
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
94
effected
theme
between the monarchs. As
In Irish
myth,
this
is
of a mortal helping a deity in the Other-World.
the
Yet
Pwyll was once himself a god, as his title Pen Annwjn denotes,
and was later euhemerized into a king, or confused with an
actual monarch called Pwyll, while Annwfn here becomes a
mere kingdom on earth.
One day Pwyll sat on a mound which had the property of

causing him who was seated on it to receive a blow or see a
prodigy. A beautiful woman rode toward him and his men,
who pursued, but could not take her. This happened again on
the morrow, but on the third day, when Pwyll himself pursued,
still at his bidding.
She was Rhiannon, daughter
Heveidd Hen, and wished to marry him instead of Gwawl,
whom she detested and in a year he must come to her father's
she stood
of
court for her.
When
Pwyll arrived, a stranger, who
In reality
was Gwawl, appeared demanding a boon of him, and on his

promising It, asked for Rhiannon. She solved the difficulty
by agreeing to be Gwawl's wife In a year, but bade Pwyll appear then as a beggar, carrying a certain magic bag, which, in
the sequel, could not be filled with food. Gwawl was enraged,
but was told by the beggar that unless a
stamped down
riches
the contents,
it
man
of lands
never could be
and
filled.
Gwawl
did so and was immediately imprisoned In the bag,

which was kicked about the hall by Pwyll's followers until, to
escape death, he renounced his claim to Rhiannon.
The magic mound

hills
here the equivalent of the sid^ and such

are favourite places for the appearance of immortals or
Is
Rhiannon, who suddenly appeared on

was a goddess, like Fand or Connla's lover, and the
fairies In Celtic story.
the
hill,
theme
is
that of the Fairy Bride.
The story now tells how Rhiannon, whose child disappeared

at birth, was accused of slaying it and was forced to sit at the
horse-block of the palace, to tell her story to each new comer,
him Inside. Meanwhile Teyrnon, Lord of
a
mare whose foals disappeared on Mayhad
Gwent-Is-coed,
and to
offer to carry
PLATE X
known as "the Picardy
and
Z-rod symbol, serpent
with
double
disc
Stone,"
mirror
with
double-disc handle.
and
and Z-symbol,
Incised stone, locally
1.
From
2.
Insch, Aberdeenshire.
Incised
stone with
and Z-rod symbols.

Cf. Plate XVII.
double disc and serpent

Aberdeenshire.
From Newton,
THE MYTHS OF THE BRITISH CELTS
95
Eve, and this May-Eve he saw a huge claw clutching the newborn colt. He severed It with his sword, and the intruder
vanished; but at the door-way was a new-born infant, which
Teyrnon nurtured. Like Cuchulainn and other heroes, it had

a rapid growth and was called Gwri Golden-Hair. Noticing
Gwri's likeness to Pwyll, Teyrnon carried the boy to him,
and Rhiannon was reinstated, exclaiming that her anguish
{pryderi) was past; whence Gwri was called Pryderi and
succeeded Pwyll as King.
Folk-tale formulae abound in this section
Abandoned Wife, found
also in the
Mahinogi
that
of
of the
Branwen; and
that of an animal born the same night as the hero; while the
claw incident occurs in tales of Fionn. The importance of the
story
is
in Pryderi's birth.
The
fact that Teyrnon's foal dis-
appeared on the same night as Pryderi, who was found at

Teyrnon's door, and the meanings of the names Teyrnon =
Tigernonos
("Great
King")
or
Tigernos
("Chief"),
and
Rhiannon = Rigantona ("Great Queen"), may point to a

myth in which they were Pryderi's parents.^ Manawyddan,
who becomes Rhiannon's husband and rescues both her and
Pryderi from the vengeance of Gwawl, may have been his
father in another myth, for a poem associates him with Pryderi in
Caer
Sidi,
a part of Annwfn.
Pwyll, an original lord of Elysium,

this point to a
number
.f'
and
In another Mahinogi,
swine sent him by
Pryderi's parent.
of goddesses, bearing the
tona, consorts of different gods,
Rhiannon
is
In the story, however,
Does
name Rigan-
later fused into
one as
despoiled of
Arawn, or of which, according to a Triad,
Pryderi
is
he was swineherd, Pwyll having brought them from
Annwfn
and given them to Pryderi's foster-father. Pwyll and Pryderi

are thus associated with Elysium and with animals brought
thence. A Taliesin poem tells of the magic cauldron of Pen
Annwfn, viz. Pwyll. Round it was a ridge of pearls; it would
not boil a coward's food; voices issued from it; it was warmed
by the breath of nine maidens; and it formed part of the
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
96
"Spoils of Annwfn" which Arthur and others made a long

journey overseas to obtain. Gweir was imprisoned in Caer
through the spite (or messenger?) of Pwyll and Pryderi,

associated as lords and defenders of Annwfn.^ Arawn, Lord
Sidi
of Annwfn, was defeated
by Amsethon, son
Don, at the
of
mythic battle of Cath Godeu.^

The Mabinogi of Math, son of Mathonwy,^ tells of Gilvsethwy's love for Goewin, Math's "foot-holder." To help
him his brother Gwydion resolved to cause war and told Math
that swine,
by Arawn.
unknown
before,
had been sent to Pryderi
He and Gilvsethwy, disguised as bards,
in
Dyfed
set off to the
court of Pryderi, who praised Gwydion for his songs, whereupon the latter asked for the swine, but was told that they
must breed double their number ere they left the country.
Gwydion now obtained them
exchange for twelve stallions

and twelve greyhounds magically formed by him from fungus;
but these soon turned again to their original shape, and Prydin
invaded Math's territory, only to be defeated and slain

in single combat by Gwydion's enchantments. Gilvsethwy
eri
outraged Goewin during the battle, and when Math discovered

this, he transformed the brothers first into a couple of deer,
then into swine, and finally into wolves. In these forms they
had animal progeny, afterward changed to human shape by
Math.
Math now found
new "foot-holder"
in
Arianrhod,
but she proved no virgin, and when Math
caused her to pass under his magic rod, she bore twins, one of
Gwydion's
whom was
sister,
taken by
Math and
called Dylan.
When Gwydion
brought the other, who had grown rapidly, to Arianrhod's

castle, she refused to give him a name.
Disguised as a shoemaker, Gwydion then arrived with the boy and made shoes
for Arianrhod which did not fit.
She went on board Gwydion's ship,
Not
produced by magic, and saw the boy shoot a

him, she cried,
recognizing
gyffes) lieu shoots
the
sure
hand
bird.
{llazv
whereupon Gwydion revealed

had named the boy, Lieu Llaw
bird,"
himself and said that she
"With
97
Now
she refused to arm him, but once more disguised,

Lieu caused an enchanted fleet to appear; and
with
Gwydion
she armed both, only to be taunted with the stratagem. Again
Gyffes.
she said that Lieu would never have a wife of the people of this
earth, but Math and Gwydion made him a bride out of flowers
and
called her
Blodeuwedd.
She was unfaithful to Lieu, how-
and advised by her lover, Gronw Pebyr, she discovered

that a javelin wrought for a year during Mass on Sundays
would kill him when standing with one foot on a buck and the
ever,
other on a bath curiously prepared by the bank of a river.

Gronw made the javelin, and when Lieu, prevailed on by
Blodeuwedd, showed her the fatal position, he was struck by
Gronw and
pig eating
and
Soon after, Gwydion found a

from a wasted eagle on a tree;
flew off as an eagle.
worms which
fell
sang three verses, at each the eagle came nearer.

he struck it with a magic rod, it became Lieu, who now
as he
When
turned Blodeuwedd into an owl; while Gronw had to submit

to a blow from a javelin which penetrated the flat stone placed
by him against
his lands
his body and killed him.

and ruled them happily.
Lieu
now
recovered
These personages are associated with a dim figure called

Don, who is probably not male, but female, and is mother of
Gwydion, Gilvsethwy, Govannon, Amsethon, and Arianrhod,
who was
herself
brother.
Superficially this group
mother of Dylan and Lieu.
De Danann, and Don
is
is
Math
is
Don's
equivalent to the Tuatha

Danu, while Govannon
parallel to
is the equivalent of Goibniu, the Irish smiththe

god. Lieu,
reading of whose name as Llew ("Lion") may
be abandoned, has been equated with Lug, and both names
(go/,
"smith")
are said to
mean
"light."
"Light," however, has no sense in
the name-giving incident, and possibly, as Loth suggests,''

there is a connexion with Irish /w, "little." The other names
of the group have no parallels among the Tuatha De Danann.
Mythological traits are the magic powers of Math and Gwydion, their shape-shifting,
and the introduction
of the swine.
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
98
Math Hen,
or "the Ancient,"
is an old Welsh "high

god,"
which he taught to Gwydion; for the
fact that the winds brought to him the least whisper of a conversation, wherever it might be held; and for his pre-eminent
remembered
for magic,
goodness to the suffering and his justice without vengeance

upon the wrongdoer. The last trait shows a high ideal of
divinity, and the second a conception of omniscience.
As a magician Gwydion is also prominent, and by magic

he governed Gwynedd. He was the cleverest of men and
possessed terrible strength, while his prophetic powers are
emphasized in a Triad, and he had supreme gifts as story-teller
and bard. His successful raid on Pryderi's pigs which came

from Annwfn suggests that, like Cuchulainn, he is the culture
hero bringing domestic animals from the god's land to earth,
and perhaps for this reason a Triad calls him one of the three
cowherds of Britain, guarding thousands of kine.
also frequently speaks of cattle brought from the
name
Irish
sid.
myth
Gwyd-
character as an inspired bard, if it is

from a root vet, giving words meaning "saying" or "poetry,"
cognate terms being Irish faith, "prophet" or "poet," and
ion's
Latin
reflects his
vates.^
Gwydion would thus be equivalent
and Ogmios, gods
of eloquence
and
script says he first taught reading
letters,
and a
to
Ogma
late
manu-
and knowledge of books to
the Gaels of Anglesey and Ireland. He is not straightforward,

however, when he pretends that his sister Arianrhod is a virgin,
for she
is
his mistress
and mother of
his sons,
an incest incident
with parallels in Irish story.

Arianrhod consented to the fraud and as a further pretence
to chastity disowned Lieu; yet a Triad calls her one of the
three blessed or white ladies of Britain.
Was
she worshipped
gave her a different character
as a virgin goddess, while myth

Celtic goddesses, like the Maires, were connected with fertility,
.f*
and goddesses
of fertility or earth are apt to possess a double

character, like the great Phrygian Mother, who was also re-
garded as a virgin.^
Arianrhod,
like
Aphrodite, was lovely;

"beauty-famed beyond summer's dawn," sang a
name means "silver wheel."
Much
that
Is
said of Lieu
Is
99
poet.^
Her
Insignificant for
mythology,
though Rhys has built a large structure of sun, dawn, and
darkness upon It. The greater part of It Is a well-known folktale formula attached to his name
that of the Unfaithful
Wife. It
doubtful whether
Lieu really equals
Lug merely
because their uncles are respectively Govannon and Gavlda
(Golbniu), both meaning "smith"; for while Gavlda nurtured
Is
Lug, and Lug slew Balor, Lieu was not brought up by Govannon, and the latter Incident has no equivalent In his story.
Moreover, Lug Is prominent In connexion with the great
Celtic festival, Lugnasad (celebrated on the first of August),
but Lieu
Is
not.
Thus
his
mythological significance
is
lost
to us.
Math caused Dylan to be baptized, and then

baby made for the sea, where he swam like a
this precocious
no billow
broke under him, and he was called "son of the wave." The
blow which caused his death came from Govannon
one of
three
the
nefarious blows of Britain
but is otherwise unThe
waves
his
lamented
explained.
death, and ever, as they
fish;
press toward the land, they seek to avenge It.^^ Perhaps Dylan
was once a sea-god, regarded as Identical with the waves, like
Manannan. Tradition speaks of the noise of the waters pour-
ing Into the Conway as his dying groans, and, again like
Manannan, son of Ler (the sea), he is called Dylan EI) Ton
or
Mor ("Son
of the
Wave"
or "Sea").i2
^'^s soon as he
entered the sea, he took its nature."

Govannon's functions as a smith-god are illustrated from a
reference in Kulhwch and Olzven, where his help must be gained
by Kulhwch to attend at the end of the furrows to cleanse the
iron,^^
poem
name
though the meaning of

he and
Math
this
Is
obscure.
are associated as artificers.^*
In a Tallesin
Amsethon's
suggests that his functions were connected with agrlcul-r

ture (amaeth, "ploughman" or "labourer"), and this is lUus-
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
loo
trated
by the
certain field for
Don; he
will
fact that
Kulhwch,
no husbandmen can
"
so wild
not follow thee of his
not force him."^^
He
also
till
or dress a
save Amsethon, son of

free will, and thou canst
is it,
own
brought animals from the
gods'
land a roebuck, whelp, and lapwing belonging to Arawn
and
Godeu, in which, aided byGwydhe

Arawn.
ion,
fought
Gwydion changed trees and sedges
into combatants, as he had transformed fungus into hounds
and horses. On either side fought personages who could not
this led to the battle of
be vanquished until their names were discovered, but
Gwyd-
by finding the name of

a mythic instance of the
ion affected the course of the battle
Arawn's mysterious helper. Bran

power of the hidden name, once it becomes known to another.^^
Whether as a survival from myth or from later folk-belief,
the stars are associated with some of these divinities.
The
constellation of Cassiopeia is called "Don's Court"; Arianrhod

is connected with the constellation Corona Borealis; and the
Milky
lowed
termed "Gwydion's Castle," because he folan obviously

chasing Blodeuwedd across the sky
Way
It
in
Is
primitive myth.^^
The Mahinogion
of
Branwen and
of
Manawyddan
are con-
nected and concern the families of Pwyll and Llyr.^^

Llyr group consists of his sons, Bran and
Manawyddan;
The
their
sister, Branwen; and their half-brother, Nissyen and Evnissyen.

As Bran sat on a rock at Harlech, vessels arrived bearing
Matholwych, King of Ireland, as a suitor for Branwen. He
was accepted, and a feast was made for him in tents, for no
But Evnissyen the mischief-maker

mutilated Matholwych's steeds, and the king Indignantly
left, returning only when Bran gave him gifts. Including a
house could hold
Bran.
cauldron which restored
mained dumb.
terious beings
life to the dead, though they reThis cauldron was obtained from two mys-
who came out
bearing the cauldron, and the
of a lake In Ireland, the
woman
an armed warrior; but they and
man
about to give birth to

were so
their descendants

troublesome that they were imprisoned
in a
loi
white-hot iron
house, whence the pair escaped to Britain with their cauldron

an incident probably borrowed from the Ulster tale of the
Mesca Ulad. Matholwych returned to Ireland with Branwen,

and there, after two years, in retaliation for Evnissyen's conduct, she was placed in the kitchen, where the butcher struck
her every morning. She accordingly sent a starling to Bran
with a message, whereupon he waded over to Ireland, his
men following in ships and crossing the Shannon on his body.
The Irish came to terms and built Bran a vast house, in which
they concealed warriors in sacks; but Evnissyen discovered
this and crushed them one by one. Peace was now concluded,
but Evnissyen again caused trouble by throwing Branwen's
In the fight which followed the Irish were
winning because they restored their dead in the cauldron;
but Evnissyen smashed it, though he died in the effort. Bran
child into the
fire.
and seven only of his people escaped, including

Pryderi, Manawyddan, and Taliesin. Bran bade them cut
off his head and bury it at London, looking toward France;
was
slain,
and they reached Anglesey with Branwen, who died there of a

broken heart. Meanwhile Caswallawn, son of Beli, had usurped
the kingdom. Bran's son also dying of sorrow. As Bran
remained at Harlech for seven
to
the birds of Rhiannon singing
and
listening
years, feasting
far overhead; and at Gwales for eighty years, the head enter-
had advised,
taining
them
his head-bearers
in a
house with a forbidden door.
passed as a day, until one of the

their evils were
men opened
The
years
when
London to
the door,
remembered, and they went to
bury the head.
Manawyddan having lamented
that he was landless, Pryd-
gave him land in Dyfed and his mother Rhiannon as

wife. All three, with Kicva, Pryderi's wife, were seated on a
eri
a thunder-clap was heard; and as the cloud which

accompanied it cleared away, they found the country desolate,
knoll
when
without creature or habitation.
Lack
of food impelled
them
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
102
to seek a living as saddlers, shield-makers,
and shoe-makers
successively, but they were always expelled
by the regular
a boar to a strange castle,
and Pryderi entered, but trying to lift a golden cup, his hands
stuck fast to it, nor could he move his feet. Manawyddan
craftsmen.
One day they pursued
Rhiannon of Pryderi's disappearance, and when she

sought him, she met the same fate, until at another clap of
thunder the castle disappeared. Manawyddan and Kicva, as
shoe-makers, were again foiled by envious cobblers, and he
now sowed three fields, but an army of mice ate the grain.
One of these he caught and was about to hang, in spite of the
entreaties of Kicva, of a clerk, and of a priest, when a bishop
appeared, and Manawyddan bargained to give up the mouse
if the bishop released Pryderi and Rhiannon, removed the
enchantment from Dyved, and told him who and what the
mouse was. The bishop was Llwyd, a friend of Gwawl, whom
Pryderi's father, Pwyll, had insulted. All had happened in
revenge for that: the mouse was Llwyd's wife, the other mice
the ladies of the court. Everything was now restored; Pryderi
and Rhiannon reappeared; and Llwyd agreed to seek no furtold
ther revenge.
While the framework of
Branwen
is
connected with Scandi-
navian and German sagas, whether borrowed by Welshmen

from their Norse allies in the ninth and tenth centuries,
Nutt supposed,^^ or by Norsemen from Wales, its personages are Celtic, and it contains many native elements. Llyr
Half-Speech and Manawyddan are the equivalents of the
Irish sea-gods Ler and Manannan, the latter of whom is also
associated with Elysium. It is uncertain whether these two
were common to Goidels and Brythons, or were borrowed by
as
the latter; but at
Welsh
tradition,
events they have a definite position in

which knows of two other Llyrs
Llyr
all
Marini and Llyr, father of Cordelia in Geoffrey's History

Shakespeare's Lear.^" These are probably varying present-
ments of a sea-god.
Llyr
is
sometimes confused with Lludd

Ereint, or "Silver-Hand."
103
Triad represents Gweir,

Mabon, and Llyr as three notable prisoners of Britain; but in
Kulhwch these are Greit, Mabon, and Lludd, father of Cor-
Llaw
deha.^^
Are Llyr and Lludd
sometimes
father
called
identical,
and
is
an
Irish AUoit,
the
of
Manannan,
equivalent of
Lludd? All this is uncertain. Rhys and Loth are tempted to
correct Lludd into Nudd, an earlier Nodens Lamargentios
to Lodens (Lludd)
and to equate him with the
("Nudd Silver-Hand") having been changed

Lamargentios by
Irish
alliteration,
Nuada Argetlam ("Silver-Hand"); but
of such an
alliterative
the possibility
change has been denied.
Nuada
is
god Nodons; but though Llyr was

no proof that Nuada or Nodons was such,
though some symbols in the remains of the temple of Nodons
on the Severn have been thought to suggest this.^^ These,
are not decisive, and it
is
however,
equally possible
identified with the British
a sea-god, there
that
the
is
god was
with
equated
Mars
rather
than with
Neptune.
Manawyddan, whose name is derived from Welsh Manazv,

the Isle of Man, is much more humanized in Welsh story than
the divine Manannan of the Voyage of Bran; yet he has magic
powers and great superiority as a craftsman. He is associated
with Arthur in a poem and is praised for his wise counsels,
while Pryderi was instructed by him in various crafts and
aided by him, just as the Irish Diarmaid was nurtured and
taught by Manannan. Rhiannon may have been introduced
"a mere invention of the naraccidentally into the story

rator in order to give sequence to the narrative"; ^^ but possibly she is Manawyddan's real consort, not one given him by her
son.
and
If so,
Pryderi would be Manawyddan's son, not Pwyll's,
Rhiannon and Pryderi from his magician foe would be significant.^^

Rhiannon appears magically,
like Irish goddesses of Elysium, and she may thus have been
his deliverance of
associated with
Lord of Annwfn
III 8
Manawyddan
in
a Taliesin
In
Elysium,
poem
who with
Pryderi
is
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
104
"Complete is my chair in Caer Sidi;

Plague and age hurt not him who is in it,
They know Manawyddan and Pryderi;
Three organs round a fire sing before it,
And about its points are ocean's

And the abundant well above it
streams.
Sweeter than white wine the drink of
it."
Rhiannon's magic birds, whose song brought joy and oblivion

for seven years, like that of Ler's bird-children, ^^
and awoke the

dead and made the living sleep,^^ have an Elysian note and
confirm the supposition that she is an Elysian goddess. Be-
yond that we need not
go,
and there
is
nothing to connect
dawn or the moon.

Branwen or Bronwen ("White Bosom")
traits.
Her marriage to Matholwych and
her with the
has no definite
her subsequent
Gudrun, Kriemhild, and Signy;

but whether she ever was connected as a goddess of fertility
sufferings recall the stories of
with her brother's cauldron of regeneration must remain an

ingenious conjecture, not supported by the Mahinogi. As a
sea-god's daughter, she may be "the Venus of the northern
sea," as Elton supposed,^^ while the Black
then calls the sea "the fountain of Venus,"
Book of Caermar^^
though this is,

more
than
a
Classical
recollection.
Later
nothing
perhaps,
romance knew her as Brangwaine, the confidante of Tristram
and Yseult, giving the knight the love-potion which bound

him in illicit amour with Yseult.
Bran is a more obviously mythological figure, and his
gigantic size is an earlier or later method of indicating his
His buried head protected the land from invasion
divinity.
a mythical expression of actual custom
for bodies and
heads of warriors had apotropaic virtues and were sometimes
exhibited or buried in the direction whence danger was ex^
Hence the image of a divine head might have greater
pected.
and
this may explain the existence of Celtic images
powers,
of a god's head, often in triple form. These figures, found in
Gaul, were believed by Rhys to be images of Cernunnos, a
105
god of the Celtic underworld, which he regarded as a dark

region, contrary to all that we can gather of it, while Bran
was the Brythonic equivalent of Cernunnos and was
slain
by
wading to Ireland representing his crossing the

waters to Hades, like Yama, there to reign as lord of the dead.^^
sun-hero, his
The
heads, however, can be explained only conjecturally as

heads of Cernunnos. The exigencies of the story demanded
that Ireland should be brought in, and as Bran had to reach it
it was easiest to make the gigantic god wade there;

the parallel with Yama were true. Bran should have died
Yama's realm was not
before crossing the water of death.
somehow,
if
"dark," but a heavenly region of light, like the Celtic otherworld, even if the latter, unlike the former, was subterranean.
bright and cheerful and has
Elysian traits. Eighty years are as a day, and men think only
of feasting and happiness in the presence of his head, which is as
agreeable to them as he himself was in life; it produces an Elys-
Far from being "dark," Bran
ium on
earth,
others lose
Thus
it
which
is
through opening a door, exactly as

and become decrepit through contact with earth.
is
lost
Bran, sitting on the rock at Harlech or existing as a

talking head afterward solemnly buried, like Orpheus's singing
head interred in a sacred place, is the equivalent of the squatif
ting Gaulish god Cernunnos, perhaps also represented as a single

or triple head, this can only be because both were lords of a
bright other-world, whether the region of the dead or a divine

land.
Bran is certainly not a dark god of blight, but rather
the reverse, since his cauldron resuscitates the dead.
In cross-
ing to Ireland he carried his musicians on his back,
and
this
point to his being a divinity of musicians and bards. If

he, as the Urdazvl Ben ("Noble Head"), may be compared
may
so,
Uthr Ben ("Wonderful Head") of a Taliesin poem,

which boasted of being a bard, harper, and piper, and equal to
seven score professionals. ^^ Arthur disinterred Bran's head,
to the
not wishing to owe the defence of Britain to it.

Bran was euhemerized into a British king who was confused
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
io6
with Brennus, leader of the Gauis in the sack of Rome, 390

B. c, and was transformed into a conqueror of Gaul and
He
Rome.^^
also figures as a saint,
was not already a pagan
epithet;
Bran the Blessed, if that

and remaining at Rome
seven years as hostage with his son Caradawc, he brought

Christianity thence to the Cymry. Caradawc is here the historic Caratacus,
who was
carried prisoner to
Rome, but there
confusion with a Caradawc ("Great Arms," or "Prince of

Combat"), son of Llyr Marini, about whom a saga may have
existed. In any case Bran was regarded as head of one of the
is
three saintly families of Britain.^^

In the Mahinogi of Branwen,
Caswallawn, clothed in a
invisibility, destroyed the heroes of Britain and

the
usurped
kingdom, leaving Manawyddan landless; and
though his sister was married to Llyr, he was hostile to Llyr's
mantle of
descendants.
Caswallawn,
Lludd,
Llevelys,
and Nynnyaw
Beli, although Geoffrey makes his Lear long precede Beli or Heli as king, while he also introduces a Belinus
and confuses Caswallawn with Cassivellaunus, Caesar's foe.^^
were sons of
and Belinus may represent the god Belenos, who was

equated with Apollo; and Beli is victorious champion of the
land and the preserver of its qualities in a Taliesin poem, in
which the singer implores him ^^
perhaps a reminiscence of
Beli
earlier divine traits.
Triad
calls Beli father of
Arianrhod,
and Rhys, assuming that this is Arianrhod, the daughter of

Don, makes Don consort of Beli, equates Don with Danu, and,
without the slightest evidence, assigns to Danu as consort the
shadowy figure Bile, father of Mile, invented by Irish annal-
and Bile are then equated with the Celtic Dispater,

the divine ancestor of the Celtic race, whom he assumes to
have been a "dark" god, ruling a "dark" underworld." All
ists.
this
Beli
is
modern mythologizing.
Caswallawn
warrior
who
confused in the Triads with Cassivellaunus, a

may have been named after him; and he is called
is
"war-king," an epithet which
may
recall his divine functions,
PLATE XI
Gauls and Romans
Bas-relief
in
Combat
from a sarcophagus found near Rome.
107
those of a god invisibly leading armies to battle and embodied

in chiefs who bore his name. Yet the epithet might be that of
actual warriors, just as the
German Emperor
calls
himself the
"war-lord."
Lludd,as King, rebuilt London orCaer Ludd, and was buried

at Ludgate Hill, which thus preserves his name and points to
earlier cult of Lludd at this place.^^ He is also said to have
an
been enclosed
in a
now
narrow prison
an unexplained reference
In the story of Lludd and Llevelys ^^ his

the Coracountry of Britain was subjected to three plagues
nlans who heard every whisper, like Math Hen; a shriek on
to
some
tale
lost.
May-Eve caused by
a foreign dragon attacking the dragon of

the land and producing wide-spread desolation; and the mysterious disappearance of a year's supply of food. Llevelys bade
Lludd bruise certain Insects In water and throw the mixture
over his assembled people and the Coranlans; the latter alone
would be poisoned by it. The dragons were to be made drunk
with mead and then burled. The third plague was caused by a
magician who lulled every one to sleep and then carried off the
provisions; but Lludd was to keep awake by plunging Into
cold water and then to capture the giant, who would become
his vassal.
hand
This
last
plague recalls "the hand of glory," the
new-born infant or a criminal, which, anointed with

grease and Ignited, rendered a robber Invisible and caused
every one to sleep In whatever house the thief entered. Treasure
was
of a
its means, and as Dousterswivel in

"he who seeksh for treasuresh shall
never find none at all," to which the Antiquary replied, "I
dare take my corporal oath of that conclusion." Whether this
episode of the story is based on such a folk-belief is not clear.
As a whole nation suffers from the plagues, and as two of them
affect fertility and plenty, the origin of the tale may be found
also discovered
by
Scott's Antiquary said,
in the mythical contest of divine
of blight, as at Mag-Tured.^"
Coranlans
Is
called that of
powers with hostile potencies
In a Triad the plague of the

the
March Malaen from beyond
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
io8
and March suggests the Fomorlan More, who taxed

Nemedians in two-thirds of their children, corn, and milk
on November-Eve. ^2 The Welsh plagues, however, occur at Belsea;^^
the
e. at the beginning of summer, rather than

winter, as
be
Lludd
is praised for
expected.
might
generosity in giving'
the attribute of a kindly god. The Corameat and drink
tane,
i.
nians are connected with Welsh cor ("dwarf") and are
known
still
as mischievous fairies.
In connexion with such dwarfs
dwarf fairy-folk
it is
interesting to note that a
described
by Giraldus Cambrensis (1147Two

of
took
them
the
1223).
priest Elidurus, when a boy,
through subterranean passages to a delightful region, whose
people lived on milk and saffron, swore no oaths, and contemned
human ambition and inconstancy. Elidurus frequently visited
is
mother to steal their gold, he

was pursued and the gold was taken from him, after which he
never again found the way to fairy-land.^^ Save for their size,
these fairies recall the Tuatha De Danann, dwelling in the sid.
them, but being persuaded by
Gwyn, son
of
Nudd,
is
his
connected both with Annwfn and also
in later belief with fairy-land.^*
mighty warrior
He was
and a
magician
"the hope of armies" great
while
horse was
his
"the torment of battle";*^ without him and a certain

steed named Du, the monster boar, the Twrch Trwyth, could
not be caught by Kulhwch. Gwyn abducted Creidylad (Coralso
delia),
daughter of Lludd, who was affianced to Gwythur; but

which followed Gwyn was victor and forced one of
in the fight
his foes to eat his dead father's heart so that he became mad.
Arthur interfered, however, and ordered that Creidylad should
remain with her father, while Gwyn and Gwythur must fight
doom, when she would be given to the

victor.*^ This story is illustrated by folk-survivals. On Mayday in the Isle of Man a girl representing the May Queen was
attended by a captain and several others; and there was also a
Queen of Winter with her company. The two bands met in
mock battle, and if the May Queen was captured, her men had
for her every
day
until

ransom
to
her."*^
109
Ritual combats between representatives of

the folk everywhere and in
summer and winter occur among
origin symbolized the defeat of winter, as well as actually

aided the gods of light and growth. The story of Creidylad is
perhaps the debris of an old myth explaining the reason of such
a contest
when
Taliesin,
which was written
purpose was forgotten.

Another group of divine personages is found
its real
in the
Hanes
in the sixteenth or seventeenth
century, although references to incidents in it occur in far earlier poems in the Book of Taliesin and presuppose its existence
some form when they were composed. It contains mythical

elements which introduce old divinities, a culture hero or god,
in
and the conceptions of inspiration, rebirth, and shapethe

last being expressed in the folk-tale formula of the
shifting,
Transformation Combat, as it already is in one of the poems.^^
Taliesin,
Taliesin
is
unknown
to the Mabinogion, save as a bearer of
Bran's head, and this suggests his local character, while the
saga was probably developed in a district to the south of the
poem was written, three

must
have been rememmythic history
bered
his inspiration, his shape-shifting powers, and his
the
rebirth of Gwion.
Whether or not there was an
being
estuary of the Dyfi.^^ Before story or

facts concerning his
actual poet called Taliesin living in the sixth or, as his latest
translator and commentator, Mr. J. G. Evans, thinks, in the
thirteenth century, it is certain that his poems contain
mythical references which must once have been told of a
many
myth-
being doubtless bearing the same name as himself.

Tegid the Bald lived in Lake Tegid (Bala) with his wife
ical
Cerridwen, their beautiful daughter Creirwy, and their sons
Morvran and Avagddu, the latter the, most ill-favoured of

men, although Morvran ("Sea-Crow") is elsewhere said to
have been also of repellent aspect. Cerridwen wished to compensate Avagddu by giving him knowledge, so that he might
have entry among men of standing; and with the aid of the
books of Ffergll (Vergil) she prepared a cauldron of inspiration
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
no
While she went to gather herbs

to kindle the fire and Gwion
to stir the pot; but three drops from it fell on his finger, which
he put in his mouth, and he found himself master of knowledge,
which taught him to flee from Cerridwen's rage. Here follows
and
science to boil for a year.
of virtue, she set the blind
Mordu
the incident of the Transformation Combat, with the goddess

^
She later gave
as a hen finally swallowing Gwion as a grain.
and wrapping him up in a hide, placed him in the

sea. At Gwydno's weir the value of a hundred pounds was
found every first of May, and Elphin was to obtain whatever was
discovered on the next occasion, which proved to be the child.
When the package was opened, Gwydno exclaimed, "Here is
a fine or radiant brow" or "fine profit" {tal iessin), whence
Elphin named the child Taliesin, and the infant sang and
showed how deep was his knowledge. He was nurtured by
birth to him,
Elphin and became one of the greatest of bards. Now Elphin

had boasted at court that he had a more virtuous wife and a
better bard than
his claim
was
any
verified.
there,
whence he was imprisoned
Rhun was
until
sent to seduce his wife, but
Taliesin put a servant in her place, and she fell victim to Rhun,
who cut off her finger with her mistress's ring. When Elphin
was confronted with it, he showed an ingenuity equal to that

of Sherlock Holmes in proving that the finger was not his
wife's
the ring was too tight, the finger-nail was uncut, and on
her finger some flour had remained from her baking. Now his wife
never baked; she cut her finger-nails weekly; and the ring was
loose even on her thumb. Taliesin next came forward and by
his spells
made
the other bards utter nonsense.
"the region of the summer

origin
stars"
He
sang of his
his existence in
long past ages, from that of Lucifer's fall to the days of the
Patriarchs, and his life at the Nativity and Crucifixion of
Christ,
and
referred to his birth
castle shook; Elphin
chains
The
fell
from Cerridwen.
was summoned; and
Then the
as Taliesin sang his
from him.^^
latter part of the story
is
purely romantic, but in poems
iii
ascribed to Taliesin and In a Triad his greatness as the "chief

of bards" appears
"With me Is the splendid chair,

The Inspiration of fluent and urgent song."
has been with the gods and ranks himself as one of them,
telHng how he was created and enchanted by them before he
He
became immortal; ^^ he has a chair not only on earth but in

the gods' land.^^ Taliesin was the ideal bard, a god of inspiration like Ogma, and, besides his reincarnation, his birth from
divine nature. Yet, like other semiwith inspiration or culture, he
connected
divine personages
obtains his powers by accident or by force. One myth, that
Cerrldwen shows
his
and Is parallel to the story

^
but In another, darkly referred to
of Flonn and the salmon;
and
Arthur
with
he
in a poem,
many companions goes overseas
to Caer SidI for the spoils of Annwfn, Including the cauldron
^^
of Pen Annwfn.
Here, whether successfully or not, the gifts
of culture and inspiration are sought by force or craft. Are
two separate myths combined in the Hanes Taliesin, one making
Taliesin son of a goddess with an abode In the divine land; the
other viewing him as a culture hero, stealing the gifts of the
gods' land, and therefore obnoxious to Cerrldwen.^ And if so,
do these myths "reflect the encroachment of the cult of a god
on that of a goddess, his worshippers regarding him as her son,
of the cauldron, shows the former
her worshippers reflecting their hostility to the

^^
myth of her enmity to him".'*
new god
In a
Taliesin was supreme In shape-shifting and rebirth. Of no

other Brythonic god or hero is the latter asserted, and several
poems obscurely enumerate various forms which he assumed

and recount his adventures in them. When, however, the poet,
speaking In his name, asserts that he has been a sword, tear,
word, book, coracle, etc., it is obvious that this is mere bardic
nonsense and not pantheism, as some have suggested. The

claims of TaUesIn and of the Irish Amairgen resemble those of
the Eskimo angakok, who has the entree of the other-world and
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
112
can transform himself at
will;
" and
the gift of transformation
and rebirth is then associated with inspiration in the Hanes

Taliesin. Here the equation with Fionn and Oisin, already
noted by J. G. Campbell and accepted by Rhys, is worth obFionn and Gwion obtain inspiration accidentally.
serving.
Fionn is reborn, not as Oisin, but as Mongan, and Gwion as
Taliesin. Oisin and Taliesin are both bards, and Oisin's name
perhaps equivalent to -essin or -eisin in Taliesin. Taliesln's
shape-shifting has no parallel with Fionn or Oisin, but Oisin's
is
mother and,
one tradition, Fionn's also became a fawn.

inspiration, rebirth, and shape-shifting are attached to
Thus
in
different personages in different ways,
showing that mythical
common
to the Celtic race have been employed.

Tegid is a god of the world under waters, but is not otherwise known to existing myth; though he and Cerridwen, pos-
elements
sessor of a cauldron, are perhaps parallel to the giant pair out

of a lake with their cauldron in Branzven, Cerridwen being a
local goddess of inspiration, as her cauldron of knowledge shows.
The
Celtic mythical cauldron, bestowing knowledge, plenty
^^
is recognizable as a
(Hke Dagda's), and life (like Bran's),
but
it
was
of
the
gods' land;
dangerous, and a bard
property
^^
sings of his chair being defended from Cerridwen's cauldron.
Cerridwen was regarded as a daughter of Ogyrven, from whose
cauldron came three muses, and who was perhaps an eponymous deity of the elements of language, poetry, and the letters
of the alphabet, called ogyrvens, as well as a god of bards.
Cerridwen is styled "the ogyrven of various seeds, those of
harmony, the exalted spirit of the minstrel"; but

ogyrven also means "a spiritual form," "a personified idea,"
and may here be equivalent to "goddess." ^ Thus Cerridwen
poetic
was a deity
of inspiration, like Brigit, though, like other Celtic

her
primary function may have been with fertility,
goddesses,
of which the cauldron, supplying plenty and giving life, is a
^^
symbol. She is also called a "goddess of grain."
Tegid's water-world
is
the land under waves of Irish
myth
PLATE XII
Three-Headed God
The
homed.
statue,
adorned with torques,
For another representation of
was once
this divinity,
perhaps a deity of the underworld, see Plate VII.

Found at Condat, France.
113
one aspect of Elysium, examples of which have already been

considered. Another instance occurs in the Voyage of Maelduin,
where the voyagers reach a sea, beneath which Is descried a
country with
men, and cattle; but In a tree Is a great

and the sight so terrifies them that they
castles,
beast eating an ox,
quickly away. In another story Murough Is invited to

come below the waters. He dives down and reaches the land
sail
whom
he sees sitting on a golden throne;

a year spent there feasting seems but a few days. Welsh tradition has also many stories of water-worlds, as well as of fairy
brides, daughters of the lord of the lake, and cattle which came
of
King Under-Waves,
thence. ^2
In a Christianized Irish version of the conception a

bishop from time to time visited a monastery beneath the
waters of a lake, finally disappearing from his own monastery,
none knew whither.^^
CHAPTER IX
THE DIVINE LAND
called
ELYSIUM,
gods' land
and
by many
is
beautiful Celtic names,
never associated with the dead.
is
the
The
living were occasionally invited there, however, and either

remained perpetually or returned to earth, where sometimes
they found themselves decrepit and aged; time had lapsed

like a dream, because they were in the immortal land and had
immortal food.
Many
tasted
its
shown
different conceptions of its
already cited have

situation
in the sid, on
tales
a mysterious island, or beneath the waters; or the gods create

it on earth or produce it by glamour to mortal eyes.
Occasionally such conceptions are mingled.
These legends have
illustrated its marvellous beauty, its supernatural fruit trees
and music,
its
unfailing
and
satisfying food
and drink, and
the deathless glory and youth of its people.

The tales now to be summarized will throw further light
upon its nature. The first of these. The Voyage of Bran, is an

pagan myth retold in prose and verse in the seventh or
eighth century by a Christian editor, interested in the past.
Bran, son of Febal, one day heard music behind him produced
by a woman from unknown lands, i. e. from Elysium. Lulled
by its sweetness, he slept, and on awaking found by his side
a musical branch of silver with white blossoms. Taking it
into his royal house, he there saw the woman, who sang of
the wondrous isle whence she had brought the branch. Four
feet of white bronze upheld it, and on its plains were glistenMusic swelled there; wailing,
ing, coloured splendours.
treachery, harshness, grief, sorrow, sickness, age, and death
old
THE DIVINE LAND

were unknown.
An
exquisite haze
115
hung over
it,
and
its
people
listened to the sweet music, drinking wine the while; laughter
pealed there and everlasting joy. Thrice fifty islands lay to

the west of it, each double or triple the size of Erin. The
woman
then prophesied of Christ's birth, and after she had

sail till he reached Tir na m-Ban ("the Land
urged Bran to
of
Women"),
she disappeared, the branch leaping from Bran's
hand into hers.

Next day Bran sailed with twenty-seven men, and on the
voyage they saw Manannan driving his chariot over the
waves. The god sang to the voyagers and told how he was
passing over a flowery plain, for what Bran saw as the sea was
a plain. The speckled salmon in the sea were
and lambs, and steeds invisible to Bran were there also.
People were sitting playing and drinking wine, and making love
without crime. Bran's coracle was not on the waves, but on
an immortal wood, yielding fruit and perfume; the folk of
that land were immortal and sinless, unlike Adam's descendto
Manannan
calves
and in it rivers poured forth honey. Finally Manannan

bade Bran row to Tir na m-Ban, which he would reach by
ants,
sunset.
Bran first came to an isle of laughter; and when one of his

men was sent ashore, he refused to leave the laughing folk of
this Isle of Joy. At the Land of Women their Queen welcomed Bran, throwing a ball of thread which cleaved to his
hand, and by which the boat was drawn ashore. All now went
where were twenty-seven beds, one for each;
the food never grew less and for each man It had the taste
which he desired. They stayed for a year, though It was In
truth many years; but home-sickness at last seized one of
into a house
them, Nechtan, so that he and the others begged Bran to return. The Queen said they would rue this, yet as they were
bent on going, she bade them not set foot on Erin and to take
with them their comrade from the
was reached, Bran told
his
Isle of
Joy.
When
Erin
name to the men gathered on the
ii6
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
shore; but they said, "We do not know him, though the voyage
of Bran is in our ancient stories." Nechtan now leaped ashore,
but when his foot touched land, he became a heap of ashes.
Bran then
and bade farewell to the crowd,

"From that hour
returning presumably
^
are
not
known."
his wanderings
Manannan's land overseas is the subject of a conventiontold his wanderings
to the divine land.
alized tale in the Colloquy of the Ancients {Acallamh
na Seno-
which contains primitive material. One of Fionn's

men, Ciabhan, embarked with two youths, Lodan and Eolus,
sons of the Kings of India and of Greece; and during a storm
rach),
Manannan appeared
"For the space of

the sea, but would rise
riding over the waves.
nine waves he would be submerged in

on the crest of the tenth, and that without his breast or chest
wetted." He rescued them on condition of fealty to himself,
and drawing them on his horse, brought them to the Land of
Promise. Having passed the loch of dwarfs, they came to

Manannan's stone fort, where food, wine, and music delighted
them; and where they saw Manannan's folk perform many
which they themselves were able to imitate. In the

Land of Promise were three beautiful sisters, Clidna, Aeife,
tricks,
and Edaein, who eloped with the
visitors in
two
boats, Clidna
going along with Ciabhan. When he reached Erin, he went

ashore to hunt, and now a great wave, known ever after as
Clidna's wave, rolled in and drowned her, overwhelming at
the same time Manannan's men, Ildathach and his sons, both
with Clidna and following in pursuit of her.

account of Clidna has already been cited. ^
in love
In the story of Bran, the queen-goddess
fell
A different
in love
with
him and visited him (as in the legend of Connla) to induce

him to come to her. While there are hints of other inhabitants,
women
an additional
or goddesses alone exist on this island
the
island has
to
the
of
there
Connla, though
story
parallel
a king; to the incident in Maelduin; and to the name "Land
of Ever-Living Women" in the Dindsenchas of Tuag Inbir.
PLATE
XIII
SUCELLOS
This divinity, characterized by a hammer (of. p.
9), was a ruler of the underworld (cf. the representation of Dispater with a
benevolent god, his

force.
The
artistic
which see Plate
hammer, Plate XIV).
hammer
type
is
(for
XXVI) was
symbol of creative
another instance of
influenced
by that
of
the Alexandrian Serapis and the Classical HadesPluto. Cf. also Plate IX, B. The figure was found
at
Premeaux, France.
THE DIVINE LAND

Another instance occurs
117
Fionn story. Fionn and
in a
his
men
were hunting when there met them a huge and beautiful

woman, whose finger-rings were as thick as three ox-goads.
She was Bebhionn from Maidens' Land in the west, where
the inhabitants were women save their father (its king)
and his three sons; and for the third time she had escaped
from her husband, son of the King of the adjacent Isle of Men,
and had come to seek Fionn's protection. As she sat by him
and Goll, however, her huge husband came, and slaying her,
all
eluded the heroes' pursuit, vanishing overseas in a boat with
two
rowers.^
The
Women
still
exists in Celtic folk-
Such an island was on|y a part of the divine land and

women
in myth from actual custom
lore.
have originated
may
living
upon or going
at certain periods to small islands to per-
generally tabu to men, a custom to which reference

made by Strabo and Pomponius Mela.'*
form
is
tradition of the Isle of
rites
That the gods could create an Elysium on earth has been

found in the story of Lug and Dechtire, and another instance
occurs in the tale of Cormac mac Art, King of Ireland in the
third century, of
for
whom
seven months
story.
in
an annalist records that he disappeared
248
a. d., a reference to
To Cormac appeared
a young
man
which hung nine apples of gold; and
the events of this
with a branch from
when
this
was shaken,
produced strange music, hearing which every one forgot his

and fell asleep. He came from a land where there
was nought save truth, and where was no age, nor decay, nor
it
troubles
gloom, nor sadness, nor envy, nor jealousy, nor weeping; and
Cormac said that to possess the branch he would give whatever was asked, whereupon the stranger answered, "give me
then thy wife, thy son and daughter." Cormac agreed and
now told his bargain to his wife, who, like her children, was
sorrowful that he should have preferred the branch to them.
The stranger carried off successively, daughter, son, and wife,
and
all
Ireland grieved, for they were
much
loved; but
Cormac
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
Ii8
shook the branch, and the mourning ceased.

to see his wife
In a year desire
and children came to the King. He
set off,
and
as he went, a magic mist surrounded him, and he saw a house

in the midst of a wonderful plain.
After witnessing many
marvels, he reached another house where a huge and beauti-
man and woman offered him hospitality. Cormac bathed,

the hot stones going into the bath-water of themselves, and
the man brought in a boar, while Cormac prepared the fire
ful
and
set
should
on a quarter of the beast. His host proposed that he

a tale, at the end of which, if it were true, the meat
tell
would be cooked, but Cormac asked him to begin first. "Well,

then," said the host, "the pig is one of seven, and with them
I could feed the whole world. When one is eaten, I place its
bones in the sty, and next day it is alive again." This tale
proved true, because the meat was already cooked. When a
second quarter was placed on the fire, the host told of his
corn which grew and gathered itself, and never grew less; and
thus a second quarter was cooked. A third quarter was set
on, and now the woman described the milk of her seven cows
which filled seven tubs and would satisfy the whole world.
Her tale also proved true, and now Cormac realized that he
was in presence of Manannan and his wife, because none
possessed such pigs as he, and he had brought his wife and her
cows from the Land of Promise. Cormac then told how he
had lost his wife and children
a true story, for the fourth
was
found
cooked.
Manannan
bade him eat, but
quarter
when he refused, for he would never dine with two persons
only, the god opened a door and brought in his wife and children, and great was their mutual joy. Manannan now assumed his divine form and related how he had brought the
branch because he desired Cormac to come hither, and he
also explained the mystery of the wonders seen by him. When
they sat down to eat, Manannan produced a table-cloth on
which appeared whatever food was demanded, and a cup. If
one told a lie, it would break, but if truth was then spoken,
THE DIVINE LAND
119
would be restored; and to prove this, he informed Cormac

that his lost wife had had a new husband, whereupon the cup
broke. "My husband has lied," cried the goddess, and at her
it
words the cup was repaired. Manannan then said that tablecloth, cup, and branch would be Cormac's and that he had
wrought magic upon him
in order that he
might be with him
that night in friendship. In the morning, after a night's sleep,

Cormac and his family found themselves no longer in the
divine land, but in their
own
palace of Tara, and beside
him
were the cup, branch, and table-cloth which had covered the
board of the god.^ Cormac's recognition of the god through
his swine shows knowledge of the myth of the gods' food
the Mucca Mhanannain, "to be killed and yet to be alive for
evermore."
story told of
Mongan
has some resemblance to that of
He
commiserated a poor bardic scholar, bidding

him go to the sid of Lethet Oidni and bring thence a precious
stone of his, as well as a pound of silver for himself and a
Cormac.
At two sid on>

as Mongan's
him
his way a noble-looking couple welcomed
messenger, and a similar pair received him at the sid of Lethet
Oidni, where was a marvellous chamber. Asking for its key,
he took thence the stone and silver, and from the river he
pound
of gold from the stream beside the sid.
who bestowed the silver

Mongan relates how he, his wife,
took the gold, returning to Mongan,
upon him.'^ Another story of

and some others, entering a mysterious house during a storm,
found in It seven "conspicuous men," many marvellous
vats of wine. Welcome
quilts, wonderful jewels, and seven
was given to them, and Mongan became intoxicated and told
his wife his adventures, or "frenzy,"
from the
telling of
which
he had formerly asked a respite of seven years. When they

woke next morning, they found that they had been in the
house a full year, though it seemed but a night.^ In this instance, however, the house
had not disappeared. Examples

daybreak are found in Flonn
of beautiful places vanishing at

III
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
120
tales
and
also In the Grail romances.
finds himself
the castle
The
seeker of the Grail
in the Grail castle in the morning, and

has become invisible. Such creations of glamour
no longer
itself
were probably suggested by dreams, whose beauty and terror

alike vanish "when one awaketh."
Fruit-bearing, musical trees, in whose branches birds are
In the sid of
constantly singing, grow in the gods' land.
Oengus were three trees always in fruit; and there were also
two pigs, one always living, and the other always cooked and
the equivalent of the Mucca Mhanannain^

or "Pigs of Manannan" and a jar of excellent beer, Goibready for eating
niu's ale.
None
ever died there. ^
The Elysian
ale
is
doubtless
a superlative form of the Irish cuirm or braccat, made from

^
and it is
malt, of which the Gauls had a divinity, Braciaca;
analogous to the Vedic soma and the wine of Dionysos.^^

sid, or the gods' land, were other domestic animals,
Within the
especially cows,
who
those
left it
which were sometimes brought thence by

or were stolen by heroes or b^ dwellers in
one sid from those of another.
Where mortals
steal
them,
a reminiscence of the mythical idea that the elements

of civilization were wrested from the gods by man. Cauldrons
there
is
were used by the Celts
for
domestic and
sacrificial as well as
other ritual purposes, and these also gave rise to myths of

wonderful divine cauldrons like Dagda's, from which "no
company ever went unthankful." Their contents restored the
dead or produced inspiration, and they were stolen from the

gods' land, e. g. by Cuchulainn and by Arthur.^^ The cauldron rimmed with pearls which Arthur and his men sought
resembles the basin with rows of carbuncles on its edge in
^^
which, according to another story, a fairy woman washed.
The
wisdom was obtained
the gods' land,

either by drinking from a well or by eating the salmon in it;
but this knowledge was tabu even to some members of the
inspiration of
divine land.
Such a
well, called
Land under Waves, and
in
Connla's Well, was in the
thither Sinend, grand-daughter of
PLATE XIV
DiSPATER AND AeRACURA
(?)
Dispater was the great Celtic god of the underworld (see p. 9) and is here represented holding a
hammer and
hammer
XXVI, and see
a cup (for the
Sucellos, Plates XIII,
the deity
Plate IX, B;
cf.
the cup suggests the magic cauldron of the Celtic
Elysium;
192,
cf.
pp. 41, 95-96, 100, 109-12, 120, 151,

XXV). If the
203-04 and see Plates IX, B,
goddess beside him holding a cornucopia
(cf.
Plate
IX, A)
really Aeracura, she probably represents
an old earth goddess, later displaced by Dispater.
is
From an
altar
found at Oberseebach, Switzerland.
THE DIVINE LAND

Ler,
went from the Land of Promise to behold
121
it.
Above
it
grew hazels of wisdom, bearing leaves, blossoms, and nuts

eaten
together; and these fell into the water, where they were
the salmon of knowledge of other tales. From
by salmon
the well sprang seven streams of wisdom, and Sinend, seek-
be pursued
ing understanding, followed one of these, only to
these
hazels
and overwhelmed by the fount itself. Sometimes
were thought to grow at the heads of the chief rivers of Erin.^*

Such a fountain with five streams, their waters more melodious than mortal music, was seen
by Cormac beside Mananand in it five salmon. Nuts
it were hazels,
formed part of the food of the gods in the story of Diarmaid and Grainne, and in a tale from the Dindsenchas they
are said to be eaten by the "bright folk and fairy hosts of
nan's house; above

also
Another secret well stood in the green of Sid Nechand none could approach it without his eyes bursting
Erin."
tain,
^^
save Nechtan and his cup-bearers. Boann, his wife, resolved

to test its power or, in another version, to prove her chastity
after adultery with Dagda, and walked round it thrice withershins;
but three waves from
it
mutilated her, she
fled,
and
^^
was drowned
in the pursuing waters.

Goddesses sometimes took the form of birds, like the swanmaidens of universal myth and folk-tale; and they sang
sleep-compelling melodies. Sweet, unending birdmusic, however, was a constant note of Elysium, just as the
song of Rhiannon's birds caused oblivion and loss of all
exquisite,
sense of time for eighty years. In the late story of Teigue's

voyage to Elysium the birds which feasted on the delicious
berries of its trees are said to warble
"music and minstrelsy
^'
superlative," causing healthful slumber;
while in another story the minstrel goddess of the sid of Doon
melodious
and
Buidhe visited other
side
with the birds of the Land of Promise
which sang unequalled music. ^^

The lords of the sid Elysium were many, but the chief were
Dagda, Oengus, and Midir, as Arawn in Brythonic story was
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
122
In general, however, every sid had its own

if
this
is
an early tradition, it suggests a cult of a
and
ruler,
local god on a hill within which his abode was supposed to be.
Manannan is chief, par excellence, of the island Elysium, and
it was appropriate that a marine deity should rule a divine
region including "thrice fifty isliands." In that land he had a
king of Annwfn.
stone fort with a banqueting-hall. Lug, who may be a sungod, was sometimes associated with the divine land, as the
solar divinity was in Greek myth, and also with Manannan;
and he with his foster-brothers, Manannan's sons, came to
assist the Tuatha De Danann, riding Manannan's steed before
"the fairy cavalcade from the Land of Promise." ^^ He a4so
appeared as owner of an Elysium created by glamour on
earth's
surface,
prophecy
where Conn the Hundred-Fighter heard a
of his future career,^ this prophetic, didactic tale
doubtless having an earlier mythic prototype.
The Brythonic Elysium
differed little
from the
Irish.
One
names, Annwfn, or "the not-world," which was is elfydd

("beneath the world"), was later equated with Hades or Hell,
of
its
as already in the story of
Gwyn. In
the Mabinogi of Pwyll
it
a region of this world, though with greater glories, and has

districts whose people fight, as in Irish tales. In other Mabino-
is
gion, however, as in the Taliesin
poems and
later folk-belief,
an over-sea Elysium called Annwfn or Caer Sidi

and a world beneath the
"its points are ocean's streams"
"a caer [castle] of defence under ocean's waves." ^^
water
there
is
people are skilled in magic and shape-shifting; mortals

domestic animals and a marvellous
desire its "spoils"
Its
cauldron; it is a deathless land, without sickness; its waters

are like wine; and with it are associated the gods. The Isle
Avalon
of
in
Arthurian tradition shows an even closer
ness to the Irish Elysium.
and Welsh placed Elysium

in hills, on earth's
other-worlds
Thus the
local
Irish
like-
^^
in various regions
surface,
under or
oversea; and this doubtless reflects the different environments
THE DIVINE LAND

With neither
123
a region of the dead, nor

in any sense associated with torment or penance. This is true
also of later folk-stories of the Green Isle, now seen beneath,
of the Celtic folk.
is it
now
above, the waters. Its people are deathless, skilled in

magic; its waters restore life and health to mortals; there
magic apples grow; and thither mortals are lured or wander

2^
by chance. The same conception is still found in a late story
Dunlang O'Hartigan, who fought at Clontarf

fairy woman offered him two hundred years of
told of
in 1014.
life
and
"life without death, without cold, without thirst, withjoy

if he would put off combat for
out hunger, without decay"
a day; but he preferred death in battle to dishonour, and
"foremost fighting, fell." ^4

The parallel between Celtic and early Greek conceptions of
^^
Both are open to favoured
is wonderfully close.
Elysium
human
beings,
who
are thus
made immortal without
death;
both are exquisitely beautiful, but sensuous and unmoral.

In both are found islands ruled by goddesses who sometimes
love
mortals; both
are oversea, while a parallel to the sid
Elysium underground may be found in the later Greek tradition of Elysium as a region of Hades, which may have had
^^
The main difference is the occaroots in an earlier period.
sional Celtic view of Elysium as a place where gods are at
war. This may be due to warrior aspects of Celtic life, while
the more peaceful conception reflects settled, agricultural
life;
although Norse influences have sometimes been suggested as

originating the former.^^
CHAPTER X
MYTHICAL ANIMALS AND OTHER BEINGS

Celts worshipped animals or their anthropomorphic
the horse, swine, stag, bull, serpent,
representations
THE
There was a horse-goddess Epona, a

a
horse-god Rudiobus,
mule-god Mullo, a swine-god Moccus,
and bear-goddesses called Artio and Andarta, dedications to or
bear,
and various
birds.
images of these occurring
in
France and Britain.^
Personal
names meaning "son of the bear" or "of the dog," etc., suggest myths of animal descent lost to us, though they find a
partial illustration in stories like that of Oisin, son of a
woman
We
have seen that gods and magicians assume animal forms or force these upon others; and
transformed to a fawn.
other stories point to the belief that domesticated animals came

from the gods' land.
From
these
we turn
to tales In which certain animals have a
mythic aspect, perhaps connected with a cult of them.
divine bull or swine might readily be regarded as enormously

large or strong, or possessed of magic power, or otherwise distinguished; and these are the aspects under which such animals
appear in the stories now to be considered.
In the Irish tale of
Mac
Mac
Ddtho^s Boar {Seel Mucci
Male
had a dog famed through^

Ddtho)
Datho, King
out the land. It could run round Leinster in a day and was
coveted both by Ailill and Medb of Connaught and by
Conchobar
of Leinster,
of Ulster;
but
Mac Datho
promised
it
and
to both
invited the monarchs and their retinues to a feast, hoping that

he would escape in the quarrel which would certainly arise
between them.
The
chief dish
was a boar reared by
Mac
PLATE XV
Epona
horse-goddess Epona may have been
a
deity of a spring or river, conceived as a
originally
She is here represented as feeding
steed.
spirited
1.
The
horses (for the horse see Plates II, 1-3, III,
2, 4).
From a bas-relief found at Bregenz, Tyrol.

2. The goddess is shown seated between two
foals,
and the cornucopia which she holds would
characterize her as a divinity of plenty
IX, A, XIV, and p.

found in Wiltshire.
9).
From
(cf.
Plates
a bronze statuette
MIHTHICAL ANIMALS
AND OTHER BEINGS
125
Datho's grandson, Lena, who, though buried in a trench which

the boar rooted up over him, succeeded in killing the animal
with his sword. For seven years the boar had been nurtured
on the
flesh of fifty
cows; sixty oxen were required to drag
its
carcass; and its tail was a load for sixty men; yet Conall
Cernach sucked it entire into his mouth! ^ The story tells
nothing more of this remarkable animal, but it may commemorate an old ritual feast upon an animal regarded as divine and
endowed with mythic qualities.
The Mirahilia added to Nennius's History speak of the
Porcus Troit or Twrch Tnvyth, hunted by Arthur, an episode
related in the tale of Kulhwch and Olzven. This creature, which
was a transformed knight, slaughtered many of the hunters
before it was overcome and three desirable possessions taken
from between its ears.^ The Porcus Troit resembles the Wild
Boar of Gulban, a transformed child, hunted by DIarmaid
when the Feinn had fled before it; and tradition tells of its
sixteen feet long.^ Fionn himself chased a huge
great size
boar which terrified every one until it was slain by his grandIt was blue-black, with rough bristles, and no
son, Oscar.
ears or tail; its teeth protruded horribly; and each flake of
foam from its mouth resembled the foam of a mighty waterfall.^ A closer analogy to Arthur's hunt occurs in a story of the
Dindsenchas concerning a pig which wasted the land. Manannan and Mod's hounds pursued it, when it sprang into a lake
where it maimed or drowned the following hounds; and then
it crossed to Muic-Inis, or
Pig Island, where it slew Mod with
its tusk.^
Another hunting of magic swine concerns animals
from the cave of Cruachan, which is elsewhere associated with
divinities. Nothing grew where they went, and they destroyed
corn and milk; no one could count them accurately, and when
shot at they disappeared. Medb and Ailill hunted them, and
when one of them leaped into Medb's chariot, she seized its
leg, but the skin broke, and the pig left it in her hand.
After that no one knew whither they went, although a variant
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
126
version says that now they were counted.

From this cave
a great three-headed bird
came other destructive creatures
which wasted Erin till Amairgen killed it, and red birds which
withered everything with their breath until the Ulstermen slew

them.'^ It is strange why such animals should be associated
with this divine cave, but probably the tradition dates from
the time when it was regarded as "Ireland's gate of hell," so
that any evil spirit might inhabit it.
In these stories of divinities or heroes hunting fabulous swine
it is possible that the animals represent some hurtful power,
dangerous to vegetation; for the swine is apt to be regarded
sinister light and might well be the embodiment of
demoniac beings. On the other hand, the animal sacrificed
to a god, or of which the god is an anthropomorphic aspect,
is sometimes regarded as his enemy, slain by him.
Whether
this conception lurks behind these tales is uncertain, as also
the food
is the question whether the magic immortal swine
in a
of the
were
gods
originally
Divine swine appear
in a
Fionn
animals sacrificed to them.

tale.
The Feinn were
at a
banquet given by Oengus, when the deity said that the best
kill one of his pigs, but rather
of Fionn's hounds could not
would kill them. Fionn, on the contrary, maintained that his hounds. Bran and Sgeolan, could do so. A year
after, a hundred and one pigs appeared, one of them coalhis great pig
and each tall as a deer; but the Feinn and their dogs
killed them all. Bran slaying the black one, whereupon Oengus
complained that they had caused the death of his sons and
many of the Tuatha De Danann, for they were in the form of
the swine. A quarrel ensued, and Fionn prepared to attack
black,
^
Oengus's brug, when the god made peace. In another instance
a fairy as a wild boar eluded the Feinn, but Fionn offered the
women
"
and by the help of a familiar

spirit" in love with him Caoilte "got the diabolical beast
killed." Fionn covered the women's heads lest Caoilte should
take his wife, but his ruse was unsuccessful.^
choice of the
to
its slayer,

In
still
127
another instance Derbrenn, Oengus's first love, had

but their mother changed them into swine,
six foster-children;
and Oengus gave charge of them to Buichet, whose wife desired the flesh of one of them. A hundred heroes and as manyhounds prepared to hunt them, when they fled to Oengus for
help, only to find that he could not give
it
until they
shook
the tree of Tarbga and ate the salmon of Inver Umaill. Not
for a year were they able to do this, but now Medb hunted
them, and
all were slain save one. Other huntings of these

fortunate for the hunters, are also mentioned, and
in one passage Derbrenn's swine are said to have been fash-
swine, less
ioned by magic.^^ Both in Irish and in Welsh story pigs are

associated with the gods' land and are brought thence by
The Tuatha De Danann
heroes or
by the
have
introduced swine into Ireland or Munster."
first
The mythic
gods.
are said to
Tain Bo Cualgne were reincarnawhence enormous strength was theirs, and

the Brown Bull was of vast size. He carried a hundred and
fifty children, until one day he threw them off and killed all
but fifty; a hundred warriors were protected by his shadow
from the heat, or by his shelter from the cold. His melodious
evening lowing was such as any one would desire to hear, and
no eldritch thing dared approach him; he covered fifty heifers
daily, and each next morning had a calf.^^ Two gifts given to
Conn by a princess who was with the god Lug were a boar's
rib and that of an ox, twenty-four feet long, forming an arch
eight feet high; but nothing further is told of the animals which
owned these huge bones. ^^
bulls of the
tions of divinities,
Cattle were a valued possession of the gods' land and, like

swine, were brought thence by heroes. Man easily concluded
that animals useful to him were also useful to the gods, but
he regarded these as magical. The divine mother of Fraoch
gave him cows from the
"one of the tribe of the

god folk," was wife of Ailill the Fair and had a cow which
supplied milk to three hundred men at one night's milking;
sid. ^Flidais,
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
128
Tain another account speaks of Flidais

having several cows which fed Ailill's army every seventh day.
Flidais loved Fergus and urged him to carry her off with her
while during the
cow
^'^
a proof of
its
value, which
is
seen also in tales of the
capture of cows along with some desirable woman, divine or

human. In many Welsh instances cattle are a possession of the
fairy-folk dwelling
under a lake and often come to land
to feed.^^ The cow of Flidais resembles the seven kine of

Manannan's wife; their milk suffices the people of the entire
Land of Promise or the men of the whole world, while from the
wool of her seven sheep came all their clothing.^^
Though the waves were "the Son of Ler's horses in a seastorm," Manannan rode them on his steed Enbarr, which he
gave to Lug; and this horse was "fleet as the naked cold wind
of spring," while its rider was never killed off its back.^^
In Elysium "a stud of steeds with grey-speckled manes and
another crimson-brown" were seen by Laeg, and similar horses
were given to carry mortals back to earth, whence, if they did

not dismount, they could return safely to Elysium. Such a
steed was brought by Gilla Decair to Fionn and his men, and
miserable-looking though it was, when placed among the
Feinn's horses, it bit and tore them, Conan mounted it in
order to ride
it
to death, but
thirteen others vaulted on
it,
it
would not move; and when
the GlUa
fled,
followed swiftly by
over land and sea,
the horse with its riders. Carrying them

with another hero holding its tail, it brought them to the Land
of Promise, whence Fionn ultimately rescued them. This forms
the
first
part of a late
artificial
tale,
based upon a mythic
came from a water-world,

the steeds which [Cuchulainn captured, one of these being
the Grey of Macha, out of the Grey Lake. Cuchulainn slipped
behind it and wrestled with it all round Erin until it was
foundation.^^ Other mythical horses
e. g.
mastered; and when it was wounded at his death, it went into

the lake to be healed. The other was Dubsainglend of the
Marvellous Valley, which was captured
in similar fashion.^^
PLATE XVI
Cernunnos
This
homed
perhaps
Plate
XXV.
underworld
deities of
deity with torques on his horns is

the homed god shown in
identical with
He was
(see pp. 9,
Elysium
cf.
doubtless a divinity of the
104-05, 158, and for other
SmertuUos, Plate V; the three-
headed god, Plates VII, XII, the squatting god,

Plates VIII-IX; Sucellos, Plates XIII, XXVI; and
From an altar found at
Dispater, Plate XIV).
Notre Dame,
Paris.
129
Possibly the rushing stream was personified as a steed, and

the horse-goddess Epona is occasionally connected with streams,
while horses which emerge from lakes or rivers may be mythic

forms of water-divinities. In more recent folk-belief the mon-
and Scotland was capable of selfand

transformation
waylaid travellers, or, assuming human
form, he made love to women, luring them to destruction.
Did such demoniac horses already exist in the pagan period,
or are they a legacy from Scandinavian belief, or are they
strous water-horse of France
earlier
times
.^
equine water-divinities thus distorted in Christian

This must remain uncertain, but at all events they
were amenable to the power of Christian saints, since St.

Fechin of Fore, when one of his chariot-horses died on a
journey, compelled a water-horse to take its place, afterward
allowing it to return to the water.^*' Akin to these is the Welsh
afanc, one of which was drawn by the oxen of Hu Gadarn
from a pond, while another was slain by Peredur (Percival)
after he had obtained a jewel of invisibility which hid him
from the monster with

Mortals as well as
its
poisoned spear.^^
were transformed Into deer, and
fairies possessed herds of those animals, while Caoilte slew
"the grey one of three antlers"
a wild three-antlered stag
side
which had long eluded the

or boar are depicted
hunters.^^ Three-horned animals
bull
on Gaulish monuments, and
the third horn symbolizes divinity or divine strength, the

word "horn" being often used as a synonym of might, esOn an altar discovered at Notre
pecially divine power.
Dame
"horn".^)
also
god Cernunnos ("the Horned," from cernu-,

stag's horns; and other unnamed divinities
in Paris, the
show
has
traces of antlers.
Possibly these gods were anthrolike other Gaulish deities
pomorphic forms of stag-divinities,

with bull's horns. 2^
Serpents or dragons infesting lochs, sometimes generically

called peist or beist (Latin bestia, "beast"), occur in Celtic
and other mythologies and are reminiscent
of earlier reptile
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
I30
forms, dwelling in watery places and regarded as embodiments

of water-spirits or guardians of the waters. In later tradition
such monsters were said to have been imprisoned in lochs or
destroyed by Celtic saints. As has been seen, a dragon's

shriek on May-Eve made the land barren till Lludd buried
and its opponent alive after stupifying them with mead.

They were placed in a cistvaen at Dinas Emreis in Snowdon,
it
and long afterward Merlin got
them when they hinHere the dragons are

man and to fertility, but are
rid of
dered Vortigern's building operations.
embodiments of powers hostile to

conquered by gods, Lludd and Merlin.^*
Another story of a peist occurs in the Tain Bo Frdich.
Fraoch was the most beautiful of Erin's heroes, and his mother
was the divine Bebind, her sister the goddess Boann. Findadaughter of Ailill and Medb, loved him, but before going
to claim her he was advised to seek from Boann treasure of the
bair,
sidf
abundance, while he was made welAfter staying there for some time, he
which she gave him
come at
Ailill's
dun.
in
desired Findabair to elope with him, only to be refused, whereupon he demanded her of Ailill, but would not give the brideprice asked. Ailill and Medb therefore plotted his death,
fearing that if he took Findabair by force, the Kings who
sought her would attack them. While Fraoch was swimming
bade him bring a branch from a rowantree growing on the bank, and swimming there, he returned
with it, Findabair meanwhile admiring the beauty of his
body. Ailill sent him for more, but the monster guardian
in the river, Ailill
of the tree attacked him;
and when he
Findabair leaped into the water with
it,
called for a sword,
Ailill
throwing a
five-
pronged spear at her. Fraoch caught it and hurled it back;

and though the monster all the while was biting his side, with
bath
the sword he cut off its head and brought it to land.
of broth was made for him, and afterward he was laid on a bed.
Then was heard lamentation, and a hundred and fifty women of
the side^ clad in crimson with green head-dresses, appeared.
AND OTHER BEINGS
M^T^HICAL ANIMALS
131
of one age, shape, and loveliness, coming for Fraoch, the

darling of the side. They bore him off, bringing him back on
all
morrow recovered
the
of his
wound, and Findabair was now
betrothed to Fraoch on his promising to assist in the raid of

Cualnge. Thus Fraoch, a demi-god, overcame the peistP
In the ballad version from the Dean of Lismore's Book, Medb
him for the berries because he scorned her love. The tree
grew on an island In a loch, with the peist coiled round its
roots. Every month it bore sweetest fruit, and one berrysent
hunger for a long time, while its juice prolonged life

and healed sickness. Fraoch killed the peist, but
died of his wounds. ^^ The tree was the tree of the gods and
satisfied
for a year
resembles the quicken-tree of Dubhros, guarded by a one-eyed

giant whom Diarmaid slew.^^ These stories recall the Greek
of Herakles slaying the dragon guardian of the apples
of the Hesperides,^^ which has a certain parallel in Babylonia.
myth
marvellous tree with jewelled fruit was seen by Gilgamesh

in a region on this side of the Waters of Death; and in the Fields
beyond these waters he found a magic plant,

the twigs of which renewed man's youth. He gathered it,
but a serpent seized it and carried it off. The stories of Fraoch
and Diarmaid point to myths showing that gods were jealous
of men sharing their divine food; and their tree of life was
of the Blessed
guarded against mortals, though perhaps semi-divine heroes
might gain access to
The guardian
it
peist recalls the
in the grove described
Such Celtic
Fionn
and obtain
peists
its
benefits for
human beings.
dragons entwined round oaks
by Lucan.-^
were
slain
by Fionn, and in one poem

was swallowed by the
or, in another, his son, Daire,
monster, but hacked his way out, liberating others besides

They also defended duns in Celtic story, and in the
himself.^
a dun
sequel to the tale of Fraoch he and Conall reached
into
Conall's
his stolen cattle were.
serpent sprang
belt, but was later released by him, and "neither did harm to
where
the other."
In Cuchulainn's account of his journey to Scath,
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
132
the dun had seven walls, each with an iron palisade; and having destroyed these, he reached a pit guarded by serpents
which he slew with his fists, as well as many toads, sharp and
beaked beasts, and ugly, dragon-like monsters. Then he took a

cauldron and cows from the dun, which must have been in the
gods' land across the sea, as in other tales where such thefts
are related.^^
curious story from the Dindsenchas tells how the son of

the Morrigan had three hearts with "shapes of serpents through
them," or "with the shape of serpents' heads." He was slain

by MacCecht, and if death had not befallen him, these serpents would have grown and destroyed all other animals.
hearts were burned, and the ashes were cast into a stream,
whereupon its rapids stayed, and all creatures in it died.^^
The
In another story Cian was born with a caul which increased

with his growth, but Sgathan ripped it open, and a worm sprang
from it, which was thought to have the same span of life as
Cian.
A wood
was put round
it,
and the creature was
fed,
but
grew to a vast size and swallowed men whole. Fire was set
to the wood, when it fled to a cave and made a wilderness all
it
around; but at
last Oisin
killed
it
with Diarmaid's magic
spear.^^ Serpents with rams' heads are a frequent motif on

Gaulish monuments, either separately or as the adjuncts of a
god; but their meaning is unknown, and no myth regarding
them has survived.

Other parts of nature besides animals were regarded mythically. Mountains, the sea, rivers, wells, lakes, sun, moon, and
earth had a personality of their own, and this conception survived when other ideas had arisen. Appeal was made to them,
sung by Morrigan and Amairgen show, and they

were taken as sureties, or their power was invoked to do harm,
as when Aed Ruad's champion took sureties of sea, wind, sun,
as the runes
and firmament against him, so that the sun's heat caused Aed
to bathe, and the rising sea and a great wind drowned him.^^
In another instance, a spell chanted over the sea by Dub,
133
wife of Enna, of the side, caused the drowning of his other wife,
Aide, and her family.^^ The personality of the sea is seen also
Lindgadan and the echo heard at a cliff: ensome one speaking to him without being asked, he
turned to the cliff to be avenged upon the speaker, when the
crest of a wave dashed him against a rock.^'' So, too, the sea
was obedient to man, or perhaps to a god. Tuirbe Tragmar,
father of the Goban Saer, used to hurl his axe from the Hill
of the Axe in the full of the flood-tide, forbidding the sea to
come beyond the axe," an action akin to the Celtic ritual of
"fighting the waves." The voices of the waves had a warnin the story of
raged at
sympathetic sound to those who could hear

them aright, as many instances show.
As elsewhere, personalized parts of nature came to be reing, prophetic, or
garded as animated by
ually became more or
man; and such
spirits, like
spirits
grad-
detached from these and might be

seen as divine beings appearing near them. Some of them
became the greater gods, while others assumed a darker charless
acter, perhaps because they
were associated with
pects of nature or with the dead.
some
still
women
linger
seen
on
The
in folk-belief.
Celts
knew
sinister as-
all
these,
and
Fairy-like or semi-divine
by streams or fountains, or in forests, or living in
lakes or rivers, are survivals of spirits and goddesses of river,

lake, or earth; and they abound in Celtic folk-story as bonnes
dames, dames blanches, fees, or the Irish Be Find.
Beings like
mermaids existed in early Irish belief. When Ruad's ships were

stopped, he went over the side and saw "the loveliest of the
world's
women," three
him off, and he
of
them detaining each
boat.
They
slept with each in turn, one becoming

with child by him. They set out in a bronze boat to intercept
him on his return journey, but when they failed, the mother
carried
killed his child
"It
is
and hurled the head
an awful crime."
^^
after him, the others crying,
In another tale Rath heard the mer-
maids' song and saw them

"grown-up girls, the fairest of
shape and make, with yellow hair and white skins above the
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
134
waters.
But huger than one
of the hills was the hairy-clawed,

which they had beneath." Their song lulled
when they flocked round him and tore him
bestial lower part
him
to sleep,
Other sea-dwellers are the luchorpdin

a kind of dwarf, three of whom were caught by Fergus and
forced to comply with his wish and to tell him how to pass
limb from limb.^^
under lochs and
herbs in his ears, or one of

gave him a cloak to cover his head, and thus he went with
under the water.^
seas.
They put
them
them
curious group of beings answered Cuchulainn's cry, causing confusion to his enemies, or screamed around him when he
set out or was In the thick of the fight. While he fought with
"around him shrieked the Bocdnachs and the Bandnachs and the Geniti Glinne, and the demons of the air; for it
was the custom of the Tuatha De Danann to raise their cries
about him in every battle," and thus increase men's fear of
him. Or they screamed from the rims of shields and hilts of
swords and hafts of spears of the hero and of Ferdia.*^ Here
Ferdia,
they are friendly to Cuchulainn, but in the Fled Bricrend, or

Feast of Bricriu, one of the tasks imposed on him, Conall, and
Loegaire was to fight the Geniti Glinne, Cuchulainn alone
succeeding and slaughtering
many
of them."*^
What
kind of
beings they were is uncertain, but if Geniti Glinne means "Damsels of the Glen," perhaps they were a kind of nature-spirits,
this being also suggested by the "demons of the air" which were
expelled by St. Patrick.^^ As nature-spirits they might be
classed with the Tuatha De Danann, as indeed they seem to
be in the passage cited
Bo Cualnge, they
above.'^^
In one sentence of the Tdin
are associated with
Nemain
or Badb,
who
brought confusion upon Medb's host; yet on the other hand

they dared not appear in the same district as the bull of
Cualnge.^^
PLATE XVII
1.
Incised
stone with
"elephant" symbol and
crescent symbol with V-rod symbol.
From
Crichie,
Aberdeenshire.
2.
Incised
stone
with
"elephant"
and double
disc (or "spectacles") with Z-rod symbol.
Plate X.
See also
CHAPTER
XI
MYTHS OF ORIGINS
and barbaric peoples possess many grotesque
SAVAGE
myths of the origin of various parts of nature.
In recently
existing Celtic folk-lore and in stories preserved mainly in the
Dindsenchas conceptions not unlike these are found and doubtless were handed down from the pre-Christian period, whether
Celtic or pre-Celtic, while in certain instances a saint takes
the place of an older pagan personage. In Brittany and elsein France natural features
rivers, lakes, hills, rocks
where
are associated in their origin with giants, fairies, witches, or
the devil, just as in other Celtic regions and, indeed, in all

parts of the world. Many traditions, however, connect them
with the giant Gargantua, who was not a creation of Rabelais' brain, but was borrowed from popular belief.
He may
have been an old Celtic god or hero, popular and, therefore,

easily surviving in folk-memory, and may also be the Gurguntius,
son of Belinus, King of Britain, mentioned by Giraldus

Many hills or isolated rocks or erratic boulders
Cambrensis.
are described as his teeth, or as stones thrown, or vomited, or
by him; and rivers or lakes were formed from his

blood or urine, numerous traditions regarding these being
ejected
by Sebillot in his book on Gargantua.^

In Irish story similar traditions are found and are of a naive
character. Manannan shed "three drops of grief" for his dead
collected
son,
and these became three
a mother's
lochs, as in the Finnish Kalevala
are changed into rivers. Again, a king's

daughter died of shame when her lover saw her bathing, and
tears
her foster-mother's tears

III
lO
made Loch
Gile.
In other instances
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
136
lochs are formed
by water pouring forth at the digging of a

Manannan, slain in battle, or that of GarOr a well is the source of a loch, because
some one was drowned in it, or because its waters poured forth
grave, e.g. that of

man, son of Glas.
over intruders, or because of the breaking of a tabu connected

with it, e.g. leaving its cover off. In two instances already
^
cited the urine of a horse belonging to a
and more curious
still is
god produced a loch;

the myth of the woman Odras whom
the Morrigan changed into a pool of water.^

An interesting story tells of the magic creation of a wood.
Gaible, son of Nuada, stole a bundle of twigs which Ainge,
daughter of Dagda, had gathered to make a tub, for Dagda
had made one which dripped during flood-tide, and she wished
Gaible threw away the bundle, and it be-
for a better one.
came
wood
springing up in every direction.* This is of a

very primitive character and resembles the folk-tale incident
of the Transformation Flight, in which a twig, comb, or reed
a
thrown down by
fugitives
peding the pursuers.^
on a
becomes a thick
forest or
bush im-
is the story of Codal, who

Eriu, from whom is named
Curious, too,
hillock fed his fosterling
Eriu's Island (Ireland).
As she grew, the
hillock increased
with her, and had she not complained to Codal of the sun's
heat and the cold wind, it would have grown until Ireland was
filled
with the mountain.
Another
story, recalling that of the
Australian Bunjel's slicing earth with a knife into creeks and

valleys, tells how Fergus, with Cuchulainn's sword, the caladholg out of the sid^ sheared the tops of three mountains,
are
now "Meath's
which
three bare ones," while as a counter blow

In anhills in Athlone.^
Cuchulainn did the same to three
other tale Fergus, irritated against Conchobar, struck three

blows on the ground and thus caused three hills to arise which
will
endure for
The
ever.'^
occurrence of other things is often the subject of

a tradition. Many myths exist about the origin of fire, and in
first
Irish story the first camp-fire
was made by Aidne
for the Mile-
sians
by wringing
apples came from
MYTHS OF ORIGINS
137
hands together, when
flashes as large as
his
his knuckles, this resembling the legends of

from a saint's hand. At Nemnach, near
fire
obtained
or
light
the sid of Tara, rose a stream on which stood the first mill
built in Ireland,
but no myth describes
hand, the story of the
first
its origin.
On
the other
trap resembles that told of the
guillotine and its inventor. Coba was trapper to Erem, son

of Mile, and was the first to prepare a trap and pitfall in Erin,
but having put his leg into it to test it, his shin-bone and arms
were fractured, and he died. Brea, in the time of Partholan,
was the
first
man
to build a house or
important vessel of Celtic myth and
make
a cauldron
^
ritual;
that
while the
first
smelting of gold was the work of Tigernmas, a mythic Irish

king.^ The divine origin of ploughing with oxen has already
been mentioned
an interesting agricultural myth.^
Brigit,
goddess of poetry, when her son Ruadan died at Mag-Tured,

bewailed him with the first "keening" heard in Ireland; and
she also invented a whistle for night signalling.^^ So also the
was spoken by Corpre, poet of

the gods.^^ Another instrument, the harp, was discovered accidentally. All was discord in the time of the Firbolgs. Canola
fled from her husband and by the shore heard a sweet murmur
as the wind played through the sinews still clinging to a whale's
skeleton.
Listening, she fell asleep; and when her husband,
her
thus, learned that the sound had lulled her, he
finding
made a framework of wood for the sinews. On this he played,
and the pair were reconciled. ^^ But the Irish could also look
back to a golden age when, in the reign of Geide the LoudVoiced, each one deemed the other's voice as sweet as strings of
lutes would be, because of the greatness of the peace and friend^^
and, with the addition
ship which every one had for the other;
of plenty and prosperity, much the same is said of Conaire's
first satire,
with dire
effects,
Midir's vengeance overtook him.^^ Prosperity

was supposed to characterize every good king's reign in Ireland, perhaps pointing to earlier belief in his divinity and the
reign,
until
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
138
dependence of fertility on him; but the result is precisely that

which everywhere marked the golden age. As elsewhere, too,
gods instituted festivals, one myth telling how Lug first celebrated that of Lugnasad, not in his own honour, but to the
glory of his foster-mother.^^
The mythic
trees of
Elysium were not unknown on earth,
though there they were safely guarded; and another instance,

besides those already described,^^ is found in the oak of Mugna.
"Berries to berries the Strong Upholder [a god?] put upon
Three
it.
fruits
upon
it,
viz. acorn, apple,
and nut; and when
another used to grow." Leaves were always

on this useful tree, which stood until Ninine the poet cast it
down.^^ What is perhaps a debased myth of a world-tree like
the
first fruit fell,
Yggdrasil
is
found
in the story of the tree in
Loch Guirr, seen
once every seven years as the loch dried when its enchantment left it. A green cloth covered the tree, and a woman
sat knitting under it; but once a
upon the woman said
:
man
stole the cloth,
"Awake, thou silent tide;

From the Dead Woman's Land a horseman
From my head
where-
rides,
the green cloth snatching."
At
these words the waters pursued

horse and the cloth from him.^^
Few and fragmentary
him and took
half of his
myths are, they, with the

prove what a rich cosmogony
as these
classical myths already cited,^

the ancient Celts must have had.
CHAPTER XII
THE HEROIC MYTHS
I.
CUCHULAINN AND HIS CIRCLE
Celts possessed many myths regarding Ideal heroic

figures or actual heroes who tended to become mythical.
THE
A
kind of saga was formed about some of these, telling of
their birth, their deeds, their amours^ their procuring for
men
from the gods' land, and their death or departure to

Elysium; while round them were ranged other personages
whose deeds are also recounted, and who may have been the
spoils
subjects of separate sagas. Groups of tribes had each their

hero, who occasionally attained wider popularity and was
adopted by other
tribes.
To
these heroes are ascribed magic

Some of them are of divine origin
and they
sons of gods or reincarnations of gods
or appearance,
many respects from ordinary men
and supernatural deeds.
differ in
in size,
In a sense they are divine and may have been at

one time subjects of a cult, but in the myths they are repreor in power.
sented as living and moving on earth, and to some of them a

definite date is given. The three heroes best known, each the
and Arthur. The

more prominent than
centre of a group, are Cuchulainn, Fionn,
concerning Cuchulainn, who is

King, Conchobar, were current among the tribes of Ulster;
those about Fionn were popular first in Leinster and Munster,
stories
his
then over
all
Ireland and the
West Highlands; those about
Arthur were found among the Brythons.

Cuchulainn is the chief figure about the court of Conchobar,
alleged to have been King of Ulster at the beginning of the
Christian era. The heroes were "champions of the Red
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
I40
Branch," so called after a room
Emain Macha; and

occasions
rivals
in
Conchobar's palace of
more prominent and on some

Cuchulainn, Conall the Victorious, and
three are
Others of the group are Dechtire,

their father Cathbad the Druid, Fergus
Loegaire the Triumphant.
Conchobar's
mac Roich,
sister,
Ferdia, Curoi
mac
Daire, and Bricriu, while Ailill

also enter into the saga. The stories
and Medb of Connaught

about these are over a hundred
here be
made only
to
in
those in
number, but reference can

which Cuchulainn figures
prominently.
Some of the group are descended from the Tuatha
De
Danann, or their origin is supernatural. One story makes

Conchobar a natural son of Nessa by Cathbad. Later King
Fergus mac Roich wished to marry her, and she agreed, if he
would resign the throne for a year to Conchobar; but when
the year passed, Fergus was deposed, and the youth remained
King with many
privileges.
He had
the jus primae noctis over
girl in the province, and in whatever house he stayed

the wife was at his disposal; yet he was wisest of men, possessed
of many gifts, and a great hero.^ In another story Nessa was
every
by Cathbad and brought it from the river

Conchobar, whereupon Cathbad forced her to drink it because
it contained two worms. She became pregnant after swallowing these, and at birth her child held a worm in each hand and
was named after the river. Some, however, regarded him as
son of Nessa's lover, Fachtna Fathach, King of Ulster.- Thus
three origins are ascribed to Conchobar
son of Cathbad,
sent for water
or of Fachtna, or of a river personalized or of a river-god who

similar origin is ascribed to
took the form of the worms.
His mother Findchoem, Cathbad's daughter, being

bidden by a Druid to wash in and drink from a well over which
he sang spells, swallowed a worm and became enceinte, the
Conall.
worm
lying in the child's
hand
in her
womb.^
Cuchulainn was son of the god Lug,^ and though he was

also called son of Sualtam, Dechtire's husband, yet even here
PLATE XVIII
Menhir of Kernuz
The monument shows
158) and a
of
figures
and
Mercury
(cf.
child,
god with a club
pp. 9,
and
the child have
Mercury
(cf. Plates IV-V).
been equated with Lug and

(see pp.
64-65, 82-84,
pp. 25, 28-33, 40> 122,
of a
his
and
for
son,
for
158-59;
Cuchulainn
Lug
see
also
Cuchulainn pp. 36,
The
69-71, 86-88, 128, 134, 139-59, 209, 212).
latter has also been identified with Esus, but with
scant plausibility (see Plates
XX,
A, XXI).
THE HEROIC MYTHS

his origin
is
semi-divine.
141
Sualtam's motlier was of the sid~
folk; he was called Sualtam sidech ("of the fairy haunts")

and possessed "the magic might of an elf."'' The supernatural aspect of some of the personages is seen in Cuchulainn's
feats or his "distortion"; or in Fergus, who had the strength
of seven hundred men, ate seven hogs and kine at a meal,
and wielded a sword as long as a rainbow, while a seventh

part of him surpassed the whole of any ordinary man.*' In
one passage Conchobar is called dia talmaide ("a terrestrial
god"), while Dechtire is termed a goddess.^ Yet Cuchulainn
was not necessarily a sun-god or sun-hero; for if he was, why
does the Tain, in which he plays so great a part, take place
in winter, while his greatest activity is from Samhain (November) until the beginning of spring.^ Nor is every mistress of
dawn-goddess, nor every foe a power of darkness.
his a
The boyish deeds
of Cuchulainn were described to
during the Tain by Fergus and others.
Before his
Medb
fifth year,
when
already possessed of man's strength, he heard of the

*'boy corps" of his uncle Conchobar and went to test them,
taking his club, ball, spear, and javelin, playing with these
as he went.
At Emain he joined the boys
at play without
permission; but this was an insult, and they set upon him,
throwing at him clubs, spears, and balls, all of which he fended
off, besides knocking down fifty of the boys, while his "con-
him
the first reference to this curious
phenomenon. Conchobar now interfered, but Cuchulainn
would not desist until all the boys came under his protection
and guarantee.^
At Conchobar's court he performed extraordinary feats
and expelled a band of invaders when the Ulstermen were
in their yearly weakness. ^ He was first known as Setanta,
and was called Cuchulainn in the following way. Culann" the
tortion"
seized
smith had prepared a banquet for Conchobar, who, on
his
way to it, saw the youth holding the field at ball against three
hundred and fifty others; and though he bade him follow,
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
142
Setanta refused to come until the play was over.
While the
was
let
loose
Culann
his
banquet
progressing,
great watchwhich
had
the
of
a
and
when Setanta
hundred,
dog,
strength
reached the
fort,
his ball into its
the beast attacked him, whereupon he thrust

mouth, and seizing its hind legs, battered It
against a rock. Culann complained that the safe-guard of

his flocks and herds was destroyed, but the boy said that he
would act as watch-dog until a whelp of its breed was ready;
and Cathbad the Druid now gave him a name

Cu Chulainn,
or "Culann's Dog." This adventure took place before he
was seven years old." Baudis suggests that as Cuchulainn
was not the hero's birth-name, a dog may have been his
name being given him
some ceremonial way

at puberty, a circumstance afterward explained by the mythical
^^
story of Culann's Hound.
One day Cuchulainn overheard Cathbad saying that whatever stripling assumed arms on that day would have a short
life, but would be the greatest of warriors. He now demanded
arms from Conchobar, but broke every set of weapons given
him until he received Conchobar's own sword and shield;
and he also destroyed seventeen chariots, so that nothing
manito,^^ his
in
but Conchobar's own chariot sufficed him.
Cuchulainn made
the charioteer drive fast and far until they reached the dun
whom he fought and slew,
cutting off their heads; while on his return he killed two huge
of the sons of Nechtan, each of
and then captured twenty-four wild swans, fastening all

these to the chariot. From afar Levarcham the prophetess
saw the strange cavalcade approaching Emain and bade all
be on their guard, else the warrior would slay them; but Conchobar alone knew who he was and recognized the danger
from a youth whose appetite for slaughter had been whetted.
A stratagem was adopted, based upon Cuchulainn's well-known
modesty. A hundred and fifty women with uncovered breasts
were sent to meet him,^^ and while he averted his face, he
was seized and plunged into vessels of cold water. The first
stags
THE HEROIC MYTHS
143
burst asunder; the water of the second boiled with the heat
from his body; that of the third became warm; and thus his
rage was calmed. Fiacha, who tells this story, now describes
the hero. Besides being very handsome, with golden tresses,
he had seven toes on each foot, seven fingers on each hand,

and seven pupils in each eye, while on his body was a shirt
of gold thread
and a green mantle with
now
silver clasps.
at seventeen he
No
slaughterwonder, added Fiacha, that

Bo
Tain
in
the
so
Cualnge}^
many
ing
Cuchulainn's beauty attracted women, whence Conchobar's
is
warriors, fearing for the virtue of their wives, sent him to

woo Forgall's daughter, Emer;^^ but to hinder this, Forgall
urged him to find Domnal the Warlike in Alba, hoping that

he would never return. He set off with Conchobar, Loegaire,
and Conall; and

feats,
after
Domnal had taught them
extraordinary
to receive instruction from Scathach,
he sent them
who
dwelt to the east of Alba. Meanwhile Cuchulainn had refused

the love of Domnal's ugly daughter, Dornolla. She vowed
vengeance, and when the heroes departed, she caused a vision
of Emain to rise before Cuchulainn's companions, which made
had to proceed alone. Instructed

by a youth, he crossed the Plain of lU-Luck safely. On its
first half men's feet stuck fast, and on the second half the
of its blades; but he must
grass held their feet on the points
first follow the track of a wheel and then that of an apple which
them
so home-sick that he
narrow path through a glen would bring

him to Scathach's house, which was on an island approached
by a narrow bridge, slippery as an eel's tail, or, in another
version, high in the centre, while the other end rose up whenever anyone leaped on it, and flung him backward. This
rolled before him.
island
and bridge are not mentioned
of the story.
After
many
in the older recensions
attempts Cuchulainn reached the
other side by his "salmon-leap." Uathach, Scathach's daughter,

fell in love with him and told him how to obtain valour from
her mother.
He must make
his
salmon-leap to the great yew-
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
144
where Scathach was teaching her sons, Cuare and Cet,

and set his sword between her breasts. Thus he obtained
from Scathach all his wishes
acquaintance with her feats,
marriage to Uathach without a dowry, and knowledge of his
tree
future, while she yielded herself to him. For a year he remained

skill in arms, and then, despite her
to
hinder
he
assisted her in fighting the amazon
him,
attempts
Aife and her warriors. Having discovered that Aife loved
with Scathach, learning
her charioteer and chariot-horses, he exclaimed,

as he fought her, that these had perished. She looked aside,
and that moment Cuchulainn overcame her and made her
above
all else
promise never again to oppose Scathach. From his amour

with Aife, a son would be born called Conlaoch, who was to
wear a ring which Cuchulainn left for him and to seek his
when he was
make himself known
combat to none.
father
On
a warrior of seven years old. He must

to none, turn aside for none, and refuse
return to Scathach Cuchulainn slew a hag who

disputed the crossing of the bridge of leaps, and Scathach
bound him and Ferdiad, Fraoch, Naisi, and Fergus, whom she
had
his
trained, never to
home
combat with each
to Ireland he slew the
other.
Fomorians to
While going
whom
Devorgilla,
daughter of the King of the Isles, was to be given in tribute

an early Celtic version of the story of Perseus and
Andromeda. ^^
Devorgilla was awarded to Cuchulainn, he afterward gave her to Lugaid as wife, since he himself was to marry
Emer; whereupon Devorgilla and her handmaid sought the
Though
hero in the form of birds, and when he wounded them, their

Cuchulainn sucked out the sling-stone
true form appeared.
and with
wed
the
it
some blood; and for this reason also he could not

a mythical version of
had drunk her blood
her, for he
rite of
blood brotherhood.
Forgall's opposition,
fore
Conchobar
He now
and she became
exercised his royal
carried oif
Emer despite
though not beprerogative on her.^^

his wife,
THE HEROIC MYTHS

The
145
which Cuchulainn learned from Scathach are no

longer intelligible and are probably exaggerated or imaginary
warrior exploits. Scathach and Aife may be reminiscences
feats
of actual Celtic female warriors, though the hero's visit to

Scathach's isle is akin to his journey to Fand
it is a visit to
whose people are sometimes at war (as in the

Loegaire), but where wisdom, valour, and
other things may be gained by mortals.
When Conlaoch came to Ireland, his father's injunctions
were the cause of his slaying his own son in ignorance with
his marvellous spear, the gai bolga; and when he recognized
the ring which his son wore, great was his sorrow. ^^ This is
a Celtic version of the story of Suhrab and Rustam.^"
Cuchulainn did not at once become hero of Ulster. In the
story of Mac Ddtho^s Boar, to which reference has already
a divine land,
stories of
Fand and
been made, the hero
is
Conall,
who
never passed a day without
Connaughtman or slept without a Connaughtman's

head under his knee. Bricriu, the provoker of strife, advised
killing a
man
should get a share of the boar according to

his warlike deeds. Cet of Connaught was chief until Conall
that each
him
and then, though the boar's

tail required sixty men to carry it, he sucked it into his mouth,
allotting scanty portions to the men of Connaught. In the
fight which ensued the latter were routed, Mac Datho's hound
arrived and put
to shame;
siding with the Ulstermen.-^
The Fled Brier end, or Feast of Bricriu,

made for Conchobar and his men by Bricriu
tells
of a feast
in a vast
house
built for this purpose. Bricriu prepared for himself a balcony

with a window looking down on the hall, for he knew that the
Ulstermen would not allow him to enter it; yet they feared to
accept the Invitation lest he should provoke quarrels among

them, and the dead should outnumber the living. Thereupon
he asserted that
after discussion
if
it
they refused, he would do still worse; and

was agreed that they should go, but that
Bricriu should be guarded from entering the feast.
In the
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
146
however, he provoked a quarrel between Loegaire,

Conall, and Cuchulainn as to which of them should receive
the champion's portion; whereupon each claimed it, and a
sequel,
fight arose
between them
in the
hall.
This
reflects
actual
Celtic custom, for Poseidonius speaks of festivals at which a

quarter of pork was taken by the bravest; and if another
^^
Conchobar
they fought until one was killed.
the
and
Sencha
announced
that
the
heroes,
separated
question
should be submitted to Ailill, King of Connaught. Meanwhile
claimed
it,
Bricriu stirred
up
strife
among
the heroes' wives,
who had
left
hall, by telling each in turn that she should have the right
of first entry; and this caused a quarrel among them, every
the
one extolling her own husband. Loegaire and Conall each made
a breach in the wall so that his wife should enter first, the door
having been closed; but Cuchulainn removed one side of the
house, and his wife Emer had precedence. Bricriu then de-
manded that
do
this
the
damage should be
repaired, but
none could
save Cuchulainn, and he only after extraordinary

Conchobar now bade the heroes go to Curoi mac
exertions.
Daire, whose judgements were always equitable, in order

that he might settle the question.
On his way Loegaire encountered a repulsive giant with a
cudgel,
who
made him
and Conall met
beat him and
chariot, or charioteer;
return without horses,

the same fate, Cuchu-
lainn alone being able to overcome the giant and to return in

triumph with arms and horses. Bricriu thereupon announced
that the champion's morsel was Cuchulainn's, but his rivals

objected, saying that one of his friends of the side had over-
come them. The Ulstermen now sought judgement from Ailill,

but Cuchulainn remained behind to amuse the women with
Loeg, his charioteer, reproached him with delay.
the swiftness of their chariot-horses they arrived first at
his feats until
By
where water was brought by a hundred and

fifty young girls to provide baths for the heroes, and the most
beautiful of these accompanied them to their couches, Cuchu-
AiliU's palace,
THE HEROIC MYTHS
147
lainn choosing FIndabaIr, Allill's daughter. Ailill asked three

days and nights to consider the question, and on the first
"druidic beasts" from the cave of Cruachan

night three cats
Conall and Loegaire abandoned their food to
arrived.
them, but Cuchulainn attacked them, and at dawn the cats

disappeared, after the manner of other supernatural beings,
who vanish at daybreak. AiHU was In despair how to solve
the problem of the championship, but Medb sneered at him,

and sending for each hero, gave him a cup without the others
would assure him of the champion's

morsel at Conchobar's board. Meanwhile Cuchulainn van-
knowing
it,
saying that
it
quished the others in the sport of wheel-throwing, while he

also threw needles so that each one entered the eye of the
other, forming a single line.
Medb now
sent them to Ercol and Garmna to seek their

and
they referred them to Samera, who dispatched
judgement,
them to the Geniti Glinni. Loegaire and Conall returned without arms or garments; Cuchulainn was at first overcome, but
when Loeg reproached him, his demoniac

attacked them and filled the valley with
fury began, and he
their blood, taking

as a conqueror to Samera, who
banner and going back

he should have the champion's morsel. Returning
that
said
to Ercol, the warriors were challenged to combat him and his
their
Loegaire's steed was killed by Ercol's, and he fled to

Emain, saying that the others were slain by Ercol. Conall
horse.
but Cuchulainn's horse, the Grey of Macha, killed

Ercol's, and he then carried Ercol prisoner to Emain, where
he found everyone lamenting his death. On the way Samera's
also fled,
daughter Buan, who had fallen
in love
with Cuchulainn, leaped
falling on a rock, was killed. A feast

was prepared at Emain Macha and now each hero produced
his cup in expectation of the award. Cuchulainn's cup, however, of gold and precious stones, proved the most valuable
and beautiful, and all would have given him the championship,
after his chariot,
and
had not
maintained that this was not a true judge-
his rivals
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
148
ment and threatened to attack the hero. Conchobar therefore

sent them to Yellow, son of Fair, who bade them go to Terror,
son of Great Fear, a giant who could assume whatever form
pleased him. He proposed the "covenant of the axe," which
Loegaire and Conall refused, whereas Cuchulainn accepted
it, provided they would acknowledge his supremacy, the cov-
enant being that Cuchulainn should cut

today, while Terror cut off his tomorrow.
off Terror's
When
head
Cuchulainn
did his part, Terror took his head and axe and plunged into
but next day he appeared, and Cuchulainn placed

himself in position. Three times Terror drew the axe over
his loch;
neck and then bade him
token of his bravery; but

still his rivals would not give way, so that now the Ulstermen
bade them seek the judgement of Curoi. This axe game is
his
Arthurian romance in the story of Sir Gawayne and

Green Knight, and it is apparently based on an actual
found
the
rise in
in
man, in token of bravery, after an entertain^^

ment, allowing someone to cut his throat with a sword.
At Curoi's castle Blathnat, his wife, welcomed them in his
absence, though he knew they would come, and she bade them
take turns in guarding it. In whatever part of the world Curoi
was, he sang a spell over the castle at night, and it revolved
Celtic
custom
of a
as swiftly as a millstone, so that the entrance could not be
found
an
incident
found
elsewhere
in
Celtic
romance.
Loegaire took the first watch and saw a giant approaching

from the sea, as high as heaven and bearing oak-trees in his
hands, which he threw at Loegaire, missing him each time, after
which the monster stretched out his hand, and squeezing him
he was half-dead, threw him outside the castle. Next

night Conall met the same fate. On the night when Cuchulainn
watched, the three goblins of Sescind Uairbeoil, the three
till
herdsmen of Bregia, and the three sons of Big-Fist the Siren

were to unite to take the castle, while the spirit of the lake
near by would swallow it whole; but Cuchulainn slew the
nine foes when they arrived, as well as two other bands of nine,
THE HEROIC MYTHS

making a
cairn of their heads
149
and arms. Wearied and
sad,
the loch roaring like the sea and saw a monster

emerging from it and approaching with open jaws to gulp the
now heard
he
down. With one leap he came behind it, tore out its
heart, and cutting off its head, placed it on the heap. At dawn
the giant arrived, and when he stretched out his hand, Cuchulainn made his salmon-leap and whirled his sword round his
castle
head, whereupon the monster vanished after having agreed

the sovereignty of Ireland's heroes,
to grant his three wishes
the champion's morsel, and precedence for Emer over the
Cuchulainn's leap had brought him outside

the castle, but after several trials he sprang back into it with
a sigh, and Blathnat said, "That is a sigh of victory." When
women
of Ulster.
Curoi arrived, he found the trophies outside his castle and

gave judgement in Cuchulainn's favour.
Later,
when
all
three were absent from
Emain Macha, a
huge boor arrived, carrying a tree, a vast beam, and an axe

with a handle which required a plough-team to move it. He
announced that he had sought everywhere for a man capable
of lighting him and proposed the covenant of the axe. This
passage repeats grotesquely the former incident, save that
Fat-Neck, who struck off the boor's head, refused to fulfil
his part of the covenant, as also did Loegaire and Conall on
but the boor spared

him, calling him the bravest of warriors and fulfilling for him
the three wishes he had made; for he was none other than
Curoi, who had taken first the giant's, then the boor's form.^*
their return.
Cuchulainn took
his place,
story of The Exile of the Sons of Doel the Forgotten

(Longes mac nDuil Dermait) opens with a version of Bricriu's
The
Cuchulainn had been cursed by Eocho Rond to have

no rest until he discovered why Doel's sons left their country.
With Loeg and Lugaid he captured the ship of the King of
Alba's son, who gave him a charm; and thus they reached an
Feast.
rampart of silver and a palisade of bronze, while

was a castle where dwelt a royal pair
Riangabair and
island with a
on
it
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
I50
FInnabair
with three beautiful daughters.
These welcomed
them, because Loeg was their son; and Riangabair told Cuchulainn that the sister of Doel's sons and her husband were in
In the morning Cuchulainn gave a ring to
Etan, one of the daughters, who had slept with him, and
then sailed for the isle. Connla, husband of Achtland, Doel's
a southern
isle.
daughter, had his head against a stone in the west of the isle,
his feet against another in the east
a position resembling
that in which Nut is represented above the earth in Egyptian
and
Achtland was combing his hair. As the ship

approached, Connla blew so violently that a wave was formed,
but as no diviner had announced danger from Cuchulainn,
mythology.^^
he was allowed to land. Achtland made him a sign and then

said that she knew where her brothers were and that she
was foretold that he would rescue

them. They reached an island where two women were cutting
rushes, and one of them sang of seven Kings who ruled it.
Cuchulainn brained her, whereupon the other told him the
names of the Kings, one of whom was Coirpre, Doel's brother.
Coirpre attacked Cuchulainn, but was forced to sue for mercy
and carried him into the castle, where he gave him his daughter
and told him the story of Doel's sons. Next day Eocho Glas
arrived to fight Coirpre, and Cuchulainn leaped on the edge
of his shield, but Eocho blew him into the sea. Now he leaped
on the boss of the shield, again on Eocho himself, and both
times he was blown into the ocean; but at last he slew his foe
with the gai bolga. Then came the side whom Eocho had
outraged, among them Doel's sons, and bathed in his blood
to wash away the shame. Cuchulainn returned to Riangabair's
isle, where he slept with Finnabair, and finally reaching Emain
Macha, he went thence to Ailill and Aledb, who caused Eocho
Rond to be brought. He had fought Cuchulainn because his
daughter Findchoem loved him, and on her account had put
would go with him,
for
it
geasa (spells) on the hero, who now, having fulfilled them,

demanded and obtained her.^
THE HEROIC MYTHS
151
Both these tales contain many primitive traits and mythical

incidents which throw considerable light on earlier Celtic folkbelief.
Previous to Bricriu's feast must be placed a story in which

Curoi discomfited Cuchulainn. He joined the hero and others
in attacking the stronghold of the
Falga
the
Land
of Promise)
and
god Midir
led
them
in the Isle of
into
it
when
their
through the magic of its defenders, his condition

that
he
must have whatever jewel he chose. The inbeing
vaders carried off Midir's three cows, his cauldron, and his
daughter Blathnat. To Cuchulainn's chagrin, however, Curoi
efforts failed
chose her and took her
away by magic; and though the hero

he
was
bound
hand and foot by Curoi and shaved
pursued him,
^^
with his sword.
Another version of this exploit, or perhaps of an analogous feat, tells how Cuchulainn journeyed to
Scath and by aid of the King's daughter stole a cauldron,
three cows, and much gold; but his coracle was wrecked, and
he had to swim home with his
men
clinging to him.^^
When Cuchulainn went to obtain Curoi's judgement, he

may have come to an arrangement with Blathnat, for Keating
says that, finding him alone, she told him that she loved him,^^
while a story in the Dind'senchas describes her as his paramour
and declares that she bade him come and take his revenge.
She brought it about that Curoi was alone in his castle and
as a signal she caused milk to flow down-stream to Cuchulainn,
whereupon he entered and slew Curoi, whose sword Blathnat
had taken. ^ In another version, however, the incident of
the separable soul occurs. Curoi's soul was in an apple, and
this in a salmon, which appeared every seven years in a certain
well, while the apple could be split only by Curoi's sword.
This knowledge was obtained by Curoi's wife, as in parallel
stories, and the sword given by her to Cuchulainn, who thus
compassed her husband's death.^^ The folk-tale formula is

thus complete, though doubtless Curoi is a genuine Celtic
personality, whose fame was known to Welsh bards.^- ProbIII
II
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
152
ably a complete saga existed about this great hero or divinity

and magician, who, according to another story, with his magic
wand took possession of Ireland and the great world.^^ The
slaying of Curoi should be
compared with that of Lieu, brought

about by Blodeuwedd's treachery, and with the killing of
Searbhan by his own club, especially as Blodeuwedd's name,
meaning "Flower-Face," from blodeu ("flowers") is akin to
Blathnat's, which is probably from hldth ("bloom"). In the
sequel Curoi's poet avenged his death
with Blathnat in his arms.^^
by leaping
off
clifF
The
greatest adventure in Cuchulainn's career occurs in

the Tain Bo Ciialnge, or Cattle-Raid of Cualnge,^^ to which
belong a number of prefatory tales, some of them already
Only the briefest account of this long story can be given

Queen Medb of Connaught desired the Donn or Brown
Bull of Cualnge in Ulster, so that she might have the equivalent
of her husband Ailill's bull, the Findbennach, or "Whitecited.
here.
Horned," these
semi-divinities.
Medb
narrated above,^^ being rebirths of

Daire, owner of the bull, refused to give
bulls, as
When
an enormous force to march against Ulster

the Ulstermen were in their "debility"
the result of Macha's curse.^^ Cuchulainn and Sualtam were
unaffected by that curse, however, and they went against the
host, in which were some heroes of Ulster, Cormac, Conall,
it,
collected
at the time
when
Fiacha, and Fergus, exiled because of a quarrel with Conchobar

for his treacherous murder of the sons of Usnech. As Medb
set out, a beautiful girl
suddenly appeared on her chariot-
announcing herself as servant of Medb's people, Fedelm

the prophetess {banjaid) from the sid of Cruachan (hence Medb
was also of the side) but she prophesied disaster because of
shaft,
Cuchulainn,
whom
she saw in a vision.
Cuchulainn, having entered a forest, stood on one leg, and

using one hand and one eye, he cut down an oak sapling, which
he twisted into a ring, inscribing on it his name, and placing

it over a pillar-stone. This was a geis (tabu) to the host not to
PLATE XIX
Bulls and S-Symbols
6.
1.
conventionally
Bulls,
treated,
characteristic Celtic spiral ornament.
with
From
the
stones
found at Burghhead near Forres, Elginshire. Similar figures exist on stones at Inverness and Ulbster
They
(Caithness).
Christian
pagan
IX, B,
Celtic
period,
B,
but perhaps represent a
Cf. also Plates II, 4-5, 9, III,
tradition.
XX,
are believed to date from the
5,
XXI.
2-5. S-symbol, also believed to be of the Celtic
Christian period, but doubtless derived from the

as used on Gaulish coins and carried
same symbol
by
a divinity (see Plates II,
2,
4,
7-9, 11, III,
3,
IV).
2.
On
a silver brooch found at Croy, Inverness-
On
a stone
shire.
3.
shire.
It exists
found at Kintradwell, Sutherlanda few other stones.
on
Engraved with numerous other figures and

symbols on a cave at East Wemyss, Fife.
4.
5.
On
a silver ring attached to a chain
Parkhill, Aberdeenshire.
found at
THE HEROIC MYTHS
153
had done the same; and meanwhile he

with her
kept tryst with Conchobar's daughter Fedelm or
fork of
he
cut
down
the
a
handmaid. Again entering
wood,
a tree, placed on it four heads of the enemy slain by him, and
advance
set
until they
prevent the chariots from passing until it

Now he slew hundreds of the host, but a
in a ford to
it
was drawn out.

in
treaty was made that every day a warrior should meet him
the army to proceed. These
single combat, while he allowed
combats, described with great spirit, as well as other daring
deeds of Cuchulainn's, occupy the greater part of the Tain,
but none of them
so full of interest
is
and pathos
as the long
with
episode of the fight with Ferdia, his former fellow-pupil
he
slew.
his
sorrow
at
last
to
Scathach, whom
One
incident
Morrigan,
in the
warning given by the goddess

beware of Medb's
tells
of the
form
of a bird, to the bull to
so that with fifty heifers he fled to the Heifer's Glen,
men,
but was ultimately taken and brought to Medb's host; and
another passage describes Cuchulainn's rejection of Morrihim.^^
gan's advances, and her wounding and later heaHng by
There
bid
is
also the incident of
him smear
a false
Medb's sending her women
to
beard on himself when her warrior, Loch,
refused to fight this beardless youth, whereupon he said a spell

over some grass and clapped it to his chin, so that all thought
The
help given to Cuchulainn by Lug has

already been described ;^^ and the Tuatha De Danann likewise
aided him by throwing healing herbs and plants into the
he had a beard.
streams in which his wounds were washed.

long account of
Interesting
is
the
his riastrad, or "distortion," before
wreaking
on the men of Connaught for slaying the "boy corps"
of Emain. He grew to an immense size and quivered in every
limb, while his feet, shins, and knees were reversed in his
his fury
body.
This was the permanent condition of Levarcham and
and
implied swiftness and

all Ireland every day.
Of Cuchulainn's eyes, one sank in his head so that a heron
Dornolla,
already
strength, since
mentioned,
Levarcham traversed
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
154
could not have reached

its
It,
while the other protruded from

mouth reached
socket as large as the rim of a cauldron. His
his ears,
and
fire
streamed from
it,
mounting above
his
head
blood higher and more rigid

than a ship's mast shot upward from his scalp, within which
his hair retreated, and formed a mist all about. This distortion
in showers, while a great jet of
frequently came upon Cuchulainn, like the terrific heat sometimes given off by his body, enough to melt deep snow for
thirty feet around.
During the progress of the Tain Ailill sent messengers to

Cuchulainn, oifering him his daughter Findabair if he would
keep away from the host. Finally his fool, taking Ailill's
shape, approached the hero with Findabair, but Cuchulainn
detected the transformation and slew him, besides thrusting
a stone through Findabair's mantle and tunic. She had been
and others if they conquered Cuchulainn;

but later she died of shame because of the slaughter of warriors
in the fight between the chiefs to whom she had been promised
and her lover Reochaid and his men. In the version given in
the Book of Lecan, however, she remained with Cuchulainn
offered to Ferdia
when peace was concluded. This
is
the same Findabair
who
the heroine of the story of Fraoch cited above, and whose

favours Cuchulainn had already gained. ^^
is
Meanwhile the Ulstermen had recovered from their debility

and gathered for the battle with the enemy, while the goddess
Morrigan uttered a song of slaughter between the armies.
Medb's forces were defeated, but she sent the bull by a circuitous way to Cruachan; and seeing the trackless land before
him, he uttered three terrible bellowings, at which the Findbennach came hurrying toward him. Bricriu saw the wild combat
between the maddened animals, but
as they struggled he
was
trampled into the earth by their hoofs. All over Ireland they
drove, fighting as they went; and next day the Brown Bull
was seen coming to Ciaalnge with the Findbennach in a mangled
heap on
his horns.
Women
and children wept
as they beheld
THE HEROIC MYTHS
155
him, but these he slew; and then, turning his back against a
hill, his heart was rent with his mighty exertions. Thus ended
the Tdin.^^
Cuchulainn was now seventeen years old, and to the few

years which ensued before his death probably belong his
amour with the goddess Fand and that with Blathnat, since
Curoi intended to oppose him during the Tdin^ but was sent
back by Medb.
The
slaying of Curoi, of Cairbre Niaper in fair fight at Ros na

Righ, and of Calatin, as well as his twenty-seven sons and
his sister's son, during the Tain, led to the hero's death. Cala-
bore posthumously three monstrous sons and three

daughters who were nurtured by Medb and studied magic
arts in order to compass Cuchulainn's death. Joining at last
tin's wife
with Lugaid, Curoi's son, and Ere, Cairbre's son, they marched
toward Ulster while its men were in their debility. Mighty
efforts
all
were made to restrain Cuchulainn from a combat which
knew would be
fatal to him,
and he was at
last
concealed
Glen of the Deaf; but Calatin's daughters discovered

and created a phantasmal army out of puff-balls andi
in the
this
withered leaves, as Lug's witches transformed into soldiers'

This
trees, sods, and stones, and Gwydion trees and sedges.
'^^
army and
other eldritch things
filled
the glen with strange
and Cuchulainn thought that enemies were harassing

Ulster, though Cathbad told him that this was merely magic
illusion. Then one of the weird daughters took the form of
noises,
Niamh, daughter
of
Celtchar,
bade Cuchulainn attack the
and speaking
foes
in
her name,
who were overwhelming
Neither the protestations of the real Niamh, nor of

Dechtire, nor of Conchobar, nor the assurances of Cathbad
Ulster.
that the hosts were illusions could withhold him.
On
way
Emain he saw Badb's daughter washing blood from a
the "Washer at the Ford," a prophecy of
warrior's gear
but he was resolute and cheerful in face of
his own death
to
his
the desperate fight to which he bound himself.
During the
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
156
night Morrigan broke his chariot, hoping thus to stay him

from the combat, but next morning he bade it be yoked with
the Grey of Macha, though the horse reproached him. On his
way three crones, cooking dog's flesh with poisons and spells,
called him, but since one of his geasa was not to approach a
cooking-hearth nor to eat the flesh of his namesake (cw, "dog"),

he would have passed on, had not the crones reproached him.
So he turned aside, took the flesh with his left hand, and ate it,
placing his hand under his thigh, whereupon strength departed
from thigh and hand. In the fight he slew many foes, until
Lugaid possessed himself of Cuchulainn's spear and wounded

the Grey of Macha, which plunged into the loch for heahng;
first
and then Cuchulainn, who begged permission to crawl to the

loch for water. He set himself against a pillar-stone, and there
the faithful horse returned and killed many of his foes with
teeth and hoofs; but at last Lugaid struck off Cuchulainn's
head, though as the hero's sword fell from his grasp, it lopped
enemy's hand. Meanwhile Conall was met by the horse,
off his
and together they sought and found Cuchulainn's body, the

Grey placing its head on its master's breast. Conall pursued
Lugaid, for Cuchulainn and he had vowed that whoever
survived must avenge the others; and his own horse aided him,
biting a piece from Lugaid's side, while Conall cut off his
^head, thus taking vengeance for the hero's death.
Lugaid, Curoi's son, was called Mac na Tri Con, or
"Son
of
the Three Dogs," viz. Curoi, Cuchulainn, and Conall

con
because it was believed that
being the genitive oicu ("dog")
his
mother Blathnat, Curoi's
well as her husband.

of his
^^
and was himself
wife,
had loved these two
as
Thus Lugaid killed one reputed father

by another. A tenth century poem
slain
grave Murder, Disgrace, and

not
Cuchulainn's friend Lugaid
Treachery.^*
probably
was
also
a son of three fathers,
Red-Stripes, who, however,
calls
the three flags of
his
He was
Bres, Nar, and Lothar,
by
their sister Clothru.
In his old age Conall retired to the Court of Medb,
who
THE HEROIC MYTHS

induced him to slay
157
but for this the three Reds, or

Wolves, killed him and cut off his head in revenge for the death
of Curoi at the hands of Cuchulainn.'*^
Conchobar met
Ailill;
his
fate
in
curious
way.
Among
the
Emain Macha was
a sling-ball made of the brain

of Mesgegra, King of Leinster, slain by Conall. One day Cet,
whom Conall killed at the feast on Mac Datho's Boar, stole
trophies in
this ball,
which was mixed with earth, and thus hardened, and

women of Connaught to get Conchobar to
later induced the
show himself to them, whereupon Cet flung the ball into his
forehead, whence it could not be removed lest he should die.
Years after, an earthquake occurred, and when his Druid told
him that this signified our Lord's crucifixion, Conchobar, who
now
believed in God, felt such emotion at not being able to

avenge Christ that the ball started from his head, and he
died.46
M.
d'Arbois maintained that the saga of Cuchulainn was

in Gaul. Cuchulainn's name Setanta is akin to that
known
of the Setantii, Celtic tribes living in the district between the

Ribble and Morecambe Bay, and this, according to Rhys,*^
suggests a British ancestry for the Irish hero. D'Arbois, on
the other hand, regards this folk, as well as the Brigantes, as
of Belgic Gaulish provenance, while the latter had colonies
a well-known god, Esus, whom d'Arbois

identifies with Cuchulainn; whence the story is of Gaulish
in Ireland.
They had
perhaps taught by the Druids; and it was ultimately

carried to Ulster, where it was received with enthusiasm.^^
origin,
The
on certain figured monuments, in the

persons, names, or episodes of which M. d'Arbois sees those of
the saga. On one altar Esus is cutting down a tree, while on the
identification rests
altar Is figured a bull on which are perched three birds,

"the bull with
animal being entitled Tarvos Trigaranos
three cranes" (garanus), unless the cranes are a rebus for the
three horns {karenos) of divine animals. On another altar from
same
this
Treves a god
is
cutting
down
a tree, and in
its
branches are
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
158
a bull's head
and two birds
on the other
incidents
the
illustrating
altar.
possible combination of the
M.
d'Arbois regards this as
Esus, the woodman, is Cuchulainn;

what the hero did
cutting down trees to
Medb's host; "Esus" is derived from words
Tdi?!.
his action depicts
bar the
way
of
meaning "anger," "rapid motion," such

displayed.
The
bull
is
the
Brown
Cuchulainn often
as
the birds are the
Bull;
forms in which Morrigan and her sisters appeared,

though
these bird-forms were those of the crow, not the crane; the
'^^
personal name Donnotaurus

the
lent of the Donn Tarb
is
found
"Brown
in
Gaul and
is
the equiva-
^^
Again, Diodorus
Castor and Pollux, were the gods
Bull."
says that the Dioscuri, i. e.

most worshipped by the Celts in the west of Gaul,^^ and
M.
d'Arbois finds these in Cuchulainn and Conall Cernach, the

former being foster-brother of the latter, having been suckled
by Findchoem, Conall's mother. He bases this identification
found at Paris, on the four sides of which are

represented the Roman Castor and Pollux and two Gaulish
divinities
SmertuUos attacking a serpent with a club, and
on an
altar
an unnamed horned god, perhaps the god Cernunnos {cernu-,

"horn"). SmertuUos is, therefore, the native equivalent of
Pollux, Cernunnos of Castor; and at the same time SmertuUos
In the Tain
is Cuchulainn, and Cernunnos is Conall Cernach.
as
an
eel
the serpent of
Cuchulainn vanquished Morrigan
the
monument and,
again,
to
hide his
youthfulness,
he
smeared {smerthain, hence SmertuUos) his chin with a false

beard. As for Conall Cernach, whose epithet means "victorious," M. d'Arbois connects It also with the hypothetical
cernu- ("horn"), though Conall is never said to be horned. ^^
Lug, Cuchulainn's father, was a widely worshipped Celtic
god, his equivalent in Gaul being a hypothetical Lugus, whose
name appears
in
place-names there.
As Lug was called

Lugus may be the
samilddnach ("skilled in many arts"),^^

Gaulish god equated by Caesar with Mercury,
"inventor of
all
whom
he calls
arts" and associates with the simulacra^ or
PLATE
XX
AND B
Altar from Notre Dame

The god Esus (cf.
vegetation, and human
A.
hanged on
trees.
He
p. 9) was perhaps a deity of

victims offered to him were
has been identified, though

(cf. Plate
with slight probability, with Cuchulainn
He
here shown cutting down a tree,

the branches of which are carried over to the next
XVIII).
is
side of the altar.
B.
The next
side of the
same
altar,
dedicated by
sailors and found at Notre Dame, Paris. Under the

branches of the tree which Esus is felling stands a
bull with three cranes perched
Trigaranos (see
II,
4-5, 9, III,
of these
two
p. 9).
5,
on
his
back
Tarvos
For the bull see also Plates
IX, B,
XIX,
I,
6.
The
subjects
sides of the altar recur in an altar from
Treves (Plate XXI).
THE HEROIC MYTHS
of
Now
on one of these at Kervadcl

were sculptured in Gallo-Roman times, one
standing-stones, of Gaul.
four bas-reliefs
159
them depicting the god Mercury together with
childish figure;
and M. d'Arbois assumes that
a smaller
this represents
the god Lug with his son Cuchulainn.^^
Tempting
as these identifications are,
it
must be confessed
that they
upon comparatively slender evidence and on
what may be merely apparent coincidences, while they are of
an extremely speculative character.
rest
CHAPTER
XIII
THE HEROIC MYTHS

{Contmued)
II.
THEand
FIONN AND THE FfiiNN
annalists gave a historic aspect and a specific date

ancestry to Fionn and his men, the Feinn, but they
and are immortal because they sprang from the heroic

if they were once men, it was in a
period of
which no written record remains. Their main story possesses
a framework and certain outstanding facts, but whatever far
exist
ideals of the folk;
distant actuality the epos has is thickly overlaid with fancy,

so that we are in a world of exaggerated action, of magic,
whenever we approach any story dealing with the Feinn.

annalistic scheme added nothing to the epos; rather is it
as if to the vague personalities of folk-tale had been given
a date, names, and a line of long descent, which may delight
The
prosaic minds, though it spoils the folk-tale for the imaginative.

Traces of the annalistic scheme occur in the chronological
poem
of Gilla
Caemhain
(ob.
1072) and in the Annals of
which regarded the Feinn as a hireling

Tighernach
militia defending Ireland, consisting of seven legions or Fianna
(also Feinn, literally "troops"), each of three thousand men
(ob. 1088),
with a commander.
those of our
of Leinster
the
epos
and Meath com-
clanna Baoisgne, its later

the
clanna
(of
Morna), and Fionn.
are told of their arms, dress, and privileges, and of the
prised
chiefs being
We
The Feinn
Cumhal, GoU
conditions of admission to their ranks
some
almost super-
human;^ and we learn that their exactions became so heavy

that king and people rose against them and routed them
THE HEROIC MYTHS

at Cnucha, where
Cumhal, father of Fionn,
opponent GoU became head
of the Feinn,
himself; but as a result of their
new
i6i
fell.
pretensions the Feinn were
finally destroyed at Gabhra.

Many Feinn stories are coloured
applied to
references
Later his
and then Fionn
by this scheme, which was

them at an early period; yet alongside the oldest
to it we find stories or allusions which show that the
imaginative aspect was as strong then as it was later, and

that at an early date there was much Fionn literature so well
known
^
persons or incidents sufficed.
recent writer suggests that Fionn was originally a hero
of the subject race of the Galioin in North Leinster,^ who
that mere reference to
its
are constantly associated with Firbolgs and Fir Domnann.

These appear to be remnants of a pre-Celtic population in
and are usually despised for evil qualities, though

they have strong magical powers, just as conquerors often
Ireland,'*
consider aboriginal races to be superior magicians, if inferior

human beings. These races furnished military service for the
down
dominant
and
of
these
"Milesian" monarchs in the fifth century;
Fianna^
Fionn (whose name means "white" and has nothing to do
with fianna or feinn), whether he really existed or not, was
Celtic kings of their district
regarded as chief.
Mac
to the rise of the
Firbis, a seventeenth
century author,
quotes an earlier writer who says that Fionn was of the sept
of the Ui Tarsig, part of the tribe of the Galioin. Cumhal,
his father, of the clanna Baoisgne, is represented in the Boyish
a story copied from
Deeds of Fionn {Macgnimartha Finn) ^
the tenth century Psalter of Cashel into a later manuscript

as striving at Cnucha with Uirgreann and the clanna Luagni,
aided by the clanna Morna, both subject tribes, for the chief
Fiannship {Fiannuigeacht). Only in later accounts of the
battle
the
is
Conn, the High King (Ardri), introduced, and though
annalistic
conception colours
otherwise mythical
tale, it
the
introduction to
appears to be based on
of clan feuds, especially as Fionn himself
was
this
recollections
later slain
by
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
62
members of the clanna Uirgreann. With growing popularity,

he became a Leinster Irish hero, fighting against other Irish
mainly those of Ulster; but it was not until the middle
Irish period that the Fionn story, which had now spread
tribes,
through a great part of Ireland among the Celtic
folk,
with
developments, was adopted by the literary class

dominant tribes, as at an earlier period they had taken
over the Cuchulainn saga from the Ulstermen. They were
many
local
of the
rewriting Irish history in the light of contemporary events
and of their own ambitions; and accordingly they transfigured

and remoulded the legend of Fionn, which afiôrded them an
ever-growing literary structure. The forced service of the
Fianna became that of a highly developed militia under
imaginary high kings, whence the rise of tales in which Fionn
Conn, Cormac,
brought into relation with these rulers
second
in the
and third centuries. The
Art, and Cairbre
is
Fianna became defenders of Ireland against foreign invasion;

they battled with Norsemen; they even went outside Ireland
and conquered European or Asiatic kings.
In origin Fionn was the ideal hero of a subject, non-Celtic
race, as Cumhal had been, and they were located at Almha
tended, however, to become historic

figures, associated primarily with the forced service of such
a race, then with the later mythic national militia; but despite
the Hill of Allen.
They
mythic aspect was theirs from first to last, while the

was constantly being augmented. To Oisin,
son of Fionn, are ascribed many poems about the Feinn: hence
this, a
cycle of legends
he must have been regarded traditionally as the poet of the

band, rather than his father, who studied the art and ate
the salmon of knowledge. Few excelled in bravery Oisin's
son, Oscar. Caoilte mac Ronan, Fionn's nephew, was famed
for fleetness; at full speed he appeared as three persons and
March wind, though it could not

him. Diarmaid ui Duibhne, who "never knew weari-
could overtake the swift

outstrip
ness of foot, nor shortness of breath, nor, whether in going
THE HEROIC MYTHS
163
in, ever flagged," possessed a "beauty-spot"

and
no
woman who saw it could resist "the light(ball-seirc)
some countenance" of "yellow-haired DIarmaid of the women."
Goll of clanna Morna, Fionn's enemy, and then his friend,
but with whom a feud arose which ended In his death, was
out or in coming
;
probably the ideal warrior, prodigiously strong, noble, and

brave, of a separate saga. Conan Maol was also of clanna
Morna, and his father aided in slaying Cumhal at Cnucha,
which Fionn afterward put an eric, or fine, upon him.

Although of the Feinn, he was continually rejoicing at their
for
misfortunes in foul-mouthed language; and this Celtic Thersites, "wrecker and great disturber of the Feinn," was constantly in trouble through his boldness and reckless bravery
"claw
and
for claw,
said to the devil."
comic character.
prominent;
these circles
all
Conan
In later accounts he appears rather as a

MacLugach of the Terrible Hand is also
so, too, is
preter of dreams,
devil take the shortest nails, as
and
Fergus True-Lips, the wise seer, interpoet. Others come and go, but round
the breathless interest of this heroic epos.
Their occupations were fighting on a vast scale, the records

of which, like those of the Cuchulainn saga, are often tiresome
and ghastly; mighty huntings, watched from some hill- top

by Fionn, and described with zest and not a little romantic
beauty as the hunt wends by forests, glens, watercourses,
smiling valleys; lastly, love-making, for these warriors
could woo tenderly and with compelling power. Their vast
one of their skulls held a man seated
strength and size
or
tend to remove them from the puny race of mere human

beings; yet though of divine descent, they were not immortal, so that Caoilte says of a goddess: "She is of the
Tuatha De Danann, who are unfading and whose duration
perennial; I am of the sons of Milesius, that are perishable
and fade away."*'
is
While the Cuchulainn legend had a definite number of

tales and, after a certain date, remained complete, the Fionn
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
64
cycle received continual additions. New stories were written,

new incidents invented or borrowed from existing folk-tale
or saga, until comparatively recent times. Again, unlike the

Cuchulainn saga, the Fionn cycle contains numerous poems;
while the former has fewer folk-tale versions of

stories
The
than the
its
literary
latter.
interest of Fionn's ancestral line begins with
Cumhal.
The Boyish Deeds shows him engaging in a clan feud with the
clanna Luagni, assisted by the clanna of which Morna was
Morna's son Aodh took a leading part in the battle

and was prominent afterward under the name Goll ("OneEyed "), because he lost an eye there; Cumhal fell at his stroke.'^
chief.
is given in the Leabhar na

a
this, Tadg,
Druid, succeeded to Almha, the
castle of his father Nuada, who also was a Druid; and Tadg's
different account of the battle
In
hUidhre.
daughter Muirne was sought in marriage by Cumhal, but

refused, because Tadg foresaw that he would lose Almha
through him.
complained to
Cumhal then abducted her, whereupon Tadg

the High King, Conn, who ordered Cumhal to
give her up or leave the country.
He
refused, however,
and
an army, fought Conn's men, including Uirgreann,

and
Morna,
Goll, the latter of whom slew him, whence there
was feud between Cumhal's descendants and Goll.^
Although Tadg and Nuada are called Druids, Nuada is
elsewhere one of the Tuatha De Danann, and he is probably
collecting
Nuada who fought
at Alag-Tured;^ while Tadg is

also said to be from the sid of Almha, which is thus regarded
both as a divine dwelling and as a fort. Hence Fionn is affili-
the god
ated to the gods, and another tradition makes his mother's

father Bracan, a warrior of the Tuatha De Danann. ^ Cumhal
known from inscripwhose name is also found in
has been identified with a god Camulos,

tions
in
Gaul and Scotland,
Camulodunum
(.^Colchester).
Mars, he was a
As Camulos was equated with
a
warrior-god
that of Cumhal, though
if
character in keeping with

the latter was a non-Celtic hero,
THE HEROIC MYTHS

and
if
his
excluded.
name should be
165
read Umall, the identification
is
^^
Fionn, a posthumous child, was at first called Deimne. For

safety's sake he was taken by Bodhmhall and the Liath
Luchra and reared
in the wilds,
where, while
still
a child, he
^^
At ten years
strangled a polecat and had other adventures.
old he came to a fortress on the LifFey, where the boys were
playing hurley, and beat them; and when they described him
as "fair" to its owner, he said that his name should be Fionn
("Fair"), but that they must kill him if he returned. Nevertheless, next day he slew seven of them and a week later
drowned nine more when they challenged him at swimming.^^

While this incident resembles one in Cuchulainn's early career,
in other, probably later, accounts, the match takes place
in the presence of the
"
Fionn."
incident
^'^
is
High King, Conn, who
called the
boy
In the Colloquy with the Ancients^ however, another

found. GoU had been made chief of the Feinn after
Cumhal's death; and when ten years old, Fionn came to

Conn, announcing that he wished to be reconciled with him
and to enter his service. Conn now ofi"ered his rightful heritage
to him who would save Tara from being burnt by Allien mac
Midhna of the Tuatha De Danann, who yearly made every
one sleep through his fairy music and then set fire to the
Fionn did not succumb to the music, because of
fortress.
the magic power of a weapon given him by one of his father's
comrades, and he also warded off with his mantle the flame
mouth and succeeded
beheading him, so that

he was given GoU's position, while GoU made friends with
him rather than go into exile. ^^ In the account of Cumhal's
from
Aillen's
in
death as given in the Leahhar na hUidhre, Conn advised

Muirne to go to her sister Bodhmhall, at whose house Fionn
was born. Later he challenged Tadg to single combat, or to

and
fight him with many, or to pay a fine for Cumhal's death;
to
surrender
Tadg, appealing for a judgement, was forced
Almha to Fionn. Peace was now made between Fionn and Goll.^^
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
66
story of Flonn's "thumb of knowledge" belongs in

versions to this period. To learn the art of poetry he
The
some
went to Finneces, who for seven years sought to capture a
salmon which would impart supernatural knowledge to him
and after he had caught it,
the "salmon of knowledge"
he bade Fionn cook it, forbidding him to taste it. When
Finneces inquired whether he had eaten any of it, Fionn
replied, "No, but my thumb I burned, and I put it into my
mouth after that"; whereupon Finneces gave him the name
Fionn, since prophecy had announced that Fionn should eat
the salmon. He ate it in fact, and ever after, on placing his
thumb in his mouth, knowledge of things unknown came to
him.^^ This story, based on the universal idea that super-
natural knowledge or acquaintance with the language of beasts

comes from eating part of an animal, often a snake, is parto the story of Gwion's obtaining inspiration intended for
^^
and to that of the Norse Sigurd, who, roasting
Avagddu
allel
the heart of the dragon Fafnir, intended for the dwarf, burned
his finger, placed it in his mouth, and so obtained supernatural
wisdom. In German
animal
a Haselzvurm, a snake
found under a hazel, like the Celtic salmon which ate the nuts
falling from the hazels of knowledge. As told of Fionn, the
story is a folk-tale formula applied to him, but the conception
tales the
is
ultimately rests upon the belief in beneficial results from the

ritual eating of a sacred animal with knowledge superior to
man's.
Among American
Indians, Maoris,
Solomon
Islanders,
and others there are figured representations of a medicineman with a reptile whose tongue is attached to his own, and
it is actually believed by the American Indians that the
magician
postulant
mysterious otter, takes its

round his neck in a bag, after which he
catches
tongue, and hangs it

understands the language of
When
his
all
creatures. ^^
Fionn sought supernatural knowledge, he chewed

or laid it on his tooth, to which it had given this
thumb
clairvoyant
gift; or,
again, the knowledge
is
already in his
PLATE XXI
Altar from Treves
deity (Esus)
fells
a tree in the foliage of which a
head appears, while three cranes perch on the

branches (Tarvos Trigaranos). The bas-relief thus
bull's
combines the subjects of two sides of the altar from

Notre Dame (Plate XX).
THE HEROIC MYTHS

thumb.
Culdub from the
167
sid stole the food of the
Feinn on
three successive nights, but was caught by Fionn, who also

followed a woman who had come from the sid to obtain water.
She shut the door on

difficulty;
his
thumb, which he extricated with
and then, having sucked
it,
he found that he
knew
In another account, however, part of his

knowledge came from drinking at a well owned by the Tuatha
De Danann.^^
future events.^"
Folk-tale versions of Flonn's youth resemble the literary

Cumhal did not marry,
forms, with differences in detail.
because It was prophesied that if he did he would die In the

next battle; yet having fallen In love with the king's daughter,
he wedded her secretly, although a Druid had told the monarch that his daughter's son would dethrone him, wherefore
a common folk-tale incident. As his

he kept her concealed
death was at hand Cumhal begged his mother to rear his
but
child,
by
its
it
was thrown Into a
loch,
grandmother, who caused
from which
man
to
it
was rescued
make them
in a tree and, to preserve the secret, killed him.
room
When
the
boy was fifteen, she took him to a hurllng-match, and the king,
who was present, cried, "Who is that fin cumhal ('white
cap')?" The woman called out, "Fin mac Cumhal will be his
name," and again
fled,
this
being followed by the
thumb
incident with the formula of Odysseus and the Cyclops, in

which a one-eyed giant is substituted for Finneces. Later,
Fionn fought the beings who threw down a dun which was
In course of construction and for this obtained the king's
daughter, while the heroes killed by these beings were restored
^^
Scots ballad and folk-tale
by him and became his followers.
versions contain some of these Incidents, but vary much as
to Cumhal. In one he goes to Scotland and defeats the Norse,
and there sets up as a king; but Irish and Norse kings entice
him to Ireland, persuade him to marry, and kill him in his
His posthumous son Is carried by his nurse to

the wilds, and then follows the naming Incident and that of
wife's arms.
III
12
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
68
the
thumb
of knowledge,
though here Black Arcan, Cumhal's
murderer, takes the place of Finneces and is slain by Fionn

on learning of his guilt from his thumb. Lastly Fionn obtains
his rightful due.^^
is
His birth incident and subsequent history
an example of the Aryan "Expulsion and Return" formula,
Nutt pointed out, and is paralleled in other Celtic instances.

In the Boyish Deeds of Fionn Cruithne became Fionn's
wife, but in other tales he possesses other wives or mistresses.
as
In the Colloquy with the Ancients his wife Sabia, daughter of

the god Bodb Dearg, died of horror at the slaughter when
Fionn's
men
ballad also
fought
GoU and
the clanna Morna.-*
makes Dearg's daughter mother
An
Irish
of Oisin, while
a second daughter offered herself to Fionn for a year to the

exclusion of all others, after which she was to enjoy half of
but he refused, whereupon she gave him a potion

which caused a frenzy.^^ Sabia, Oisin's mother, is the Saar
his society;
whom
a Druid changed into a deer. Spells were

laid on Fionn to marry the first female creature whom he met,
of tradition,
and
this
was Saar,
recognized her as a
as a deer,
woman
a child with deer's hair
on
though by
transformed.
his
knowledge he
afterward found
his
He
temple, for
if
Saar licked her
would have a deer's form; if not, that of a human

could
not resist giving him one lick, however, and
She
being.
hair grew on his brow, whence his name Oisin, or "Little
Fawn." Many ballads recount this incident, but in one the
offspring, he
deer is Grainne, whose story will be told presently,^^ although

elsewhere she is called Blai.-^ Another divine or fairy mistress
of Fionn's could
assume many animal shapes, and hence he
renounced her. Mair, wife of Bersa, also
fell
in love
with him
and formed nine nuts with love-charms, sending them to him

that he might eat them; but he refused and buried them, because they were "an enchantment for drinking love." -^ Another love-affair turned Fionn's hair grey. Cuailnge, smith
to the Tuatha De Danann, had two daughters, Miluchradh
and Aine, both of
whom
loved Fionn.
Aine, however, said
THE HEROIC MYTHS
169
that she would never marry a man with grey hair, whereupon Miluchradh caused the gods to make a lake, on which
she breathed a spell that
all
who bathed
become
lake by a doe and
there should
grey. One day Fionn was drawn to this

was induced to jump into it to recover the ring of a woman
sitting by the shore; but when he emerged, she had vanished,
and he was a withered old man. The Feinn dug down toward
sid, when she appeared with a drinking-horn
which restored Fionn's youth, but left his hair grey, while
Miluchradh's
^^
One poem offers a partial
jeered at his misfortune.
the
to
incident
of
and Conlaoch, without
Cuchulainn
parallel
Conan
its tragic ending. Oisin, angry with his father, went away for
a year, after which father and son met without recognition.
Fionn gave Oisin a blow, and both then reviled each other
until the discovery of their relationship,
was happily
when
the dispute
settled.^"
Fionn's hounds. Bran and Sgeolan, were nephews of his

own, for Ulan married Fionn's wife's sister Tuirrean, whom
his fairy mistress transformed into a wolf-hound which gave
birth to these
famous dogs. Afterward, when Ulan promised
to renounce Tuirrean, the fairy restored her form.^^
Fionn's adventures are mainly of a supernatural kind

combats with gods, giants, phantoms, and other fantastic
beings, apart from those in which he fought Norsemen or

other foreign powers, an anachronism needing no comment.
On one occasion Fionn, Oisin, and Caoilte came to a mysterious
house, where a giant seized their horses and bade them enter.
In the house were a three-headed hag and a headless man
with an eye in
his breast;
and
as they sang at the giant's bid-
and nine heads on the

other, shrieking discordantly. Slaying the horses, he cooked
their flesh on rowan spits, and a part, uncooked, was brought
to Fionn, but was refused by him. Then a fight began, and
Fionn wielded his sword until sunrise, when all three heroes
ding, nine bodies arose on one side
fell
into a swoon.
When
they recovered, the house had van-
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
lyo
and they realized that the three "phantoms" were the
ished,
three shapes out of Yew Glen, which had thus taken revenge
for injury done to their sister, Culenn Wide-Maw.^^
In The Fairy Palace of the Quicken-Trees {Bruighean Caorthuinn) Fionn defeated and killed the King of Lochlann,
but spared
his
son Midac, bringing him up in his household.

ill, for he chose land on either side of the
Midac requited him
Shannon's mouth, where armies could land, and then invited
Fionn and
his
men
Oisin, Diarmaid,
Midac
left
to the palace of the quicken-trees, while
and four others remained
the palace,
when
all its
the Feinn were unable to move.
outside.
Presently
splendour disappeared, and
Meanwhile an army
arrived,
but Diarmaid and the others repulsed it after long fighting;

and he released Fionn and the rest with the blood of three
^^
kings.
In a folk- tale version the blood was exhausted before
Conan was reached, and he said to Diarmaid, "If I were a

pretty woman, you would not have left me to the last," whereupon Diarmaid tore him away, leaving his skin sticking to the
seat.^* The house created by glamour in these stories, and
vanishing at dawn, has frequently been found in other tales.
The Feinn were sometimes aided by, sometimes at war
Tuatha De Danann, though in later tales these

seem robbed of much of their divinity, one story regarding
them almost as demoniac. Conaran, a chief of the Tuatha
De Danann, bade his three daughters punish Fionn for his
with, the
hunting. On three holly sticks they hung hasps of yarn in

front of a cave and reeled them off withershins, while they sat
in the
others
cavern as hideous hags and magically bound Fionn and

who entered it. Now arrived GoU, Fionn's former
enemy, and with him the hags fought; but two of them he
halved by a clean sword-sweep, and the third, after being
vanquished, restored the heroes. Afterward, however, when
she reappeared to avenge her sisters' death, Goll slew her and
giving its wealth to Fionn, who
bestowed his daughter on him.^^ Goll is here deemed a hero,
then burned Conaran's
sid,
THE HEROIC MYTHS

as in
many poems which lament
Fionn, after a brave defence.
his
171
ultimate lonely death by
GoU
In these
is
superior to Fionn,
and he was the popular hero of the Feinn in Donegal and

Connaught, as if there had been a cycle of tales in these
districts in
which he was the central
figure.^^
Fionn also fought the Muireartach, a horrible one-eyed hag

whose husband was the ocean-smith, while she was foster-
mother to the King of Lochlann. She captured from the Feinn

a clay vessel the contents of which
their "cup of victory"
but after a battle in which the
made them victorious
was slain, the cup was recovered. The hag

returned, however, and killed some of the Feinn, but Fionn
caused the ground to be cut from under her and then slew
her.^^ This hag, whose name perhaps means "the eastern sea,"
has been regarded as an embodiment of the tempestuous wa-
King
of Lochlann
and
one version the ocean-smith says that she canas if

not die until she is drowned in "deep, smooth sea"
ters;
this
in
were a description of the storm
lulled to rest.
When
she
let down into the ground, the suggestion is that of water

confined in a hollow space ;^^ and if so, the story is a romantic treatment of the Celtic rite of "fighting the waves" with
is
weapons at high tides.^^

While the King of Lochlann is associated with this hag, he
and the Lochlanners are scarcely discriminated from Norsemen
who came across the eastern sea, invading Ireland and capturing Fionn's magic possessions, his dogs, or his wife. Yet there
is generally something supernatural about them; hence, probably before Norsemen came to Ireland, Lochlann was a supernatural region with superhuman people. Rhys equates it
"a mysterious country in the
with the Welsh Llychly7i
whence Fionn's strife would be with
lochs or the sea"
supernatural beings connected with the sea, an interpretation

agreeing with the explanation of the Muireartach.
Once Fionn, having made friends with the giant Seachran,

was taken with him to the castle of his mother and brother,
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
172
who hated
While dancing, Seachran was seized by

a hairy claw from the roof, but escaped, throwing his mother
into the cauldron destined for him. He and Flonn fled, purhim.
sued by the brother,
who
who
slew Seachran, but was killed

thumb that a ring guarded
learned from his
Flonn,
warriors would heal
him who drank
thrice
above
It.
by
by
DIarmald
obtained the ring, but was pursued by the warriors, whom

Seachran's wife slew, after which the giant was restored to llfe.^"
Other
stories record the chase of
enchanted or monstrous
animals. Olsln slew a huge boar of the breed of Balor's swine,

which supplied a week's eating for men and hounds; but
meanwhile Donn, one of the side, carried off a hundred maidens

from Aodh's sid. Aodh's wife, secretly in love with Donn,
changed them Into hinds, and when he would not return her
transformed him into a stag. In this guise he boasted
that the Feinn could not take him, but after a mighty enlove,
counter, OlsIn, with Bran and Sgeolan, slew hlm.'*^ In another

tale a vast boar, off whom weapons only glanced, killed many
was brought to bay by Bran, when

and carried it away, inviting
the Feinn to follow. They reached a sid where the churl
changed the boar Into a handsome youth, his son; and in the
sid were many splendours, fair women, and noble youths.
The churl was Eanna, King of the sid, his wife Manannan's
hounds; but at
"a churl
last it
of the hill" appeared
daughter.
Flonn
ofiêred
to
wed
their daughter,
Sgathach,
and Eanna agreed to give her, saying that the

chase had been arranged In order to bring Flonn to the sid.
Presents were then given to him and his men, but at night
Sgathach played a sleep-strain on the harp which lulled to
for a year;
slumber Flonn and the others, who in the morning found

themselves far from the sid, but with the presents beside
them, while It proved that the night had not yet arrived, an
Incident which should be compared with a similar one in
the story of Nera.^^ This overcoming of the Feinn by glamour
and enchantment is a common episode in these stories.
THE HEROIC MYTHS

Allusion has already been
made
'^^
173
to the Tale of the Gilla
Backer and his Horse {Toruighecht in Ghilla Dhecair). After

the horse had disappeared with fifteen of the Feinn, Fionn
and his men sought them overseas and reached a cliff up which
Diarmaid alone was able to ascend by the magic staves of

Manannan. He came to a magic well of whose waters he drank,
whereupon a wizard appeared, fought with him, and then
vanished into the well. This occurred on several days, but at
last Diarmaid clasped him in his arms, and together they
leaped into the well. There he found himself in a spacious
country where he conquered many opposing hosts; but a
giant advised him to come to a finer land, Tir j6 Thiunn, or
"Land under Waves," a form of the gods' realm, and there he
was nobly entertained, the wizard being its King, with whom
the giant and his people were at feud, as in other tales of
Elysium its dwellers fight each other. Meanwhile Fionn and
his men met the King of Sorcha and helped him in battle with
other monarchs,
among them
the King of Greece, whose
him
more
She stole away to him, but was
one
of
the
intercepted by
King's captains; and soon after
this, Fionn and the King of Sorcha saw a host approaching
them, among whom was Diarmaid. He informed Fionn that
the Gilla was Abartach, son of Alchad, King of the Land of
Promise, and from him Conan and the others were rescued.
GoU and Oscar now brought Taise from Greece to Fionn, and
indemnity was levied on Abartach, Conan choosing that it
Taise, in
love with Fionn, adored
daughter
when he slew her brother!
still
should consist of fourteen women, including Abartach's wife;

but Abartach disappeared magically, and Conan was balked
of his
prize.'^'^
This story, the romantic incidents of which are
treated prosaically, jumbles together myth and later history,

and while never quite forgetting that Tir fo Thiunn, Sorcha,
and the Land of Promise are part of the gods' realm, does
best to do so.
Several other instances of aid given
by the Feinn
its
to the
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
174
folk of
Elysium occur
The
Donn and
the Colloquy with the Ancients.
In
Feinn pursued a hind into a sid whose people were
When
other children of Midir.
their uncle
Bodb Dearg was
lord of the Tuatha De Danann, he required hostages from

MIdir's children, but these they refused, and to prevent Bodb's
vengeance on Midir, they sought a secluded sid. Here, however, the
men
Tuatha De Danann came yearly and slew
their
were left, when, to obtain Fionn's

women
as
a
fawn had lured him to the sid, as
one
of
their
help,
the boar led Pryderl into the enchanted castle.'*^ The Feinn
until only twenty-eight
assisted Midir's sons in next day's fight against a host of the
gods, including Bodb, Dagda, Oengus, Ler, and Morrigan's

children, when many of the host were slain; and three other
battles were fought during that year, the Feinn remaining
Oscar and Diarmaid were wounded, and by Donn's

advice, Fionn captured the gods' physician and caused him
to heal their wounds, after which hostages were taken of the
to assist.
Tuatha De Danann,
so that MIdir's sons
might
live in peace. ^^
Caoilte told this to St. Patrick centuries after, and he

scarce
to the
had
finished, when Donn himself appeared and did homage

saint. The old gods were still a mysterious people to
the compilers or transmitters of such tales, but they were

capable of being beaten by heroes and might be on good terms
with saints. Even
Danann were
he
was,
In St. Patrick's
harassed by mortal foes; but old and worn as

assisted them and for reward was cured
bird
Long
by
before, moreover, he
had
killed the
god Ler, which wrought nightly

and when Ler came to avenge this, he
of the
supernatural
destruction on the sid,
slain
De
Caoilte
of his ailments.'*^
was
time the side or Tuatha
Thus were the gods envisaged in Chriscapable of being killed, not only by each other
Caollte.^^
tian times as
but by heroes.
Sometimes, however, they helped the Feinn, nor
Is
this
unnatural, considering Fionn's divine descent. Diarmaid was

a pupil and protege of Manannan and Oengus and was aided
THE HEROIC MYTHS
175
by the latter.^^ Oengus helped Fionn in a quarrel with Cormac

mac Art, who taunted him with Conn's victory over Cumhal;
whereupon Fionn and the rest forsook their strife with Oengus
(the cause of this is unknown), and he guided them in a foray
against Tara, aiding in the fight and alone driving the spoil.
''^
Again when the Feinn were in straits, a giant-like being assisted

them and proved to be a chief of the side, and in a tale from the
Dindsenchas Sideng, daughter of Mongan of the sid, brought
Fionn a flat stone with a golden chain, by means of which he
slew three adversaries.^^ Other magic things belonging to the
Feinn were once the property of the gods. Manannan had a
"crane-bag" made of a crane's skin, the bird being the goddess

Aoife, transformed by a jealous rival; and in it he kept his
treasures,
full.
though these were
when the tide was

Manannan's magic shield
visible only
This bag became Cumhal's.^^
has already been described, and it also was later the property
of Cumhal and Fionn. ^^ In the story of The Battle of Ventry
{Cath Finntrdga), at which the Tuatha De Danann helped
the Feinn, weapons were sent to Fionn through Druidic sorcery
from the sid of Tadg, son of Nuada, by Labraid Lamfhada,
"the brother of thine own mother"; and these weapons shot

fire.^^ Others were forged by a smith and his
forth balls of
two brothers. Roc and the ocean-smith, who had only one
leg and one eye.^^ Whether these beings are borrowings from
the Norse or supernatural creations of earlier Celtic myth is
uncertain. Fionn had also a magic hood made in the Land
of Promise, and of this hood it was said, "You will be hound,
man, or
deer, as
you turn
We now
it,
as
you change
Diarmaid and Grainne
Dhiarmada agus Ghrdinne), the subject

of
^^
the most moving episode of the whole
approach
The
Pursuit of
cycle
many
it."
Toruigheacht
of a long tale with
mythical allusions, of several ballads and folk-tales, and
numerous references
in earlier Celtic literature.
briefest outline can be given here, but all
that literature at
its
Only the
who would know
best should read the story
itself.
Early
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
176
tell how Fionn, seeking to wed Gralnne, had to perform tasks; but when he had accomplished these and mar-
accounts
ried her, she eloped with Diarmaid.^^
when Fionn and
his friends
came
In the longer narrative,

to ask Grainne's hand, she
administered a sleeping-potion to all of them save Oisin and

Diarmaid, both of whom she asked in succession to elope with
her.
They refused;
but,
madly in
love with Diarmaid's beauty,
Thus he was forced to

and
when
the
disappointed suitor Fionn
elope against his will,
discovered this, he pursued them and came upon them in a
wood, while in his sight Diarmaid kissed Grainne. At this
point the god Oengus came to carry them off unseen, and
when Diarmaid refused his help, Oengus took Grainne away,
she put geasa on him to
flee
with her.
the hero himself escaping through his own cleverness. Having

reached Oengus and Grainne, "whose heart all but fled out
of her mouth with joy at meeting Diarmaid," he received
advice from the god,
who then
left
them.
They
still
fled,
with Fionn on their track, while the forces sent after them
were overpowered by Diarmaid. For long he would not consent to treat Grainne as his wife, and only
when he overheard
her utter a curious reproach would he do so.^^ From two

warriors, whose fathers had helped in the battle against
Cumhal, Fionn demanded as eric, or fine, either Diarmaid's

head or a handful of berries from the quicken-tree of Dubhros;
but when the warriors came to Diarmaid, he parleyed long with
them and at last, as they were determined to fight him, he bound
them
both. Grainne,
wonderful berries,
who was now with
child,
whereupon Diarmaid slew
asked for these
their giant guar-
dian and sent the warriors with the berries to Fionn.
He and
Grainne then climbed the tree; and when Fionn arrived, he

offered great rewards to the man who would bring down
Diarmaid's head. Oengus again appeared, and when nine of
the Feinn climbed the tree and were slain, he gave each one
Diarmaid's form and threw the bodies down, their true shape
returning only
when
their heads were cut
off.
Oengus now
PLATE XXII
Page of an Irish Manuscript
Rawlinson B 512, 119 a (in the Bodleian Library,
"
The VoyOxford), containing part of the story of
of
Son
of
Febal."
age
Bran,
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.;
THE HEROIC MYTHS
177
carried Grainne in his magic mantle to the
Brug na Boinne,
while Diarmaid alighted like a bird on the shafts of his spears
far outside the ring of the Feinn and fought all who opposed
who had
pleaded for his forgiveness, accompanying him to Oengus's sid. Meanwhile Fionn sought the help of
his nurse from the Land of Promise, and she enveloped the
him, Oscar,
Feinn
in a mist, herself flying
on the
leaf of a water-lily,
through
a hole in which she dropped darts on Diarmaid. He flung his

invincible spear, the gat dearg, through the hole and killed the
witch, whereupon Oengus
made peace between Fionn and
Diarmaid, who was allowed to keep Grainne.

Fionn, however, still sought revenge against Diarmaid, who
one night heard in his sleep the baying of a hound. He would
was one of his geasa always to follow

when he heard that sound,^^ but Grainne detained him, saying
that this was the craft of the Tuatha De Danann, notwithstandhave gone
after
it,
for
it
ing Oengus's friendship. Nevertheless at daylight he departed,

refusing to take, despite Grainne's desire, Manannan's sword
and the
gai dearg;
and at Ben Gulban Fionn told him that the
wild boar of Gulban was being hunted, as always, in vain.

Now Diarmaid was under geasa never to hunt a boar, for his
father had killed Roc's son in the sid of Oengus, and Roc had
transformed the body into a boar which would have the same
length of life as Diarmaid, whom Oengus now conjured never

to hunt a boar. Diarmaid, however, resolved to slay the
the transformed child, though he understood that he had been brought to this by Fionn's wiles; and
boar of Gulban,
in the great
viz.
hunt which followed "the old
fierce
magic boar"
though not before it had mortally wounded the

In other versions Diarmaid was unhurt, but Fionn bade
him pace the boar to find out its length, whereupon a bristle
was
killed,
hero.
entered his heel and
made
a deadly
wound. ^ Diarmaid now
lay dying, while Fionn taunted him. He begged water, for

whoever drank from Fionn's hands would recover from any
injury; and he recalled all he had ever done for him, while
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
178
Oscar, too, pleaded for him. Fionn went to a well and brought
water in
his
hands, but
let
it
slowly trickle away.
Again
Diarmaid besought him, and again and yet again Fionn
brought water, but each time let it drop away, as inexorable
with the hero as Lug was with Bran. So Diarmaid died,
lamented by all. Oengus, too, mourned him, singing sadly of
his death; and since he could not restore him to life, he took
the body to his
sid,
where he breathed
a soul into
it
so that
Diarmaid might speak to him for a little while each day.^^

Fionn, who knew that Grainne intended her sons to avenge
Diarmaid, was afterward afraid and went secretly to her,
only to be greeted with evil words. As a result of his gentle,
loving discourse, however, "he brought her to his own will,
and he had the desire of his heart and soul of her." She became
his wife and made peace between him and her sons, who were
received into the Feinn.^^
So ends
this tragic tale, the cynical conclusion of
resembles a scene in Richard III.
which
ballad of the Pursuit,
Diarmaid's daughter Eachtach summoned

however,
her brothers and made war with Fionn, wounding him severely,
relates that
so that for four years he got
no
healing.^^
In a Scots Gaelic
Diarmaid, plotted with an old

but
was
him,
forgiven. Diarmaid was discovered
by Fionn through wood-shavings floating down-stream from
cups which he had m^de, and Fionn then raised the huntfolk-tale Grainne, while with
man
to
kill
ing-cry which the hero must answer, his death by the boar
following.^'* In the Dindsenchas this "shavings" incident is
of Oisin, who was captured by Fionn's enemies and
hidden in a cave, his presence there being revealed in the
same way to Fionn, who rescued him.^^ Ballad versions do
told
not admit that Diarmaid ever treated Grainne as his wife,

in spite of her reproaches or the spells put upon him; and it
was only after his death that Fionn discovered his innocence
and constancy, notwithstanding appearances.^*^ In tradition
the pursuit lasted many years, and sepulchral monuments
THE HEROIC MYTHS

in
Ireland are
Gralnne."
rately, as
still
known
as
179
"the beds of Diarmaid and
Some incidents of the pursuit are also told sepawhen one story relates that after an old woman had
betrayed the pair to Fionn, they escaped
was a man with beautiful garments,
viz.
in a
boat
in
which
the god Ocngus.^^
Various reasons for the final quarrel between Fionn and GoU
are given, but in the end GoU was driven to bay on a sea-crag
with none beside him but his faithful wife, where, though
overcome by hunger and

the milk of her breasts.
he yet refused the offer of

Noble in his loneliness, he is reprethirst,
sented in several poems as recounting his earlier deeds. Then

for the last time he faced Fionn, and fighting manfully, he fell,
covered with wounds. ^^
The accounts
of Fionn's death vary, some placing it before,

the
battle of Gabhra, which, in the annalistic
after,
scheme, was the result of the exactions of the Feinn. Cairbre,
some
High King of Ireland, summoned his nobles, and they resolved

on their destruction, whereupon huge forces gathered on both
sides, and "the greatest battle ever fought in Ireland" followed. Few Feinn survived it, and the most mournful event
the subject
was the slaying of Oisin's son Oscar by Cairbre
of numerous laments, purporting to be written by Oisin,^
full of pathos and of a wild hunger for the brave days long past.
In Fionn's old age he always drank from a quaigh, for his wife
Smirgat had foretold that to drink from a horn would be
followed by his death; but one day he forgot this and then,
through his thumb of knowledge, he learned that the end
was near. Long before, Uirgreann had fallen by his hand, and
now
Uirgreann's sons came against him and slew him.^ In

another version, however, GoU's grandson plotted to kill
him with Uirgreann's sons and others, and succeeded. ^^ There
no mention of the High King here, and it suggests the longdrawn clan vendetta and nothing more. Thus perished the
is
great hero, brave, generous, courteous, of whom many noble

things are spoken in later literature, but none nobler than
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
i8o
"He
was a king, a seer, a

a
lord
with
a
a
manifold
and
bard,
poet,
great train, our maman
of
our
our
knowledge,
soothsayer; all whatsoever
gician,
Caoilte's eulogy to St. Patrick
he said was sweet with him. Excessive perchance as ye deem

my testimony of Fionn, nevertheless, by the King that is
above me, he was three times better still." ^^ Yet he had uncraft and vindictiveness, while his final undesirable traits
forgiving vengeance on Diarmaid is a blot upon his character.

One tradition alleged that, like Arthur, Fionn was still living
secretly somewhere, within a
come with
his
men
in the
hill
or on an island, ready to
hour of
his
country's need; and
daring persons have penetrated to his hiding-place and have

spoken to the resting hero.'^^ Noteworthy in this connexion
the story which makes the seventh century King Mongan,
represents an earlier mythic Mongan, a rebirth of Fionn,
this being shown by Caoilte's reappearance to prove to Monis
who
gan's poet the truth of the King's statement regarding the

death of Fothad Airglech. "We were with thee, with Fionn,"
said Caoilte.
"Hush,"
said
Mongan, "that
is
not fair."
"We
were with Fionn then"; but the narrator adds, "Mongan,

however, was Fionn, though he would not let it be said."^^
Other
stories, as
we have
seen,
make Mongan
the son of
Manannan.
Of the survivors of the Feinn, the main interest centres
in Oisin and Caoilte, the latter of whom lingered on with some
of his warriors until the coming of St. Patrick. In tales and
Michael Comyn's eighteenth
Oisin
went
into
a
sid or to Tir na nOg ("the
century poem,
Land of Youth"). The Colloquy with the Ancients, on the other
poems
of later date, notably in
hand, says that he went to the sid of Ucht Cleitich, where was
his mother Blai, although later he is found in St. Patrick's
company without any explanation
of his
return; and
now
Caoilte rejoins him."^ This agrees with the Scots tradition

that a pretty woman met Oisin in his old age and said, "Will
you not go with your mother?" Thereupon she opened a door
THE HEROIC MYTHS
i8i
and Oisin remained with her for centuries, alseemed

only a week; but when he wished to return
though
to the Feinn, she told him that none of them was left.''" In
an Irish version Oisin entered a cave and there saw a woman
with whom he lived for what seemed a few days, although it
in the rock,
it
hundred years. When he went to revisit the

Feinn, he was warned not to dismount from his white steed;
but in helping to raise a cart he alighted and became an old
was
really three
man." The
refer
it
Land of Youth vary. Some

more youthful days, but Michael Comyn was
tales of his visit to the
to his
probably on truer ground in placing it after the battle of

Gabhra. In these, however, it is not his mother, but Niamh,
the exquisitely beautiful daughter of the King of Tir na nOg,
him there, laying upon him geasa whose fulfilment

would give him Immortal life. Crossing the sea with her, he
who
takes
killed a giant
who had abducted
the daughter of the King of

of the Living") and in Tir na nOg he
Tir na m-Beo ("the Land

married Niamh, with whom he remained three centuries. In one
;
tale he actually became
who
King because he outraced Niamh's father,
held the throne until his son-in-law should do this; and to
he had given his daughter a pig's head, but Oisin,

after hearing Niamh's story, accepted her, and her true form was
then restored. ^^ In the poem the radiant beauty and joy of Tir
prevent
It
na nOg are described
in traditional terms; but, in spite of these,
Oisin longed for Erin, although he thought that his absence

from it had been brief. Niamh sought to dissuade him from
not descend from

going, but In vain, and now she bade him
his horse. When he reached Erin, the Feinn were forgotten;
the old forts were in ruins; a new faith had arisen. In a glen
a marble flagstone appealed to him for aid,
and stooping from his horse, he raised the stone; but as he
did so, his foot touched ground, whereupon his horse vanished,
men
trying to
lift
and he found himself a worn, blind old man. In this guise he

^^
met St. Patrick and became dependent on his bounty.
These stories illustrate what Is found In all Celtic tales of
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
82
divine or fairy mistresses

they are the wooers, and mortals
tire of them and their divine land sooner than they weary of
Mortals were apt to find that land tedious, for,

said, "I had rather lead the life of the Feinn
their lovers.
as
one of them
than that which
who would
liefer
it is the
plaint of Achilles,
serve for hire on earth than rule the dead in
lead in the jft/"
Hades, or of the African proverb, "One day

worth a year in Srahmandazi."
in this
world
is
The meeting
of the saint with the survivors of the Feinn

an interesting if impossible situation, and it is freely developed both in the Colloquy with the Ancients and in many
is
poems. While a kindly relationship between clerics and Feinn

is found in the Colloquy, even there Caoilte and Oisin regret
the past. Both here and in the poems St. Patrick shows much
curiosity regarding the old days, but in some of the latter he
is not too tender to Oisin's obstinate heathendom.
Oisin, it
is
true,
but
his
"almost persuaded" at times to accept the faith,

paganism constantly breaks forth, and he utters
is
daring blasphemies and curses the new order and its annoyances
shaven priests instead of warriors, bell-ringing and
psalm-singing instead of the music and merriment of the past.
poems there is tragic pathos and wild regret

for the Feinn and their valorous deeds, for the joys never now
to be recalled, for shrunken muscles and dimmed eyes and tired
feet and shaking hands, for Oisin's long silent harp, above all
Yet
in these
for his noble son Oscar.
"Fionn wept not
Nor
But
for his
own
son,
did he even weep for his brother;

he wept on seeing my son lie dead,
While
all
the rest wept for Oscar.
From
We
that day of the battle of

did not speak boldly;
And we
passed not either night or day
That we did not breathe heavy
One
new
Gabhra
how
sighs."
^^
Oisin fought hopelessly against the

Christian
rites and beliefs, but at last
order, scorning
fine ballad tells
THE HEROIC MYTHS
183
craved forgiveness of God, and then, weak and weary, passed
away.
"Thus
was that death carried off

whose strength and vigours had been mighty;
it
Oisin,
As
will
it
Who
every warrior
shall
come
after
him upon the earth."
In others the Feinn are shown to be in

rejoices in their fate.
no devil
is,
in hell
Sometimes Oisin
hell,
cries
^^
and
St,
Patrick
on Fionn to
let
conquer him; sometimes, weak old man as he

with confession of sin
his cursing of St. Patrick mingles
and prayers
for Fionn's welfare
and
regrets that he cannot be
saved.
"Oh, how lamentable the news

me, O cleric;
performing pious acts,
The Feinn have not gained heaven." ^^
Thou
relatest to
That though
am
Tradition maintains that Oisin was baptized, and a curious

story from Roscommon tells how, at St. Patrick's prayer for
solace to the Feinn in hell, though they cannot be released,
and a handful of sand to spread on the

ground. The demons could not cross this to torment the
Feinn, for if they attempted to do so, Oscar pursued them
Oscar received a
with
his
in
flail.
13
^'
flail
CHAPTER XIV
THE HEROIC MYTHS
(Continued)
ARTHUR
III.
writing in the ninth century, is the first to

This hero is dux bellorum, waging war
mention Arthur.^
NENNIUS,
against the Saxons along with kings who had twelve times
chosen him as chief; and twelve successful battles were fought,
the last at Mount Badon, where Arthur alone killed over nine
hundred men. Gildas (sixth century), however, refers to this

struggle without mentioning Arthur's name.^ In one of these
conflicts Arthur carried an image of the Virgin on his shoulder,
made
and the Mirabilia added by a

later hand to Nennius's History state that Arthur and his
dog Caball (or Cavall) hunted the Porcus Troit, the dog
or a cross
at Jerusalem;
leaving the mark of its foot on a stone near Builth. Nennius

himself gives a simple, possibly semi-historical, account of
Arthur; and the Annales Camhriae (tenth century) say that
Arthur with
his
nephew and enemy Medraut (Mordred)
fell
at Camlan.
Geoff"rey of
legend as
it
Monmouth
was known
Pendragon, King
(i
100-54),
in
who
reports the Arthurian
South Wales, states that Uther
of Britain, loved Igerna, wife of Gorlois,
Duke
gel.
of Cornwall; but for safety Gorlois shut her up in TintaMerlin now came to Uther's help and by "medicines"
gave him Gorlois's form, and his confidant Ulfin that of the
Duke's friend, while Merlin himself took another guise, so
that Uther thus gained access to Igerna. News of Gorlois's
death arrived, and the messengers marvelled to see him at
THE HEROIC MYTHS
185
Tintagel; but Uther disclosed himself and presently married

Igerna, who bore him Arthur and a daughter Anne, the former
becoming king at Uther's death. His exploits against Saxons

are related and how he carried his shield Pridwen, with a
picture of the Virgin, and his sword Cahburnus, which was
made
in the Isle of
Avalon. His conquests extended to Ireland,
Gothland, the Orkneys, Norway,

coronation and his court are described, and
Iceland,
how he
his
resolved
Rome. On the way he slew
to conquer
ducted to
and Gaul;
St.
Michael's
Mount
a giant who had abHelena, niece of Duke Hoel,
and had challenged Arthur to fight

him his beard, which was to have the
after his refusal to send
chief place in a fur made

the
beards
of
from
other
the
kings. This monster
by
giant
was greater than the giant Ritho, whom Arthur had fought
on Mount Aravius. After conquering the Romans, Arthur
heard
how
while
Queen Guanhumara (Gwenhwyfar, Guinevere) had
his
nephew Mordred had usurped the throne,
married him. Arthur returned and vanquished Mordred, but

was mortally wounded and carried to Avalon, resigning the
crown to Constantine, while Guanhumara entered a nunnery.'
Geoffrey obtained some information from a book in the
British tongue, and some from Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford;
must
besides which he
also
have incorporated floating tradi-
which William of Malmesbury
(ob. 1142) refers as

a
narrative
has
"idle
mythical aspect and is
embellished after the manner of the time. Arthur's wide-
tions, to
tales."
The
spread conquests and his fights with giants resemble Fionn's,

while his birth of a father who changed his form recalls that
of
Mongan, son
may be a
Mongan or
Uther
like
of
Manannan, who
did the same,^
whence
Brythonic god, and Arthur a semi-divine hero

Cuchulainn. Fionn, who in one account was
Mongan, was betrayed by his wife Grainne

and his nephew Diarmaid,^ Arthur by his wife and nephew;
and as Mongan went to Elysium, so Arthur went to Avalon.
Geoffrey, as well as all existing native Welsh story, knows
a reincarnation of
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
86
Round Table, which first appears

Wace's Brut, completed in 1155.
Three questions now arise. Was there a historic Arthur
on whom myths of a fabulous personage were fathered? Is
nothing of the Grail or of the
in
Geoffrey in part rationalizing and amplifying in chivalric

fashion an existing mythic story of Arthur? Does he omit
some
existing
traditions
of
These questions are
Arthur?
probably to be answered in the affirmative. If the name

"Arthur" is from Latin Artorius,^ it must have been intro-
duced into Britain in Roman times; and hence the mythic

Arthur need not have been so called unless the whole myth
post-dates the possibly historic sixth century Arthur. If, moreover, the Latin derivation is correct, the supposed source in a
hypothetical Celtic artor ("ploughman" or "one who harnesses

plough") falls to the ground. Had the mythic per-
for the
sonality a
name resembling
Artorlus?
That
is
possible,
and
there was a Celtic god Artalos, who was equated with Mercury
in Gaul. Artalos may be akin to Artio, the name of a bear-
from artos ("bear"), although Rhys connects It

with words associated with ploughing, e. g. Welsh ar ("ploughland").^ Artalos would then be equivalent to Mercurius cultor;
goddess,
but the connexion of Artalos and Arthur
is
problematical.
In any case the story of Arthur is largely mythic, like that

of Cuchulainn or of Flonn. Nennius appears to know a more
or less historic Arthur; but If there was a mythic Arthursaga in his time, why does he not allude to It? Did the "ancient
traditions" to which he had access not know this mythic
was he not interested in this aspect of his "magnanimous Arthur?" Still more curious is it that neither Gildas
nor Bede refers to Arthur. Geoffrey's narrative became
popular and Is the basis of Wace's Brut, where the Round
Table appears as made by Arthur to prevent quarrels about
precedence, and it Is said that the Britons had many tales
about it. Layamon {c. 1200), on the other hand, states that It
was made by a cunning workman and seated sixteen hundred.
hero, or
PLATE XXIII
Artio
The bear-goddess
(see p. 124) feeds a bear.
The
inscription states that "Licinia Sabinilla (dedicated

this)
has a
to the goddess Artio,"

slit
Found
at
and the box pedestal
through which to drop offerings of coins.

Berne ("Bear-City"), which still preserves
a trace of the ancient Celtic cult in

of bears.
Cf. Plate II, 10.
its
famous den
THE HEROIC MYTHS

while in the
Romances
it
187
was made by Merlin.
Layamon
also declares that three ladies prophesied at Arthur's birth

the three Matres or Fees
regarding his future greatness
of Celtic belief, found also in other mythologies.
Yet before
Geoffrey's time Arthur was known in Brittany, whither Britons

had fled from the Saxons; and there the Normans learned of
the saga, which they carried to Italy before iioo a. d., so that
Alanus ab Insulis (ob. c. 1200) says that in his time resentment
would have been aroused
in
Brittany by the denial of Arthur's
expected return.
Among
is
the Welsh romantic tales about Arthur the chief
that of Kulhwch and Olzuen,^ where he and his warriors,
whom
have magic powers, aid Kulhwch in different

story, which antedates Geoffrey, and proves that
quests.
an Arthurian legend existed before his time, is based on the
some
of
The
folk-tale formula of a
woman's hatred to her
step-son.
She
bade Kulhwch seek as his wife Olwen, daughter of Yspaddaden

Penkawr, whose eyelids, like Balor's, must be raised by his
servitors, though he is not said to possess an evil eye. The
quest was difficult, and when Kulhwch found Yspaddaden's
castle, he learned that many suitors for Olwen had been slain,
a variant of
Yspaddaden would die when she married
the theme of the separable soul.^ Yspaddaden set Kulhwch
many tasks, some of them connected with each other, and
in many of these his cousin Arthur assisted him. Among them
for
the capture of the Twrch Trwyth (Nennius's Porcus Troit),

on account of the scissors, comb, and razors between its ears,
is
which Yspaddaden desired. This boar was a knight transformed by God for his sins, and to capture it the aid of Mabon,
son of Modron, must be obtained. First, however, his prison
must be found, for he had been stolen on the third night after
and none knew where he was. With the

various animals his place of bondage was discovered,
was released by Arthur, whose aid, with that of others,
daden had said that Kulhwch would never obtain.
his birth,
help of
and he
YspadArthur
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
88
now
collected
pursuit recalls
an army for the chase of the boar, and
many
stories of Fionn.
great
this
combat with
it
took place, and after Arthur had fought it for nine days and
nights without being able to kill it, he sent to it and its pigs
Gwrhyr Gwalstawt in the form of a bird to invite one of them
The invitation was refused, however, and

with
his dog Cavall and a host of heroes,
accordingly Arthur,
hunted the boar from place to place. Many were slain, but
to speak with him.
at last the boar was seized,
Nevertheless, before the
taken.
boar
and the razor and
to
fled
Kernyu
comb
scissors
were
could be obtained, the
(Cornwall), where
it
was captured;
that had happened previously was merely a game

with
the taking of the comb. The boar was now
compared
chased into the sea, and Arthur went north to obtain the blood
although
all
of the sorceress
Gorddu on the
confines of hell, another of the
things required by Yspaddaden. Arthur slew Gorddu, and

Kaw of Prydein (Pictland) collected her blood, which, with
the other marvellous objects, was taken to Yspaddaden,
was now
who
slain.
In this story Kulhwch comes to Arthur's court, which is

attended by many warriors and supernatural personages,
some of whose names (e. g. Conchobar, Curoi) recur in the
Romances
or are taken from other parts of Brythonic as well

as Irish traditions. The gate was shut while feasting went on,
an incident
save to a king's son or to the master of an art
of
"master
of
the
many arts," to the
Lug,
approach
recaUing
abode of the Tuatha De Danann before the battle of Mag-
Tured
all
others
being
entertained
outside with food,
music, and a bedfellow. Among the personages of this tale

who recur in the Romances are Kel, Bedwyr (Bedivere),
Gwalchmei (Gawain), and Gwenhwyfar; characters from the
Mabinogion or other tales are Manawyddan, Morvran, Teyrnon, Tahesin, and Creidylad, daughter of Lludd. Mabon, son
of Modron, is the Maponos of British and Gaulish inscriptions,
where he
is
equated with Apollo; and
his
mother's
name
PLATE XXIV
Boars
The boar appears
as a worshipful animal
ish coins (see Plate III,
Gallic boar-deity,
i,
Moccus
3, 6),
(p. 124).
on Gaul-
and there was a

It also plays a
in the Welsh
saga (pp.
Porcus
Twrch
Troit) (pp.
Trwyth (or
story of the
role in Irish
108, 125, 187-88).
low, Middlesex.
124-27, 172) and
Bronze
figures
found at Houns-
THE HEROIC MYTHS
189
equivalent to that of the goddesses called Matronae (akin to

the Matres), whose designation appears in that of the Marne.
is
Mabon means "a youth," and Maponos "the
great (or divine)
youth," whence he must have been a youthful god. His

immortality is suggested by the fact that he had been in prison
so long that animals which had attained fabulous ages had
no knowledge of him, and only a salmon, older than any of
them, knew where his prison was. It carried Kei and Gwrhyr
thither on its shoulders, and when Arthur attacked the stronghold, it supported Kei and Bedwyr, who made a breach in the
wall and released the captive.
than the waves, and he
is
Mabon
called
rode a horse swifter
"the swift"
in the Stanzas
The
chase of the boar could not take place

of the Graves.
without him, and he followed it into the Bristol Channel,
where he took the razor from it. Reference is made to Mabon's
imprisonment in a Triad; and he and Gweir, whose prison is

mentioned in a Taliesin poem about Arthur and his men,
with LJyr Lledyeith, were the three notable prisoners. Yet
more notable
Arthur, who was three
nights in prison in Caer Oeth and Anoeth, three nights in
prison by Gwenn Pendragon, and three nights in an enchanted
prison under Llech Echymeint; but Goreu, his cousin, delivthere was one
still
ered him.^^
Other mythical or magic-wielding personages in Kulhwch

are the following. Gwrhyr, who could speak with birds and
animals, transformed himself into a bird in order to speak to
the boar; and Menw also took that shape and sought to remove
one of the boar's treasures, when it hurt him with its venom.
He could also make Arthur and his men invisible, though
they could see other men. Morvran, son of Tegid Voel, seemed
a demon, covered with hair like a stag; none struck him at
the battle of Camlan on account of his ugliness, just as none
struck Sandde Bryd-angel because of his beauty. Sgilti LightFoot could march on the ends of tree-branches, and so light
was he that the grass never bent under him. Drem saw the
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
I90
gnat rise with the sun from Kelliwic in Cornwall to Pen

Blathaon in Scotland. Under Gwadyn Ossol's feet the highest
mountain became a plain, and Sol could hold himself all day
on one foot. Gwadyn Odyeith made as many sparks from the
sole of his foot as
he cleared the
Gwevyl, when
way
hall.
of
sad,
while the other
Varyvdraws
when white-hot
all
let
made
iron strikes a solid object;
obstacles before Arthur
one of
his
lips
fall
and
a hood over his head; and
projected his
his
men.
to his stomach,
Ychdryt
beard above the beams of Arthur's
Yskyrdaw and Yseudydd,
feet as rapid as their thoughts;
servants of Gwenhwyfar, had

and Klust, interred a hundred
cubits underground, could hear the ant leave
its
nest fifty
miles away. Medyr could pass through the legs of a wren in

the twinkling of an eye from Cornwall to Esgeir Oervel in
Ireland; Gwiawn could remove with one stroke a speck from
the eye of a midge without injuring it; 01 found the track of

swine stolen seven years before his birth. Many of these
invaluable personages have parallels in Celtic as well as other
folk-tales,
and are the clever companions of the hero, who
execute tasks impossible to himself. ^^

In the Dream of Rhonahwy the hero had a vision of the
knightly court of Arthur, different from that in Kulhzvch,
and found himself transported thither. Arthur had mighty
armies, and he and others were of gigantic size, while his
mantle rendered the wearer invisible. The story describes

Arthur's game at chess with Owein, and how Owein's crows
were first ill-treated and then killed their tormentors. These
crows are frequently mentioned in Welsh poetry, and Arthur
is
them and their master. In this tale we

Iddawc (mentioned in the Triads)^ whose horse,
said to have feared
also hear of
on exhaling its breath, blows far off those whom he pursues,

and as it respires, it draws them to him. He was an intermediary between Arthur and Mordred at Camlan, sent with
he had
gracious words from Arthur, reminding Mordred how
nurtured him and desiring to
make
peace; but Iddawc altered
THE HEROIC MYTHS
191
these messages to threats and thus caused the battle. Arthur's

court appears again In The Lady of the Fountain, a Welsh tale
which
the equivalent of Chretien's Yvain (twelfth century),

but here again the conception of it is far more knightly and
is
The
romantic than in Kulhwch.
supernatural in this story,

whether Celtic or not, is found, e. g., in the one-eyed black
giant with one foot and an iron club, who guards a forest in
He
which wild animals
feed.
of water on a slab
by a fountain,
tells
Kynon
to throw a bowlful
when
a storm will burst,
by the music of birds, and a black-armoured knight

appear and fight with Kynon. In these two tales the following personages known to Welsh literature and the Romances
Mordred, Caradawc, Llyr, Nudd, Mabon, Peredur,
appear
Llacheu, Kei, Gwalchmei, Owein, March son of Meirchion
(Mark, King of Cornwall), and Gwchyvar.
In the early Welsh poems there are many references to
Arthur and his circle, as when, in the Black Book of Caermarthen
followed
will
(twelfth century), one poem, telling of Arthur's expedition to

the north, mentions Kei, whose sword was unerring in his
hand, Bedwyr the Accomplished, Mabon, Manawyddan,
"deep was
his
counsel,"
and Llacheu, Arthur's
son.
Kei
pierced nine witches, probably the nine witches of Gloucester

mentioned in Peredur, while Arthur fought with a witch and
clove the Paluc Cat.
Triad declares that this creature was
born of a pig hunted by Arthur, because it was prophesied

that the isle would suffer from its litter; and although Coll,
guardian, threw the cat into the Menai Strait, Paluc's
children found it and nourished it until it became one of the
its
three plagues of
Mon
(Anglesey). This
demon
cat,
which should
be compared with those fought by Cuchulainn, recurs in

Alerlin, but is then located on the continent. In this poem
Arthur
have distributed
^'
Llacheu figures
which
tells of his death, as "marvellous in
in another poem,
mentioned
and
he
is
there with Bran, Gwyn, and
song,"
is
also said to
Creidylad.^^
The
gifts.
Stanzas of the Graves refer to the graves of
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
192
Gwythur, March, and Arthur, the
being anoeth hid

("the object of a difficult search"); and Arthur's horse Cavall,
not his dog Cavall or Caball (as in Nennius and Kulhzvch,
where Bedwyr held
it
in leash),
Is
equivalent to
in a Taliesin
hell,
eye
^^)
mentioned
in
in Kulhzvch,
another poem.
where Annwfn
lying to the north, is paralleled by another

which reference has already been made.^^
to
poem
Arthur and others went

Kulhzvch, where
is
Annwfn
Arthur's expedition to
latter's
in
his
Prydwn (Prytwenn
ship
in
goes a long distance in the twinkling of an

over seas to Caer Sidi for the "spoils of Annwfn,"
it
including the magic cauldron of Penn Annwfn, and apparently

to release Gweir, who had been lured there through the
messenger of Pwyll and Pryderi. While Annwfn was spoiled,

Gweir "grievously sang, and thenceforth till doom he remains
a bard"; but the expedition was fatal to many who went
it, for "thrice Prydwn's freight" voyaged to Caer Sidi,
but only seven returned. ^^ This recalls Cuchulainn's similar
on
cauldron and cows;^^ and there is

also a parallel in Kulhzvch, where one of the treasures desired
of the hero by Yspaddaden is the cauldron of Diwrnach the
journey to Scath for
its
Irishman, who refused

then sailed for Ireland
it
when Arthur
in his
ship,
sent for
it.
Arthur
and Bedwyr seized the
on the shoulders of Arthur's cauldronwho

it
bearer,
away full of money.^^ Another treasure
brought
which Kulhwch had to obtain, but of which there is no further
cauldron, placing
it
mention, is the basket of Gwyddneu, from which the whole

world might eat according to their desire, this basket resembling
Dagda's cauldron.^''
The Guinevere incident
in
Welsh
tradition.
Gwenhwyfach
in Geoffrey
is
differently rendered
Triad says that the blow given her by

Kulhzvch) caused the battle of
(her sister in
Camlan,^^ and another Triad speaks of Medraut's drawing

her from her royal seat at Kelliwic and giving her a blow,
while he is also said to have outraged her. Medraut at the
same time consumed all the food and drink, but Arthur retail-
THE HEROIC MYTHS
193
ated by doing likewise at Medraut's court and leaving neither

man nor beast alive. Medraut resembled Hir Erwn and Hir
Atrym
in Kulhzvch,
them and
who wherever they went
ate
all
provided
2-
the land bare;

although another view of
in
found
a
is
Triad
which
him
speaks of the blow given him
by Arthur as "an evil blow" and of himself as gentle, kindly,
for
left
and fair. Guinevere seems to have had an ill character in

Welsh tradition, a spiteful couplet speaking of her as "bad
when young, worse later." ^^ Her name means "white phantom
or /^^," from gzven ("white") and hzvyvar, a word cognate
with Irish siabur, siahhra ("phantom," "fairy"), the corresponding Irish name being Finnabair;^^ and this seems to point
to her divine aspect, just as Etain
was
called be find ("white
Midir.
A Triad speaks of three Guineveres,
different fathers; but Celtic myth
wives
of
with
all
Arthur,
loved triple forms, and the diiferent Guineveres, Llyrs, Manawyddans, etc., may have been local forms of the same divinity.
woman") by
The departure
of the
wounded Arthur
to Avalon, though
mentioned by Geoffrey, does not occur in native Welsh story;

yet in other sources which refer to it there is probably to be
found a Brythonic tradition on the subject. In the Vita
Merlini attributed to Geoffrey, Avalon appears as Insula
Pomorum,
the
soil
is
or "Isle of Apples," where the labour of cultivating

unnecessary, so abundant is nature. Grapes and
corn grow plentifully, and nine sisters, of whom Morgen is

chief, and who can take the form of birds, bear rule there.
These nine
recall the nine
maidens whose breath boiled the
cauldron of Annwfn, and the bird sisters perhaps recur in

the Perceval story where Perceval, attacked by black birds,
kills
one which turns to a beautiful
woman whom
the others
In another description the island

bear away to
lacks no good thing and is unvisited by enemies. Peace, conAvalon.^''
and eternal spring and flowers are there; its people are
youthful; there is no old age, disease, or grief; all is happiness,
and all things are in common. A regia virgo rules it, more
cord,
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
194
beautiful than the lovely maidens
who
serve her; she healed
Arthur when he was brought to the court of King Avallo and

now they live together.^^ Her name is Morgen, though elsewhere Morgen is Arthur's sister, and Giraldus Cambrensis
calls
her dea phantastica; while William of
Malmesbury speaks
of Avalloc (Avallo) as dwelling at Avalon with his daughters.

close is the resemblance of this island to the Irish Elysium
How
must
at once be seen.
mainly a land of women; there

is no toil, but plenty; no sickness nor death, but immortal
youth; and the divine women there can take the form of birds
like Fand, Liban, and others. They who visit Arthur find
the place
full
It
is
of all delights, says the
Fita Merlini; and
if
Arthur went to Avalon to
his sister, he resembles Oisin who,

one account, went with his mother to Elysium.^^ In the
Didot Perceval Arthur declares that he will return, so that
in
Britons expect him and have sometimes heard him hunting

in the forest ;^^ and Layamon, who lived in a district where
Brythonic tradition must have
abounded, says also that

Arthur, when wounded, announced his departure to the fairmaidens, Argante, Queen in Avalon, who would
heal him, but that he would return. A boat appeared, in which
were two women, who placed him in it; and now he dwells
est of all
in
Avalon with the
fairest of elves, t\it fees or goddesses of other
traditions, while Britons await his coming.^^
In Malory the
them
boat
queens, among
Morgen, Arthur's sister,
and Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, "always friendly to Arthur."
From her had come the sword Excalibur, and her home was
is
full of
in a wonderful palace within a rock in a lake
an
Elysium
water-world. All this points to the interest taken in a hero by

other-world beings.
The
Glastonbury with Avalon may be due

to two influences. Glastonbury and its Tor were surrounded
identification of
by marshes, which would cause it to be considered as an

island; and probably, too, the Tor was a divine abode analogous
to the sid, as the legend of
Gwyn
suggests.
Some
local
myth
THE HEROIC MYTHS
195
"island" to be regarded as Elysium, while in

Arthur's case it came to be called Avalon either because a
would lead
this
local lord of
Elysium was named Avallo, or because magic
trees with apples {avail, "apple-tree"), like those of the Irish
Elysium, were supposed to grow there. Glastonbury as a

sid Elysium is supported by another early Arthur tradition;
and one form of this had been transferred to Italy by the Normans, for Gervase of Tilbury speaks of a groom finding himself in a castle on Etna, wherein Arthur lay in bed, suffering
from Mordred's wounds, which broke out afresh each year.^
More usually, however, the legend is that of Arthur and his
knights waiting, like Fionn, in an enchanted sleep within a hill
for the time
when
their services will be required, this story
being attached to the Eildon Hills and other places.^^

Welsh literature shows that at a period contemporary with
Geoffrey, and in manuscripts perhaps going back to an earlier period, there was an Arthurian tradition in Wales which
differed
much
considerably from that of the historian and was

Arthur became a figure to whom floating myths
fuller.
and traditions might be attached and, like Fionn, he was a

slayer of witches, monsters, and serpents, so that in the Life
of St, Carannog a huge reptile which devastated the land was
hunted and destroyed by him. It is certain that, before the
great French poems of the Arthurian cycle were written,
Arthur was popular both in Britain and in Brittany.^^
The outburst
romance proper, that of the

belongs to the end of the twelfth
of Arthurian
Anglo-Norman writers,
and the beginning of
the
thirteenth
century,
with the Lais of Marie de France and the

Chevalier de la Charette,
and Conte
del
opening
Tristan,
Erec,
Graal of Chrestien de
Troyes. Whence was its subject-matter drawn? Some hold

that beyond the scanty facts related of the historic Arthur,
all was taken from Armorican sources, popularized by conteurs
These
traditions, according to Zimmer, were originally

but
were
Welsh,
brought to Armorica by immigrants from
there.
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
196
Britain; but others, e.g. Gaston Paris and A. Nutt, find the
sources in Welsh tradition and native Celtic tales, learned by
Normans
after the
Conquest of England and passed thence
to France, either directly or via

is
supported by
those of Irish
Anglo-Norman poems. This
the identity of episodes in the Romances with

sagas; and Miss Weston has adduced new
evidence which indicates that in Wauchier's Perceval, the

Elucidation, and the English Gazvain poems "we have a
precious survival of the earliest collected form of Arthurian
romantic tradition." ^^ Wauchier de Denain refers to a certain
Poitiers,
Welsh birth, whose patron was the Count of

and to him he attributes the source of his narrative.
Bleheris
is
Bleheris,
as
of
probably the Blihis to
whom
the Elucidation refers
source of the Grail story, the Bledhericus described by

ille fabulator, and the Breri mentioned
Giraldus as famosus
by an Anglo-Norman poet named Thomas, who wrote on Tristan about 1170.^'* Arthurian romance is thus traced directly to
Welsh sources through this writer, who certainly flourished not
later
than the beginning of the twelfth century.
Arthur and Arthur's court are a centre toward which or from

which stories converge or issue, whence other personages are
apt to be regarded as more interesting than he or to have
a larger number of deeds attributed to them. Conchobar's
court, with
armed
its
heroes,
where boys are brought up and go forth
to their first adventures, suggests the primitive Celtic
Arthurian court, unaltered by mediaeval chivalric ideas.^^ In

the Cuchulainn stories it is not so much Conchobar who is
the chief figure as Cuchulainn, though he
is
always in the back-
ground, and in this Arthur in relation to Gawain, Perceval,

and others corresponds to him. Arthur has little to do with
the Grail, and new important personages, not necessarily of the
early Celtic group, tend to be introduced.
Gawain was Arthur's nephew as Cuchulainn was Conchobar's,
later.
and the
"He
earlier presentation of
him
is
more
just than the
never returned from a mission without having
THE HEROIC MYTHS

fulfilled it;
197
he was the best of walkers and the best of horse-
men," says Kulhzvch; and according to the Triads, he had a

golden tongue and was one of the best knights of Arthur's
court for guests and strangers. ^^ He had a valuable steed
Gringalet as Cuchulainn had two. His sword Escalibur
(Latin Caliburnus), made in Avalon, was given him hy Arthur,
its first owner; and its Welsh name, Caledvwlch, seems identical
with that of Cuchulainn's caladbolg, which was forged in the
sid. One incident of Gawain's legend is his visit to an island
castle where are many knights and maidens, who can never
speak to each other, ruled by a mysterious lady
allied
with
its
magician chief, the captor of these knights and maidens; and

he who goes there must remain always. Gawain reached it,
guided by the lady, who met him at a fountain,^^ a visit which
suggests those of Bran, Connla, and Cuchulainn to Elysium
{not the region of the dead) at the invitation of a goddess
connected with
its
Gawain was given up
lord.
as dead,
and
this legend persisted, though he returned to Arthur. Probably, like Connla, he remained in Elysium, so that mediaeval
tradition regarded
him
as living in fairy-land.
In a second
momentarily appears. Guinevere

was abducted by Meleagant (Melwas) to a castle on an island
whence no traveller returned. It was approached by a swordincident
the
other-world
bridge and an under-water bridge, Lancelot crossing by the

former, Gawain choosing the latter; and although in Chres-
Le Chevalier de
Lancelot rescues Guinevere,

evidence exists which points to Gawain as the real hero of the
adventure.^^ A sword-bridge is otherwise unknown to Celtic
tien's
la Charette
myth; a realm reached by descending into water is known;

and Gawain himself came to a palace under water, where
he met with strange adventures.^^ Possibly Gawain, like his
brother Mordred, was lover of Guinevere, a situation to
which Lancelot succeeded when he was later evolved. The
question also arises whether Gawain and Mordred were
Arthur's sons by his
sister,
wife of
King Loth,
as
Malory
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
198
This
of Mordred.'*
asserts
tradition
is
made Cuchulainn son
Dechtire.
Gawain,
in
not impossible, just as one

of
Conchobar by
Miss Weston's opinion,
is
his
sister
the earliest
hero of the Grail, his position as such being emphasized by

Wauchier, drawing on a version by Bleheris. Perceval next
became the hero
of the Quest,
Galahad, who achieved
Among
appear
those
in the
who
then Lancelot, and finally
it.
are
Romances
known
is
Kei.
to
Welsh
literature
and who
His counsel was not to open
the gate to Kulhwch, but Arthur said that courtesy must be

shown; and he was one of those whose help Kulhwch demanded
on entering. He passed
for offspring of
who
if
Kynyr Keinvarvawc,
her son took after him, his heart

and hands would always be cold, and he would be obstinate;
when he carried a burden, none would perceive him from
told his wife that
behind or before, and none would support fire and water as

long as he. Kei could breathe for nine days and nine nights
under water and could remain that time without sleeping,
while nothing could heal a blow of his sword. When he pleased,
he could become as high as the highest tree; and when heavy
rain fell, all that he held in his hand was dry above and below
to the distance of a handbreadth, so great was his natural heat,
which also served as fuel to his companions when they suffered
most from
saints,
These characteristics
in
recall those of Celtic
wet weather and could produce
from their hands, and also Cuchulainn's "distortion"

Kei took an important part with Bedwyr in seek-
light
and
cold.'^^
who remained dry
heat.
Olwen for Kulhwch, Bedwyr seizing one of the poisoned

javelins thrown at them by Yspaddaden; and he was also
active in questing for the treasures and reached the castle
of Gwrnach Gawr, where, as at the stronghold of Arthur and
the Tuatha De Danann, none could enter but the master of
ing
Kei proclaimed himself the best sword-polisher in the

world and gained entrance by saying that he had a companion
an
art.
whom
the porter would recognize because his spear-head would
THE HEROIC MYTHS
199
draw blood from the wind, and

This was Bedwyr. Kei then
killed Gwrnach with his own sword and carried it off, since
the boar could be killed by it alone. ^^ Kei and Bedwyr discovered and aided in releasing Mabon, and obtained the leash
made from the beard of DIUus Varvawc while he was living,
which alone could hold the Little Dog of Greit; but Arthur
sang a teasing verse about this and irritated Kei so much
that peace between them was restored with difficulty. At the
hunt of the boar Bedwyr held Arthur's dog Cavall in leash. ^^
In Kulhzvch, as in the Black Book of Caermarthen, Kei is not
detach
resume
itself
its
from the
shaft,
place on the
shaft.
only a mighty warrior, fighting against a hundred, but also a

great drinker, and his valour as well as his nobility and wisdom
sung in later poetry. In a curious dialogue between Arthur

and Guinevere after her abduction she told him that Kei
is
could vanquish a hundred, including Arthur, while she described

Arthur as small compared with Kei the tall. Possibly Kei
rather than Melwas was here Guinevere's ravisher.^ In Geoffrey,
Kei
is
Arthur's sewer and received a province from him,
and Duke of Normandy, and both

assist Arthur in his adventures and are mentioned together.*^
Kei is also sewer in the Welsh romances which show traces
of Continental influence
Peredur, Olwen and Lunet
where,
while
Bedwyr
butler
is
as in the Anglo-French romances, his boastful, quarrelsome
nature appears.
thrown; and he
He
is
is
always ready to
to the Arthur saga
fight,
yet always over-
what Conan and
are to those of Fionn and Cuchulainn.
Kulhzvch to his death at the hands of
Reference
Gwddawc,
is
Bricriu
made
in
a deed re-
venged by Arthur, but in the Welsh Saint Graal Kei slew

Arthur's son, Llacheu, and made war on Arthur.
Of Bedwyr Kulhzvch says that he never hesitated to take

part in any mission on which Kei was sent; none equalled him
in running save Drych; though he had but one hand, three
combatants did not make blood flow more quickly than he;
and his lance, which produced one wound in entering, caused
III
14
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
200
i. e. it was studded with

nine In retiring
points turned back
so that they caught the flesh on being withdrawn.^^ In Hke
manner Cuchulainn's
pulled
gai holga inflicted thirty
and reference
out,
is
frequently
wounds when
made
to
pointed
Welsh
Bedwyr
praised
the Sir Bedevere of the Romances. In Geoffrey
he reconnoitred the hill where the giant was supposed to live
spears
similar
of
poetry and
character.
in
is
is
and comforted the nurse of the dead woman abducted by him,

and he is also said to have been slain by the Romans.^^
Nennius relates that Vortigem's attempts to build a city
mysteriously failed until his wise men said that he must obtain
a child without a father and sprinkle the foundation with his
blood
an
This victim
instance of the well-known Foundation Sacrifice.

at last found because a
companion is heard
taunting him, as they play at ball, that he is "a boy without
a father." His mother alleged that he had no mortal sire, and
the child exposed the wise men's ignorance, by telling what
would be discovered beneath the foundation
a pool, two
vases, with a tent, and In It two serpents. One of these expelled
the other, and all this Is explained as symbolic of the world,
Vortlgern's kingdom, the Britons, and the Saxon invaders.
Giving his name as Ambrose (Embrels gzvledig, or "prince")
and saying that a Roman consul was his father, the boy
Is
obtained the place as a site for a citadel of his own, Dinas

Emrys.^^ Ambrosius Aurelianus the gzvledig was a real person
who fought the Saxons in the fifth century ,^^ and to his history
these
myths have been attached. In Geoffrey
this
boy
Is
Merlin
or Ambrosius Merlin, whose mother said that often a beauti-
youth appeared, kissed her, and vanished, although afterward he sometimes spoke with her Invisibly and finally as a
ful
man
wise
slept with her, leaving her with child.
men
explained
him
as
One
of Vortlgern's
an incubus (the Celtic dusiiis).

In two hollow stones,
Merlin told how two dragons were asleep
and when dug up, they fought, the red dragon finally being
worsted; and he now uttered many tedious prophecies. In-
THE HEROIC MYTHS
201
eluding that of the coming of Ambrosius as king. At a later

time he advised Ambrosius, who wished to erect a memorial
for native heroes, to send for the "Giants'
whither African giants had carried
it;
Dance"
to Ireland,
and by Merlin's
In-
genuity the stones, which had heaHng and magic virtues, were
removed to Stonehenge. Geoffrey then recounts how Merlin
transformed Uther so that he might gain access to Igerna.^*'

In Welsh literature Merlin or Myrddin is connected with
the Britons of the north.
Whether
this
Merlin
is
the same as
Geoffrey's is uncertain, the former being called Merlin the

Wild or Caledonius, but at all events the two are combined
in later literature.
He
is
a bard
and prophet who
fled frenzied
to the Caledonian Forest after learning of his sister's son's
death; and there he prophesied to his pig under an apple-tree

and had a friend Chwimbian, the Viviane of romance. The
later
magic,
chroniclers
e. g.
and
romantic
accounts
his shape-shifting, the
develop
Merlin's
removal of the stones here
becoming supernatural; while his birth is ascribed to demoniac

power, and but for his baptism he would have been a kind of
Antichrist. He took the child Arthur; and when, as King,
Arthur unwittingly had an amour with his sister, he appeared
as a child and revealed the secret of the king's birth, after
which, as an old man, he disclosed to Arthur how he had
sinned with his sister in ignorance. In the Triads he and his
nine bards went into the sea in a glass house, or he took with
him the Treasures of Britain to the isle of Bardsey. In other
accounts, however, his disappearance was caused by his fairy
mistress's treachery, for she learned the secret of his magic
power and how to imprison
man
in a wall-less
tower; in which
him up, visiting him daily, while it appeared to

"smoke of mist." Another version describes him
as enclosed in a rocky grave, whence perhaps the phrase of a
and
Welsh poem
"the man who speaks from the grave"
she shut
others as a
yet another tradition he retires

Esplumeor, which he made himself.^^
in
from the world
in
an
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
202
How much
pure romance, how much is genuine

uncertain; and Merlin may be an old god
of all this
is
Brythonic myth,
is
degraded to a mere magician. Nennius and Geoffrey in their

narratives suggest the well-known "Expulsion and Return"
the boy without a father, taunted when playing
formula
comes into favour because he shows why a castle cannot

be built. This recalls Fionn's youth and how, overcoming
at ball,
the beings who destroyed a dun, he thus regained his heritage,^^

Merlin's father was doubtless a god, but as "the son without a
father" he recalls "the son of a sinless couple" in the story of

Becuma, as well as Oengus, who was taunted with having no
known
father.^^
The
incident of his disappearance of his
own
will suggests the legends of heroes sleeping in hills, just as his
imprisonment by
British
myth
his
cited
bound by the love

is
by Plutarch and the
stories of mortals
of immortals to the other-world.
While
connected with Arthur in Geoffrey and the Romances,

not one of the throng around the hero in Kulhwch.
Merlin
he
mistress recalls that of Kronos in the
is
The debatable ground
of the Grail romances cannot be
discussed here in detail, especially as the episode did not

enter into the earliest Perceval romances, of Welsh origin,
and
is
lacking in the Welsh Peredur, written in full knowledge

and in the English Syr Percy-
of the Perceval-Grail stories,
Perceval probably succeeded Gawain as the hero of the

Grail, to be superseded himself by Galahad. In Wauchier's
continuation of Chrestien's Perceval Gawain rode beyond Arvelle.
kingdom through a waste land to a castle by the sea,

where he saw a knight on a bier with a sword on his breast.
thur's
A procession of clergy, singing the Vespers of the Dead, entered;

and then followed a feast at which "a rich Grail" provided
the food and served the guests, "upheld by none." Later
Gawain saw a lance with a stream of blood flowing from it
into a silver cup, and finally the King of the castle entered
and bade Gawain fix the two halves of a broken sword together.
Unable to do this, he failed in the Quest, but having asked
THE HEROIC MYTHS
203
about lance and sword, he learned that the lance was that by
which Christ's side was pierced, while the sword was that of
the Dolorous Stroke by which Logres and all the country
Here Gawain fell asleep and next morning

found himself on the shore, while the castle had vanished.
Nevertheless the land was now fertile, because he had asked
about the lance; had he asked about the Grail, it would have
was destroyed.
been fully restored.

In Chrestien's Perceval there
is a procession with a sword,

a lance from which a drop of blood runs down, the Grail, shining
so as to put out the candles' light, and finally a maiden with
a silver plate.
The
in other versions
it
of gold and precious stones; but

the dish or cup of the Last Supper, or
Grail
is
is
which Joseph received the Saviour's Blood, or a

a vessel
chalice, or a reliquary, or even something of no material subin
magic stone (Wolfram's Parzival). It provides

food magically, with the taste which each one would desire,
stance, or a
though sometimes it feeds those only who are not in sin. It

gives perfume and light, heals the wounded, and, after the
successful quest, removes barrenness from the land and cures
its guardian or raises him from death. It prevents those who
see it from being deceived or made to sin by devils, or it gives
the seeker spiritual insight. In Peredur there is no Grail,
but the hero sees a procession with a spear from which come
three drops of blood, and a salver containing a head.

The Grail and its accompanying objects have a twofold
aspect and source, pagan and Christian. The Grail and lance
are associated with events of Christian history, but they have
pagan Celtic
parallels
the divine cauldron from which none
goes unsatisfied and which restores the dead, the enchanted

cup in tales of Fionn which heals or gives whatever taste is
desired to
object of
the lance
him who drinks from it, and which is sometimes the

a quest. The head in Peredur recalls Bran's head,
and sword the spear which slew him and the sword
by which he was decapitated,
as well as Lug's
unconquerable
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
204
sword, Manannan's magic sword,

Tethra's talking sword. The Stone of Fal suggests the Grail
as a stone, and it, like Dagda's cauldron and the spear and
Nuada's
spear,
swords
irresistible
of Lug,
Nuada, and Manannan, belonged

Grail, sword, and spear have
Tuatha De Danann. The

with these as
much
as with the Christian symbols.
to
the
affinity
Yet no
theory quite accounts for the assimilation of the two groups,

and while the Grail has magic properties, we should remember
that miraculous food-producing and healing of the sick were
works of our Lord, which might
easily be associated with
objects connected with Him, as a result of the belief in
relics.
Failing the discovery of an early manuscript in which the

actual sources of the Grail story may be found, much is open
to conjecture.
theory connected with the prevailing study of vegetation

rituals sees in the objects and their effects survivals of Celtic
ritual
resembHng that of Adonis or Tammuz,
its
aim being
the preservation of the fertility of the land.^* There is no

evidence, however, that at such rituals a miraculous food-
supplying vessel had any part; such vessels belong to the

domain of myth, and the story of the Grail has more the
appearance of being derived from a myth which was possibly

based on such rituals. It is in myth that magico-miraculous
powers flourish, not in ritual; and such a myth could be
When, moreover, the theory makes the further

that
the ritual was of the nature of a "mystery,"
assumption
there is again no evidence for this, for vegetation rituals are
Christianized.
open to
all
in the fields,
even where Christianity has been
adopted. The theory, however, postulates a mystery-cult,

associated
with a plain and evident meaning for the folk
with powers of
tions
for
life
and generation
the initiate
phallic,
and with other
philosophic,
significa-
spiritual.
The
story of this pagan mystery, which expressed three planes or

was gradually
"the triple mysteries of a life-cult"
worlds
Christianized
by those ignorant
of its
meaning and was
finally
PLATE XXV
Horned God
The deity, wearing a torque and pressing a bag
from which escapes grain on which a bull and a
stag feed, is supported by figures of Apollo and Mercury (cf. pp. 8-9). He may possibly be identical
with Cernunnos, a deity of the underworld (Plate
XVI). His attitude suggests the squatting god of
Plates HI,
3,
VHI, IX, and
his
cornucopia corre-
sponds to the purse of the divinity of Plate IX, B,

as well as to the cup held
by Dispater (Plate XIV).

For other gods of the underworld see Plates V, VII,
XII, XIII, XXVI.

found at Rheims.
From
Gallo-Roman
altar
THE HEROIC M\THS
205
worked up by Robert de Borron (twelfth century) in terms of

a corresponding traditional esoteric Christian mystery. The
procession with Grail, etc., was the presentation of the mystery,
meaning being divulged according to the degree of initiation;

but though the quester is the initiate, yet he fails in his
its
^^
The
wholly unable to believe that

such mysteries and initiations existed among the barbarous
Celts or that they survived until the early middle ages, or
Quest.
present writer
is
that lance and cup have a phallic significance

"life symbols
of the lowest plane"
or that there was a traditional esoteric
Christianity, save in the
minds of cranks of
all
ages.
Why,
again, should a mystery known only to initiates have been the

Were initiates likely to reveal it.^ To
subject of a story
.^
regard the Grail story from a phallic, occult point of view and
to interpret it by means of a mystic jargon is to degrade it.
If the modern occultist possesses a divine secret, the world
seem to be much the better for it; and such secrets are
mere "gas and gaiters." The truth is that occultism
renders squalid whatever it touches, be that Christianity,
does. not
apt to be
or Buddhism, or the romantic stories of the Grail.

In spite of the numerous and important characters
who
enter into the saga, Arthur is the central figure, the ideal hero
of Brythonic tribes In the past, to whom leadership at home
and abroad might be assigned, and whose presence in all battles
might be asserted. Originating as a champion, real or mythical,

Brythons in southern Scotland, his legend passed
with emigrants to Wales, where it became popular. Like Fionn
of northern
among
the Goidels, so Arthur
among
the Brythons was located
in every district, as numerous place-names show; and if Fionn

was at first a non-Celtic hero adopted by Goidels, so Arthur
was a Brythonic hero adopted by Anglo-Normans as their
truest romantic figure.^^
CHAPTER XV
PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY
from the occasional Christianizing of myths or
the interpolation of Christian passages

APART
in order to
make
the legends less objectionable, the Irish scribes frequently

created new situations or invented tales in which mythical
personages were brought into contact with saints and missionaries, as many examples have shown. In doing this they not
only accepted the pagan stories or utiHzed their conceptions,

but sometimes almost contrasted Christianity unfavorably
with the older religion.
The
idea of the immortality or rebirth of the gods survived
with the tales in which
it
was embodied and was sometimes
utilized for a definite purpose.
The
fable of the
coming of
Noah's granddaughter, to Ireland before the flood

was the invention of a Christian writer and contradicted
those passages which said that no one had ever been in Ireland
Cessair,
previous to the deluge. All her company perished save Finntain, and he was said to have survived until the sixth century of
The
reason for imagining such a long-lived personage

is obvious; in no other way could Cessair's coming, or that
of Partholan and of the other folk who reached Ireland, have
our
era.^
been known.
Poems were
ascribed to Finntain in which he
recounted the events seen in his long

accepted the new
life
until at last he
faith.^
at this early period, however, there was a story of

another long-lived personage with incidents derived from
Even
pagan myths. Long life, excessive as Finntain's was, might

have been suggested from Genesis, but the successive trans-

formations of
Tuan MacCairill
myth; and the wonder
in
207
is
could have their origin only

that such a doctrine was accepted
Tuan was
nephew and
through centuries was the sole survivor of his race, which was
tragically swept away by pestilence in one week for the sins of
by
Christian
scribes.
Partholan's
Partholan. Obtaining entrance to the fortress of a great warby the curious but infallible process of "fasting against"
rior
him,
Finnen was told by his involuntary host that he was

MacCairill and that he had been a witness of all events
St.
Tuan
days of Partholan. When he was old and

he
found
on
awaking one morning that he had become
decrepit,
a stag, full of youth and vigour; this was in the time of Nemed,
in Ireland since the
and he described the coming of the Nemedians. He himself,

as a stag, had been followed by innumerable stags which
recognized him as their chief; but again he became old, and
now after a night's sleep he awoke as a boar in youthful
strength and became King of the boars. Similarly he became
a vulture, then a salmon, in which form he was caught by
fishers and taken to the house of King Caraill, whose wife ate
him, so that from her he was reborn as a child. While in her
womb he heard the conversations which went on, and knowing
what was happening, he was a prophet when he grew up,

and in St. Patrick's time was baptized, although he had professed knowledge of God while yet paganism alone existed in
Ireland.^
The mythical
donnees of this story are sufficiently obvious.
Metamorphosis and rebirth have frequently been found in

the myths already cited, and these were used by the inventors
of Tuan MacCairill, the closest parallels to him being the two
Swineherds and Gwion.^
The
conversion of pagan heroes or euhemerized divinities

to Christianity is sometimes related. When Oengus took
Elcmar's
sid,^
the latter's steward continued in his
ofiice;
and
his wife became the mother of a daughter Ethne, afterward

attendant to Manannan's daughter Curcog, who was born
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
2o8
at the
same time
as she.
Ethne was found to be eating none
of the divine pigs nor drinking Goibniu's beer, yet she remained in health; a grave insult had been offered to her by a
god, and now she could not eat, but an angel sent from God
kept her alive. Meanwhile Oengus and Manannan brought
cows from India, and as their milk had none of the demoniac
nature of the gods' immortal food, Ethne drank it and was
nourished for fifteen hundred years until St. Patrick came
to Ireland. One day she went bathing with Curcog and her
companions, but she returned no more to the sid with them,

for through the power of Christianity in the land she had
with her garments the charm of invisibility, the
Feth Fiada. She could now be seen by men and could no longer
laid aside
perceive her divine companions or the road to the invisible

sid. Wandering in search of them, she found a monk seated
by a church and
to
him she narrated her
story,
whereupon he
St. Patrick, who baptized her. One day, as she

the
door
of the church, she heard the cries of the inby
visible sid-ioV^ searching for her and bewailing her; she fainted
took her to
sat
and now
fell
obtrudes
itself
into a decline, dying with her head on the Saint's

breast. In this tale the general Christian attitude to the gods
although the conception of their immortality
is
accepted, they are demons or attended by
Ethne
had
a demon guardian who left her when the
these;
angel arrived and as a result of her chastity. Not unlike this
story is that of Liban, daughter of Eochaid, whose family
were drowned by the bursting of a well. Liban and her lapdog were preserved for a year in the water, but then she was
and
invisibility
changed into a salmon, save her head, and her dog into an
otter. After three hundred years she was caught by her own
wish and was baptized by St. Comgall, dying thereafter.'^
In the Cuchulainn saga Conchobar was born at the hour
of Christ's Nativity, and Cathbad sang beforehand a prophecy
of the two births, telling also how Conchobar would "find his
death
in
avenging the suffering God," though the hero did not
PLATE XXVI
SUCELLOS
The hammer-god, also shown on Plate XIII, here
has five small mallets
projecting from his great
hammer. Found at Vienne, France.

pass
away
until he
had beheved
He
yet reached Erin.
is
said
209
God, before the faith had

to have been the first pagan who
in
went thence to heaven, though not till after his soul had journeyed to hell, whence it was carried with other souls by Christ at
the Harrowing of Hades, he having died just after the Crucifixion.^ Cuchulainn was a pagan to the last, but coincidentally
with
queens who loved him saw his

spirit-chariot over Emain Macha, singing a
his passing thrice fifty
soul floating in his
song of Christ's coming, the arrival of Patrick and the shaven
monks, and the Day of Doom.^ Loegaire, King of Erin, refused

to accept the faith unless Patrick called up Cuchulainn in
all his dignity, and next day Loegaire told how, after a piercing wind from hell preceding the hero's coming, while the air
was full of birds
the sods thrown up by Cuchulainn's
chariot-horses
he had appeared as of
He was
old.
in bodily
form, more than a phantom, agreeably to the Celtic conception of immortality; and he was clad as a warrior, while
his
chariot was driven
steeds.
Loegaire
now
by Loeg and drawn by
his
famous
desired that Cuchulainn should return
and converse longer with him, whereupon he again appeared,

performing in mid-air his supernatural feats and telling of
his deeds. He besought Patrick to bring him with his faithful
ones to Paradise and advised Loegaire to accept the faith.
The king now asked Cuchulainn
to
tell
of his adventures,
and
by describing the pains of hell, still urging

to
become
a Christian, and again begging the saint
Loegaire
to bring him and his to Paradise. Then heaven was declared
he did
so, finishing
for Cuchulainn,
Some
and Loegaire
believed.^''
of the Feinn stories also
show
this
kindly attitude
toward the old paganism, especially The Colloquy with the

^^
When
Ancients, which dates from the thirteenth century.
Oisin had gone to the sid, Caoilte with eighteen others survived long enough to meet St, Patrick and his clerics. These
were astonished at "the
tall
men with
their
huge wolf-dogs,"
but the saint sprinkled holy water upon them and dispersed
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
2IO
demons who floated above them.

showed him a spring and told him
into the hills the legions of
At
Patrick's desire Caoilte
stories of the Feinn, the saint interjecting the words,
"Success
and benediction, Caoilte, this is to me a lightening of spirit

and mind," although he feared that it might be a destruction
of devotion and prayer.
During the night, however, his
bade
him
write
down all the stories which
guardian angels
Caoilte told; and next morning Caoilte and his friends were
Fionn's
baptized. The hero gave Patrick a mass of gold
"
as a fee for the rite and
for my soul's and
last gift to him
soul's
commander's
and
the
saint
weal";
my
promised him
^^
eternal happiness and the benefit of his prayers.
The Colloquy
describes journeys taken by Patrick and his followers with
the Feinn, while Caoilte

spots.
He
knowledge,
tells stories
of occurrences at various
how
Fionn, through his thumb of

understood the truth about God, asserted his
also
relates
Him, and foretold the coming of Christian missionaries to Ireland and the celebration of Mass there, adding that
for this God would not suffer him to fall into eternal woe.
The Feinn likewise understood of God's existence and of
belief in
His rule over
all
because of certain dire events which befell
revellers in one night,^^ a parallel to this being found

The Children of Ler, where, through their sorrows, these
many
in
children are led to believe in God and in the solace which

would come from Him; so that in the sequel they received
baptism after they had resumed human form.^*
Akin to these meetings of saint and heroes is one which is
referred to in some verses from a fourteenth century manuscript and which concerns St. Columba and Mongan, either the
pagan king of that name or his mythic prototype. Like Manannan, whose son he was, he was associated with Elysium
"the Land with Living Heart"
and from that "flockabounding Land of Promise" he came to converse with the
Another poem gives Mongan's greeting to Columba on

that occasion, and nothing could exceed the gracious terms
saint.
211
which he praises him; while a third poem tells how Mongan

went to Heaven under the protection of the saint
"his
^^
head
the
under
Columcille's
cowl."
profit!
great
in
Not
the least interesting aspect of the reverence with which

Christian scribes and editors regarded old mythic heroes is
found in the prophecies of Christianity put into their mouths.

Some instances of this have been referred to, but a notable
example occurs
visits
Bran
tells
"The
He
in
The Voyage of Bran, where the goddess
how "a
son of a
will seize
great birth will
come
in after ages
woman whose mate will not

many thousands.
who
"
:
be known,
the rule of
He that made the Heavens,

Happy he that has a white heart,
He will purify hosts under pure water,
'Tis He that will heal your sicknesses."
'Tis
Manannan speaks of the Fall and

"A noble salvation will come
So, too,
the King who has created us,

white law will come over the seas.
Besides being God, He will be man."
prophesies
how
From
^^
such means, which recall the noble teaching of
Clement
and Origen, did Christian Celts make gods and heroes do
homage to the new faith, while yet they recounted the mythic
stories about them and preserved all "the tender grace of a
day that is dead." Even more remarkable is one version of a
story telling how the narrative of the Tain was recovered.
By
It existed only in fragments until Fergus
St.
mac Roich,
a hero of
the Cuchulainn group, rose from his grave and recited it,
appearing not only to the poets, but to saints of Erin who had
met near
his
tomb, while no
the story to his dictation.
Brendan, and
Caillin,
less
a person than St. Ciaran wrote
Among
and
in
these saints were Columba,
company with Senchan and
other poets they were fasting at the grave of Fergus so that

he might appear, after which the tale was written down in
Ciaran's book of cow-hide. ^^
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
212
The same
charitable point of view
the gods and heroes
still
is
seen in the fact that
have their own mystic world
in the
and are seldom placed in hell. Yet there are exceptions,

Cuchulainn came from hell, as we saw, but St. Patrick
transferred him to heaven. Even in hell, however, he had
still been the triumphant hero, and when the demons carried
sid
for
"the red charcoal," he played his sword and

his gai holga on them, as Oscar did his flaiy^ so that the devils
suifered, even while they crushed him into the fire.^^ Caoilte
off his soul to
might be brought out of hell, and Patrick

were
said that
this
good in God's sight, she and also his
^
In
father, mother, and Fionn himself would be released.
other poems, however, the Feinn are and remain in hell, as
craved that his
sister
if
has already been seen.

Thus, while the Church set
its
face against the old cults,
so that only slight traces of these remain, or gave a Christian

aspect to popular customs by connecting them with saints'
days or sacred places,
it
was on the whole rather proud than
otherwise of the heroes of the past and preserved their memory,

together with much of the gracious aspect of the ancient gods.
Exceptions to this exist and were bound to
exist, e. g. in
many
and Scots Ossianic ballads; and there was, too, a tendency

to confuse Elysium with hell, more especially in Welsh legend,
this being inevitable where myths of Elysium were still conIrish
nected with a local cult.
Gwyn was
Annwfn, which was

fairy-land, and here
lord of
located on Glastonbury Tor, or king of

St. CoUen was invited to meet him. Seeing a wonderful castle
and a host
of beautiful folk, he regarded
splendid robes as flames of
fire,
them
as devils, their
their food as withered leaves;
and when he threw holy water over them, everything vanished. ^^ Probably a cult of Gwyn existed on the hill. Gwyn
was also thought to be a hunter of wicked souls, yet it is also
said of him that God placed in him the force of the demons
Annwfn
them from
of
(here the equivalent of
hell)
in
order to hinder
destroying the people of this world."

We
owe much
to the Christian scribes
213
and poets of early
mediaeval Ireland and Wales, who wrote down or re-edited

the mythic tales, romantic legends, and poems of the pagan
period, thus preserving them to us. These had still existed
the folk or were current in the literary class, and
that they were saved from destruction is probably due to the
among
and Wales were never Romanized. Causes

Gaul which killed the myths and tales so long
fact that Ireland
were at work
in
transmitted in oral forms; and since they were never written

down, they perished. Elsewhere these causes did not exist,
or a type of Christianity flourished which was not altogether
hostile to the stories of olden time, as when Irish paganism
was described symbolically as desiring the dawn of a new

day. The birds of Elysium were "the bird-flock of the Land
of Promise," and in one story were brought into contact with
St. Patrick, welcoming him, churning the water into milky
itself
whiteness, and calling, "O help of the Gaels, come, come,

come, and come hither!"-^
That
is
an exquisite fancy, more moving even than that
which told how
"The
And
lonely mountains o'er

the resounding shore,
voice of weeping heard and loud lament"
the mournful
cry,
"Great Pan
is
dead," at the
moment
of
Celtic paganism, Goidelic and Brythonic,

bestowed
on
Christianity much of its old glamour, for
surely
nowhere is the history of the Church more romantic than in
those regions where Ninian and Columba and Kentigern and
Christ's Nativity.
Patrick lived and laboured long ago.
SLAVIC
MYTHOLOGY
BY
JAN MACHAL,
Ph.D.
PROFESSOR OF SLAVIC LITERATURES, BOHEMIAN UNIVERSITY, PRAGUE

WITH A CHAPTER ON BALTIC MYTHOLOGY BY THE EDITOR
EDITOR'S PREFACE
obvious reasons
it
laboration
FOR
has not been possible to have the col-
of the author of this Slavic Mythology in seeing

work through the press. This duty has, therefore, devolved
upon me, though the task has been lightened by constant referhis
ence to his Bdjeslovi slovanske (Prague, 1907), on which his

present study is largely based. Since the author supplied no
Notes, and as they seemed to
me
desirable,
have added them.
them is mine, not his; but

not be displeasing to him.
All responsibility for
they
will
Professor
mythology
Machal wrote,
at
my
trust that
request, a chapter on the
and Lithuanians. As this

have endeavoured to supply it; but
of the Prussians, Letts,
has not been received,
hope to prepare a study of the religion of these peoples

to be published on another occasion, I have restricted myself
since
rigidly to their
mythology, discussing neither their
religion, their
ethnology, nor their history. That Professor Machal did not so

is to me a source of pleasure; for in those systems
limit his scope
where practically nothing is as yet accessible in Engseems preferable to treat the theme without meticulous
adherence to a theoretical norm.
of religion
lish it
The excellent translation of Professor Machal's study has

been made by his colleague, Professor F. Krupicka, to whom he
desires to express his gratitude for his assistance in this regard.
LOUIS H. GRAY.
November
6, 1916.
PRONUNCIATION
vowels are pronounced generally as in Italian. In the
Lithuanian diphthong ai the first element predominates
THE
almost to the suppression of the second.
Russian
has the
sound of the English word yea or of ye in yes; Lithuanian e (often

written ie) is pronounced like yea, but with a slight <2-sound
added (ya"), and u is equivalent to uo" (very like English zvhoa")
;
simply e (English a in fate); Polish ie is like English ye in yes; Russian iy is practically the i in English pique.
The Slavic i and u have only an etymological value, and are not
Lettish ee
is
pronounced;
in the present
so that Perunii, e.g.,
is
like
is
study they are omitted when
final,
here written Perun.
y (for convenience the Russian letters often tran-
scribed /, etc., are here given as ya, etc.); of the liquids and
nasals, r and / between consonants have their vowel-value, as
in English betterment, apple-tree (bettrment, appltree)
nounced
in Polish like the z in English azure,
and
in
r is
pro-
Bohemian
by the same sound of z; Polish Ms a guttural

(more accurately, velar) I; n has the palatal value of ni in
like r followed
English onion. The sibilant } is like sh in English shoe (in

Lithuanian this sound is often written sz), and z (Lithuanian
z) is like z in azure.
Of the consonants
? (often
written cz in Lithuanian) has the

German or Scottish ch in
value of ch in church; ch that of the

ach, loch; c that of the German z {ts).
The consonant-groups
as follows
in the present
cz like ch in church; dz
in azure; sj like sh in shoe;
and
and
study are pronounced
dj like j in judge; rz like z
szcz like shch in fresh-chosen.
INTRODUCTION
those records of ancient Slavic
SINCE
vived
life
which have sur-
not surprising that only

scanty and fragmentary knowledge of Slavonic religions has
come down to us. The native chroniclers, imbued with Chrisare very superficial,
it
is
would seem, reluctantly

pagan ancestors; and while writers of
have left much more thorough accounts of
tian civilization, dealt shallowly and,
with the
life
it
of their
other nationalities
the religions of the Slavic peoples, yet, being ignorant of the

Slavic dialects and insufficiently familiar with the lives and
customs of the Slavs, their documents are either very confused
or betray a one-sided Classical or Christian point of view.
It must further be borne in mind that the extant data treat of
the period immediately preceding the introduction of Christianity, when the Slavic nations, inhabiting a wide-spread
region and already possessed of some degree of civilization,
had made considerable progress from their primeval culture.

Hence no inferences may be drawn from the mythology of one
Slavic nation as to the religion of the Slavs as a whole.
The most ample
evidence, relatively speaking, is found

the
regarding
religion of the Elbe Slavs, who adopted Christianity as late as the twelfth century. Thietmar, Bishop of
accounts of their religion (9761018),^ and the description of the rites of the Slavic tribe of
the Lutici by Adam of Bremen, in his Gesta Hammahurgensis
Merseburg, gives the
earliest
ecclesiae pontificum (eleventh century),^
Thietmar's report.
is
German
founded chiefly on
chronicler of the
Helmold,
twelfth century, who had seen the countries of the Elbe Slavs
INTRODUCTION
222
with
his
own
eyes, transmitted important evidence of their
religion in his Chronica Slavorum;^
and
manner the
the same cen-
in like
Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, writing
in
tury, spoke of the idolatry of the Elbe Slavs,^ his statements

being confirmed by the Danish KnytlingasagaJ' Further de-
paganism may be found in the lives

of St. Otto, a bishop of Bamberg, who was renowned as a
missionary among the Pomeranian Slavs.^
The most important evidence for Russian religion is contailed accounts of Slavic
tained in the Chronicle of Nestor (iioo);' further fragments of

pagan customs are preserved in the old Russian epic Slovo o
pluku Igoreve ("Song of Igor's Band"), which dates from the

twelfth century;^ and to these two main sources for a knowledge
of the pagan period in Russia may be added some old reHgious
writings directed against the heathenism which
among the folk.
still
lingered
of the religions of the eastern and southern Slavs

in the works of the Greek historian Procopius of
Mention
is
made
Caesarea (sixth century)^ and of the Arabian travellers alMas'udi^ and Ibrahim ibn Vasifshah " (tenth and twelfth
centuries respectively), while allusions to ancient Slavic pagan
rites and idolatry are found in the mediaeval encyclopaedias
which were translated from Greek and Byzantine originals.

The main source for the religion of the Czechs is the Chronicle
supplemented by the Homiliary of the
^^
The chronicler Dtugosz
Bishop of Prague (twelfth century.)
of
Cosmas
(ob. 1125),^^
the old
(fifteenth century) records fairly detailed accounts of
Polish religion, although they are not very reliable ;^^ and allusions of a more specific character occur in some fragments of
^^
old Polish literature, particularly in Polish-Latin homilies.
These poor and scanty accounts of the mythology of the
ancient Slavs are supplemented by old traditions which still

live among the people, these legends being very rich and conafter their
taining ample survivals of the past, since even
conversion to Christianity the common folk clung to their
INTRODUCTION
223
Thus ancient
national tales, preserved to this

very day, contain distinct traces of the early faith, and these
traditions, verified by old evidence, are of such prime impor-
pagan
beliefs.
tance that they will form the basis of our description of Slavic
mythology.
SLAVIC
MYTHOLOGY
PART
THE
GENII
MYTHOLOGY
SLAVIC
CHAPTER
BELIEF IN SOUL
Slavic belief the soul
IN
body, which
are
many
it is
stories of
is
AND
GENII
a being quite distinct from the

even during life, so that there
free to leave
human
souls
coming forth from the bodies
sleeping persons and
either dwelling in trees or, in the shape

of
of white birds, fluttering about in the world and finally returning to their normal habitations. It is inadvisable to go to
bed
thirsty, lest the soul, wearied
weaken the body.
If
and uneasily
flutters
consciousness
is
man
by
its
search for water,
faints, his soul leaves his
about the world; but when
likewise restored.
Some
it
may
body
returns,
individuals have lain
which time their souls dwelt in

that might be seen either in
beheld
all
and
the other world
heaven or in paradise. A soul which leaves the body when
asleep and flies about in the world is called Vjedogonja or
Zduh, Zduhacz ("Spirit") by the Serbs; and not only the
souls of sleeping persons, but even those of fowls and domestic
like
dead
for three days, during
animals, such as cats, dogs, oxen,
etc.,
may
be transformed into
Zduhaczs. These genii, regardless of nationality, sex, or age,

assemble on mountain-tops, where they battle either singly or
countrymen a rich harbut if a man's soul perishes
in troops, the victors bringing to their
vest and success in breeding cattle;

in this fight, he will never awake. In Montenegro a distinction
is drawn between Zduhaczs of land and sea, the former causing
drought, and the latter rain, so that the weather depends on

which of these two wins. A sudden storm points to a battle
MYTHOLOGY
SLAVIC
228
among such Zduhaczs; but
in all other respects these genii are
considered good and sensible and stand in high repute.

The Montenegrins personify the soul as Sjen or Sjenovik
("Shadow"), this being a genius which has charge of houses,
mountains, and forests, and which may be a man or a

more especially
a snake.
domestic animal, a cat, a dog, or
belief
that
souls
a Mora,
Slavic
into
It is a general
may pass
lakes,
a living being, either man or woman, whose soul goes out of

the body at night-time, leaving it as if dead. Sometimes two
which leaves
and a man may be a Mora from his birth,
souls are believed to be in such a body, one of
it
when
in
asleep;
which case he has bushy, black eyebrows, growing together

above his nose. The Mora, assuming various shapes, approaches the dwellings of men at night and tries to suffocate
them; she
is
either a piece of straw, or a white shadow, or a
leather bag, or a white mouse, a cat, a snake, a white horse,

etc. First she sends refreshing slumber to men and then, when
they are asleep, she frightens them with terrible dreams,

chokes them, and sucks their blood. For the most part she
torments children, though she also throws herself upon animals, especially horses and cows, and even injures and withers
trees, so that various
means
are
employed to get
rid of her.
In Russia the Moras, or Kikimoras, play the role of household gods {penates). They are tiny female beings who live
behind the oven; and at night they make various noises,
whining and whistling, and troubling sleeping people. They are

very fond of spinning, hopping from place to place all the time;
and they tangle and tear the tow of women who rise from the
spinning-wheel without making the sign of the cross. They
are invisible and do not grow old; but manifestation of their
presence always portends trouble.
Among the Slavs, as well as among
many
other peoples,
is a wide-spread belief that certain persons can assume

the form of wolves during their lifetime, like the English
werewolf, the French loupgarou, the Lithuanian vilkakis, etc.,
there
BELIEF IN SOUL
such
Volkun,
man
AND GENII
229
being termed Vlkodlak (Vukodlak, Vrkolak,

A child born feet foremost or with teeth will
etc.).
become a Vlkodlak; and a man may undergo transformation

into such a being by magic power, this happening most frequently to bride and bridegroom as they go to the church to
be married.
person turned into a Vlkodlak will run about

the village in the shape of a wolf and will approach human
dwellings, casting plaintive glances at people, but without
harming anyone; and he
will retain his wolf-like
shape until
the same person who has enchanted him destroys the charm.
Among the Jugo-Slavs ("Southern Slavs") there still lingers
an old
from the thirteenth century, of a

Vukodlak who followed the clouds and devoured the sun or
tradition, dating
the moon, thus causing an eclipse; and accordingly, on such
an occasion, drums were beaten,
bells rung, and guns fired, all

to
drive
the
demon
supposed
away.
Vlkodlak can transform himself not only into a wolf, but
this being
The
also into hens
and such animals
as horses, cows, dogs,
and
cats.
At night he
attacks cattle, sucks the milk of cows, mares, and

sheep, strangles horses, and causes cattle to die of plague;
he
may
even
assail
human
beings, frightening, beating,
strangling them. The Slavs in
and
Istria believe that
every single
family has its own Vukodlak, who tries to harm the house;
but the house also possesses a good genius, the Krsnik (Kresnik,
Karsnik), who protects it from the Vukodlak and battles with
him. In popular tradition the Vlkodlak is frequently identified
with the Vampire, and similar stories are told concerning
both beings.
The
Slavs universally believe that the soul can leave the

form of a bird (a dove, a duck, a nightingale, a
body
swallow, a cuckoo, an eagle, a raven) or else as a butterfly, a
in the
fly,
a snake, a white mouse, a hare, a small flame, etc.
reason, whenever a
man
dies,
the
window
For
or the door
Is
this
left
open, thus freely enabling the soul to come and go so long as

the corpse remains In the house. The soul flutters about the
SLAVIC
230
MYTHOLOGY
cottage in the shape of a fly, sitting down, from time to time,

upon the stove and witnessing the lamentations of the mourners
as well as the preparations for the funeral; and in the court-
yard
it
hovers around as a bird.
That the
soul of the dead
suffer neither
might
hunger nor
thirst, various kinds of food or drink were put into the coffin or
the grave; and besides other presents, small coins were given
to the deceased, thus enabling him to buy a place of his own

beyond the tomb. At the banquet celebrated after the burial
a part of the meal was put aside for the soul, which, though
invisible, was partaking of the feast; and during the first night
after the funeral the soul returned to the house to see
it
once
to refresh itself. Accordingly a jug of water was

the icons, and on the following day it was inunder
placed
spected to ascertain whether the soul had drunk or not, this
more and
practice sometimes being continued for six weeks. In Bulgaria

the head of the grave is sprinkled with wine the day after the
funeral, in order that the soul
Russia and
may
in other Slav countries
not
feel thirsty;
wheat
is
while in
strewn or food
is
put upon the place of burial.

For forty days the soul dwells on earth, seeking for places
which the deceased used to frequent when alive; it enters his
own house or those of other persons, causing all sorts of trouble

to those who had been enemies to the departed, and it is either
form of an animal. Bulgarian
tradition speaks of the soul as approaching the body on the
fortieth day, trying to enter it and to live anew; but being
frightened by the disfigured and decaying corpse, it flies away
invisible or else appears in the
beyond the grave. The belief that the soul

forty days in the places where it had lived and
into the world
remains for
worked
is
universal
among
the Slavs.
According to Russian
it then flies upward to the sun, or the moon, or the

or
else
it wanders away into forests, or waters, or mounstars,
tains, or clouds, or seas, etc.
tradition
The
souls of the deceased often appear as jack-o'-lanterns

III IS
BELIEF IN SOUL
flickering
about
In
AND GENII
231
churchyards or morasses, leading people
swamps and ponds, or strangling and stupefying

them. Woe to him who ridicules them or whistles at them,
for they will beat him to death; but if a wanderer courteously
asks their guidance, they will show him the road that he must
astray in
follow.
In Slavic belief the souls of the departed maintained, on the

whole, friendly relations with the living, the only exceptions
being the ghosts of those
who had been
either sorcerers or
grievous sinners in their lifetime, or who had commltted'sulclde

or murder, or who had been denied Christian burial. The souls
of sorcerers, whether male or female, are loath to part with
their bodies and cannot leave in the usual way by door or
window, but wish to have a board In the roof removed for

them. After death their souls take the shapes of unclean
animals and enter houses
at
night, worrying
the
inmates
and seeking to hurt them, the same enmity toward the living being shown by the souls of those who have committed
since they endeavour to revenge themselves for not
been
having
properly burled. In ancient times the bodies of
suicide,
suicides, as well as criminals, drowned persons, and all who

had met with a violent death or were considered magicians,
were refused interment
in the
burled without Christian
thrown into
pits.
churchyard, their corpses being

swamps, or even
rites In forests or
The lower
classes believed that the souls of
such persons caused bad harvests, droughts, diseases, etc.; and,

therefore, a stake was run through their hearts, or their heads
were cut
despite the efforts of the ecclesiastical and secular

authorities to put an end to this sort of superstition.
The
off,
Vampires (deceased people who In their lifetime

had been sorcerers, bad characters, or murderers, and whose
belief in
now
occupied by an unclean spirit), which may be

traced back as far as the eleventh century. Is still widely curbodies are
rent
among the
Slav population.
as Upir, Uplor, etc.,

III
16
is
The name, which
also appears
derived
from
the
Turkish
uher
probably
SLAVIC
232
MYTHOLOGY
("enchantress"); but other designations are likewise used, such

as Wieszczy
and Martwiec
(Polish),
Vedomec
(Slovenian),
Kriavnik (Bulgarian), Oboroten (Russian), etc.

The Southern Slavs believe that any person upon whom an
unclean shadow falls, or over whom a dog or a cat jumps, may
become a Vampire; and the corpse

decay when
may
suck the flesh of his
own
breast or
and he encroaches even upon the

tions,
of such a being does not
buried, but retains the colour of
life.
gnaw
his
Vampire
own body,
vitality of his nearest rela-
causing them to waste away and finally die.

the Vampires leave their graves and rock to and
At night
They assume
and suck the blood of people, whom thus
they gradually destroy, or, if they have not time to do that
(especially as their power ends at cock-crow), they attack domestic animals. Various means of riddance, however, are
known, and there is ample evidence of exhuming the corpse of
fro
upon wayside
crosses, wailing all the time.
every sort of shape
man
wood
supposed to be a Vampire, of driving a stake of ash-
(or
burning
wood
it,
hawthorn or maple) through it, and of

these acts being believed to put a definite end to
his evil doings.
of the
CHAPTER
II
WORSHIP OF THE DEAD, ESPECIALLY

ANCESTORS
the pagan Slavs burned their dead, but later they
practised burial as well as cremation.^ With singing and
AT
first
wailing the corpse was carried to the funeral-place, where a pyre

had been erected; and this, with the dead body laid upon it,
set on fire by the relatives. The pyre and the body having
been consumed by the flames, the ashes, together with the
charred remnants of bones, weapons, and jewels, and with all
was
were collected in an urn and placed in a cairn.

the chieftain of a tribe had died, one of his wives was burned
sorts of gifts,
If
along with him, as is amply attested by the traditions of the

Elbe Slavs, the Poles, the Southern Slavs, and the Russians;
and
in similar fashion animals that
of his
were
killed
and cremated.
had been
especial favourites
At the grave there were

by a noisy
obsequies of a martial character {tryzna), followed
banquet
{strava).
vivid description of a Russian chieftain's funeral was

given by the Arabian traveller Ahmad ibn Fadlan (922) .^
When
nobleman
died, for ten days his
body was
laid pro-
visionally in a grave, where he was left until his shroud was

prepared for him. His property was divided into three parts;
one third was given to the family, another served to defray the
funeral expenses, and the remainder was spent on the intoxicating drinks which were served at the funeral banquet. On
the day appointed for the final obsequies a boat was taken out
of the water, and round it were placed pieces of wood shaped
to the
form of human beings. Then the corpse was removed
SLAVIC
234
from
its
MYTHOLOGY
provisional grave and, being clad with a costly gar-
ment, was seated in the boat on a richly ornamented armchair, around which were arranged the weapons of the deceased,
together with intoxicating beverages; while not only bread and
fruit,
but also
flesh of killed animals,
such as dogs, horses, cows,
cocks, and hens, were put into the boat. That one of his wives
who had voluntarily agreed to be burned together with her dead
husband was led to the boat by an old woman called "the
Angel of Death," and was stabbed at the side of the corpse,
whereupon the wood piled up under and around the boat was
set on fire. After the boat with the dead bodies and all the
other articles placed upon it had been consumed, the ashes were
collected and scattered over the cairn; and a banquet, lasting
days and nights without interruption, closed the ceremony.

We know from the evidence of the Arabian writer Mas'udi ^
for
that this cremation of the dead existed
among most
Slavs and that they worshipped the departed.
of the
Mules, weapons,
and precious articles were burned, and when the husband died,
his wife was cremated with him, a man who died a bachelor
being married after his decease.'* Wives are said to have
chosen death in the flames because they wished to enter
paradise together with their husbands; and there are also
reports that slaves, or even many of a prince's retinue, were
killed and put into the grave with their masters.
In Bohemia a certain sort of games {scenae) were performed

according to pagan rites at places where roads met or crossed
were practised
at the grave by masked men; while the Polish chronicler Vineach other; and "profane jokes"
{ioci profani)
how virgins
century) tells
tore out their hair, matrons lacerated their faces, and old
women rent their garments.
centius
The
Kadlubek (thirteenth
Idolatry of the ancient Prussians, Lithuanians, and

^
is described by Jan Meneclus, who tells
Russians In 1551
of the funeral ceremonies, the
banquet
In the
house of the
deceased, the lamentations at the grave, and the gifts devoted
WORSHIP OF THE DEAD
235
Those on horseback galloped beside the hearse,

and brandishing their swords, drove the evil spirits away,
while bread and ale were placed in the grave to protect the
souls against hunger and thirst.
The memory of deceased members of the family was held
in pious honour everywhere. During the first year after the
to the departed.
death of one of the household funeral ceremonies were held,

and are still held, in numerous places. These usually take place
on the
third, seventh, twentieth,
and
fortieth
day
after the
and also half a year and a year later, the final fete
the
most touching of all. The members of the family
being
and the nearest relations assemble at the grave of the departed
funeral,
and drink, a part of the viands being

put aside for the deceased at the banquet which follows. On
the other hand, the White Russians for the most part celebrated
with
many
sorts of food
their funeral feasts at
home, a portion of the food being sent
to the grave afterward.

Besides these family feasts
festivals in
commemoration
fixed days thrice or
most Slavs celebrate general

on
of the dead, these recurring
even four times a year. The
festivals held
White Russia stand forth most prominently by reason of

their ancient character, and they are called dziady, or sometimes also chautury, the latter name derived from Latin
in
Dziadys are deceased anmale and female, and their memory is usually com-
chartularium ("charter, record").

cestors,
memorated four times annually.

The autumnal dziadys are held on
St.
Demetrius's Eve
^
(October 26, according to the Russian calendar), when work in
the fields has been finished, and a rich harvest fills the barns.
On
the Friday preceding the dziady^ the courtyard is swept

clean, the agricultural implements are stowed away, and
everything
is
put
in order.
Some
cattle,
set aside for that
by the master of the house, are killed;

purpose
and the women prepare food (from nine to fifteen dishes) and
scrub tables and benches, devoting special care to the corner
in the spring
SLAVIC
236
MYTHOLOGY
behind the oven, the most important place in the room.

Abundance of good food and a neat and tidy house are supposed to attract the souls and to fill them with pleasure. In
the evening the members of the household bathe, and having
put a pail of fresh water, with a wisp of straw in it, for the
Dziadys to wash
in,
the family, together with the relations
who have been invited, assemble in the room arrayed in their

Sunday best. The head of the house lights a candle in a corner
of the room,
and having
said a prayer, extinguishes it; after

the people sitting round a table covered with
dishes and drinks of various kinds, he solemnly invites the
which, with
all
"holy Dziadys" to partake of their meal. He then pours

water into a cup so as to make a few drops flow over the brim
and
stain the table-cloth,
and empties
it,
whereupon
all
the
others drink, likewise allowing a small portion to fall. Before

beginning to eat, the householder sets aside a portion of every
dish on a separate plate, which he then puts in the window;
and whenever a dish is finished, the spoons are laid upon
the table for the forefathers to help themselves. While eating,

silence is observed, except for abrupt whispers, in which the
ancestors and their deeds are the chief theme; and any slight
air, any rustling of dry leaves, or even the
motion of the
appearance of an emperor-moth
the forefathers.
is
The ample supper
taken to be the coming of

finished, the
Dziadys are
bidden adieu and requested to
fly back to heaven, while the

food appointed for them is left on the table and distributed
among the poor on the following day.
The winter dziadys are celebrated in a similar way on the
Saturday preceding Quinquagesima Sunday.

The spring dziadys, or radunica (derived from Greek
"meadow
of roses"), fall
on Tuesday
poBmvia,
The
members of
in Easter- Week.
housewife prepares two sorts of dishes, one for the

the household, the other for the forefathers; and after a short
prayer before the icons, the members of the family betake
themselves with food and drink to the churchyard, where the
PLATE XXVII
Zadusnica
The
zadusnica, celebrated in Bulgaria in honour
corresponds closely to the

Russian dziadys (pp. 235-37) and also finds an analogue in the commemoration of the dead among the
of deceased ancestors,
ancient Letts and Lithuanians in October.

picture
by Professor Morvicka.
After a
WORSHIP OF THE DEAD
237
women chant
dirges of a peculiar sort, while the men roll eggs

the
by
priest. A cloth is then spread over the family
grave, and the provisions and a bottle of vodka arc placed
upon it, after which the family sit in a circle round It and invite
blessed
the forefathers to join their banquet. All present eat and

drink, talking about the dead; and what is left of the food is
distributed
the beggars, a great
among
number
of
whom
assemble at the cemetery, or else it is left on the graves. Eggshells and even whole eggs are buried in the grave, and lamentations
and funeral
dirges conclude the ceremony.
The summer
dziadys are kept in a similar way on the Saturday preceding Whitsunday, when the graves are swept clean
with sprigs of birch, this being called "giving the Dziadys a
steam-bath."
All who desire to avoid the anger of the forefathers and
thus guard their family against misfortune should keep the
dziadys, the only persons exempt being those families that
have removed to a new dwelling erected in another place.
soon, however, as a member of the household dies In the

new home, the dziadys ought to be celebrated; and If the family
has moved into a house where the dziadys were previously
observed, It is necessary for them to Inquire as to the way In
As
which
this
was done,
since
any deviation from the usual
ceremony, as In the serving of the dishes,

of the forefathers
may
rouse the anger
and bring misfortune.
Other designations of the funeral ceremonies

are found In Russia the autumnal rites are termed
:
(pominki)
roditelskiye
suhoty ("parental Saturdays"), the vernal are navskiy velikden or naviy den ("great death-day," or "death-day"), and
the
summer semik ("Whitsunday").
In Bulgaria the common obsequies {zadusnicd) are celebrated

five or four times annually, but mostly thrice, I. e. on the
Saturday before
St.
Demetrius, before the Great Fast (Lent),
and before Whitsunday, the commemorations being similar

to the spring dziadys in Russia.
Besides these, there are rites
SLAVIC
238
MYTHOLOGY
some parts of Bulgaria which remind us of the autumnal

dziadys in White Russia, and these are called stopanova gozha
in
("the householder's festival"). In the opinion of the common

people a Stopan (Stopanin) is a deceased ancestor who guards
the house of the family, and the feast in his honour is celebrated in the following way. The whole house, especially
common
living-room, is carefully scrubbed and cleaned,

which the members of the family put on their Sunday
clothes and adorn themselves with flowers, while candles are
the
after
lit
on either
side of the hearth (where a fire
and near the door.

kills it,
which
The
is
kept burning)
woman
brings a black hen,

and lets the blood flow into the hollow on the hearth,
is
the flesh
oldest
then smeared over with clay; and next she roasts

of the hen, while two others bake cakes of flour
prepared especially for this purpose. When everything has

thus been made ready, the head of the family, taking a cup of
wine, pours half of it into the fire; and then, putting a cake
upon
room
his head,
all
he cuts
it
into four parts, springing about the
Butter and honey being spread upon one

leg of the hen and three small cups of wine are
the time.
quarter, the left
these presents for the Stopan are placed

in three corners of the loft. Then all sit down to table, but
added, whereupon
all
before beginning to eat, the old

pours some wine into the fire.
woman, with all others present,

The next rite is prayer to the
Stopan to bestow health and long life upon the family, to protect and guard the flocks, and to take care of the meadows, the
vineyards, etc.; after dinner songs are sung, and the benefit
that the Stopan bestows upon the household is extolled. Two
weeks
later the crone looks after the dishes destined for the
Stopan, and great is the joy of the family

on them have been eaten.
if
any
of the viands
Among the other Slavs only traces of these ancient ceremonies

have been preserved, for the Roman Catholic Church made
every endeavour to suppress them, whereas they were permitted by the Orthodox Church.
WORSHIP OF THE DEAD

That the worship
Slavs
may
of ancestors
239
was widely spread among the
be considered an established fact: the Slavs looked
their forefathers as guardian penates
who were
deeply
concerned about the happiness both of the family and of their
upon
dwelling; and the origin of many mythological beings, especially

the penates, may be traced back to this kind of ancestor-cult.
CHAPTER III
THE HOUSEHOLD GODS
Slavic belief in household gods is confirmed by old
Helmold alludes ^ to a wide-spread cult of
reports.
THE
penates
among
the Elbe
Slavs;
and Cosmas
relates
how-
Czech, one of the forefathers, brought the "penates" on his

shoulders to the new country and, resting on the mountain of
the Rzip, said to his companions: "Rise, good friends, and
make an offering to your penates, for it is their help that has
brought you to
this
new country
destined for you by Fate
ages ago."
Various names were given to the household gods by the

Slavs, but the terms ded, dedek, deduska, i. e. an ancestor
"grandfather") raised to the rank of a family genius,

clearly shows that the penates had their origin in ancestor(literally
worship.
Deduska Domovoy ("Grandfather House-Lord") Is

known In Russia, and many vivid reports are circulated
well
con-
cerning him. He is commonly represented as an old man with

a grizzled, bushy head of hair and with flashing eyes; his
whole body is covered with a thick, soft coat of hair; and his
garments consist of a long cloak girded about his waist with a

light red belt, or sometimes only of a red shirt. He often
appears in the shape of a well-known person belonging to the
people in whose home he lives, most usually in that of the
master of the house or that of an older member of the family,

whether dead or alive. The belief that he resembles some one
of the ancestors in the colour of his hair, his dress, his attitude,
his voice,
and even
his
manner shows that he
is
closely con-
THE HOUSEHOLD GODS
241
nected with the family, so that the same cow, for example,
that was the favourite of this ancestor is the favourite of the
Domovoy
The
as well.
has the further power of appearing in

the shape of animals, such as cats, dogs, bears, etc., the colour
of such an animal's coat being identical with that of the hair
household
spirit
of the master of the house.
While as a
rule the
Domovoy
is
invisible, there are many means of getting a glimpse of him;

but there is a general reluctance to use such devices since he is
very ready to punish inquisitive individuals
who
disturb him.
Normally the Domovoy lives in the room behind the oven,

or under it, or near the threshold of the house, or in the closet,
or in the courtyard, or in the stable, or in the bath-room, or
elsewhere. When in the bath-room, he creeps under the
benches, where he
a bath
him
to
is
lies
hissing, rumbling,
and
being prepared, a pail of water
wash
is
giggling;
and
made ready
if
for
in.
Every house has
its
own Domovoy, and only
as a rule, single, though sometimes he
is
one,
who
is,
believed to have a
wife and children. These penates often fight with one another,
each of them defending the welfare of its particular home; and
the victors settle in the house of the vanquished, where they

immediately begin to trouble the inmates, making all sorts
of noises, injuring the cattle, turning the master out of his
bed, choking people while asleep, etc. The people in the house
thus invaded seek to expel the intruder, beating the hedges

and the walls of the house with rods and crying, "Go home,
we don't want other people's penates here!" In the evening,
on the other hand, the members of the household don their
finest array
Domovoy
and walk out
to their
in the courtyard, seeking to lure the
home by
saying,
"Deduska Domovoy,
with us and tend our flocks."
come and live

The Domovoy not only cares for the herds, but also protects
the whole home and its inmates against misfortune, and promotes their well-being; he
sees that everything
is
in
proper
SLAVIC
242
MYTHOLOGY
order; he supervises the servants and labourers, does all sorts

work for the master at night, and is especially fond of
of
spinning. The householder who knows how to gratify him will

meet with success in everything; he will buy cheap and sell dear,
will have the best crops of all, and will never be visited by
In order to increase the property of such a master the

Domovoy will not even shrink from robbing other people.
hail.
The household
the joy and sorrow of his

home. If an inmate dies, he will show his grief by howling at
night, while bitter sobbing and wailing forebode the death of
spirit shares in
the master of the house, and sorrowful moanings are heard if

plague, war, conflagration, or some other calamity is threatening.
It
He
is
is
also able to foretell the future.
only rarely that the
demoniac
Domovoy shows
side of his character;
who
and then the
the evil and
fault usually lies
him due honour,

by cursing or by bad language, whereupon
with the people themselves,
fail
to render
or who give offence

the infuriated spirit takes vengeance on the cattle, or quits
the house and leaves the family unprotected. After his departure the inmates fall ill and die, and even the cattle perish.
People court the favour and satisfaction of the

putting aside for
him what
Domovoy
left of their
by
evening meal,
and the White Russians have a peculiar way of rendering homage to him by placing white linen in the passage leading to
the chamber which is his favourite haunt, this being meant as
an invitation to join in the meals of the family.
There are different modes of reconciling an angry Domovoy.
A cock, for example, will be killed at midnight, and all the
nooks and corners of the common room or the courtyard will
be washed with its blood. Sometimes a slice of bread strewn
with salt will be wrapped in a piece of white cloth and put in
is
the hall or in the courtyard, while the members of the household bow toward all four quarters, uttering certain aphoristic
sentences and entreating the Domovoy to cease his anger
and be
reconciled.
THE HOUSEHOLD GODS

No
house can
live
without the help of
its
243
genius,
and
this
accounts for various customs connected with the building of a

new residence and with removing to another home, etc. There
a belief that happiness and well-being cannot establish
themselves in a newly built home until after the death of the
is
head of the family, who then becomes its guardian; and when
a house has been erected, the master of it, and even those
who
first
enter
it,
threatened with
are
premature death.
Similar customs connected with the erection of new buildings

are practised by all Slavs.
Rites of a peculiar character are observed in case of removal
into a newly built house. Before entering, the members of
the family throw a cat, a cock, a hen, etc., inside, or on the
threshold of the
bury
it
new home they cut
below the
first
of bread
off
the head of a hen and
corner of the room; while the first slice

first dinner is buried in the rightwith the words, "Our supporter,
cut during the

hand corner of the loft
come
new house
into the
to eat bread
and to obey your new
master."
the family moves into a new home, they never forget
to take their Domovoy with them, and for this purpose they
proceed in the following way. An old woman heats a stove
If
house and scrapes the cinders out upon the fender,

putting these at noon into a clean pan and covering it with a
in the old
napkin. Opening the window and turning toward the corner

of the room where the oven stands, she invites the Domovoy to
come
new
house, after which she takes the pan with

the coal into the new home where, at the open gate, he is
into the
awaited by the master and the mistress with bread and

in their hands.
Bowing
low, they again invite
him
salt
into the
new
dwelling, and the old woman, with the master of the house,
first enters the room, carrying bread and salt in their hands.
The old woman puts the pan by the fireside, and removing the
it toward all the corners to frighten away the
then empties the coals into the oven, after which
and
Domovoy
cloth, shakes
SLAVIC
244
MYTHOLOGY
the pan is broken in pieces and buried below the front corner
of the room.
The
Little
Russians
call their
family genius Didko (Did,
Diduch) or Domovyk, their beliefs about him being similar

to those which the Russians hold concerning the Domovoy.
The ancient Czechs termed their penates Dedeks, and in
about the Djadeks, or guardSmall statues were made of clay or
Silesia traditions are still current
ian genii of the family.

stone, and in earlier times were placed in niches near the doors,
although later they were set on the mantelpieces above the
generally represented an old man, bowed with age,
whose attire distinctly showed the costume of a certain tribe
oven.
They
of the respective people.

The old Bohemian word Setek or Sotek
in point of meaning, with the
Ded
may
or Deduska.
be compared,
The Setek is
believed to resemble a small boy with claws, instead of nails,

his hands and feet, and he generally stays in the sheep-shed,
on
though he also hides
in the flour, or in the peas, or
on a wild
pear, while in winter he sits on the oven and warms himself.

The Setek protects the flocks from disease and brings good
harvests and money; and he is also said to be able to go without

eating and drinking for nine years, returning, after the lapse
of this time, to the place of his birth, where he annoys the
inmates. He may be bred out of an egg carried for nine days
in the arm-pit.
In the belief of the Styrian Slovenians the Setek of olden

times was a good spirit, about the size of a thumb, who generally
haunted places where
salt
was kept, or
lived in stables
near young cattle. Unless a portion of all that was boiled or

roasted was put aside for him, he caused the fire in the oven
to go out, or made the pans crack, or caused the cows to yield
blood instead of milk, etc. Being of very small size, he could
hide in any place and play tricks on those who teased him.
Another designation of the family genius was Skfitek ("Hobgoblin"), a term which was derived from the German Schrat
PLATE XXVIII
DjADEK
Like the Russian Deduska
Domovoy
(pp. 240-43),
the Czech Djadek is in reality an ancestral spirit

raised to the dignity of guardian of the household.
After clay statues found in
Silesia.
PLATE XXIX
V
Setek
While the Djadek (Plate XXVIII)
spirit,
the
Setek,
like
the
Skfitek
is
an ancestral
(pp. 244-45),
though now degraded to the low estate of a hobgoblin,

is in
origin a divine being who was the special protector of the household.
THE HOUSEHOLD GODS

who appeared
or Schratt. This goblin,
in the
245
shape of a small
boy, usually lived behind the oven or in the stable, favouring

the household and sharing the joys and sorrows of the family;
and he liked to do some work in the home, such as weaving on
the loom, sweeping the floor, or tending the flocks.
In order to court his favour the household set aside a portion
of their meals for his consumption, especially on
Thursdays
and at Christmas dinner, when three bits from every dish were
assigned to him. If they failed to do this, he was angry and
stormed about, worrying people, damaging the flocks, and
doing
His
all sorts
of
memory
harm
still
to the master of the house.
popular tradition, and he was

statue, with arms crossed on its
lives in
represented by a wooden
breast and wearing a crown upon its head. This Image stood,
as a rule, on a chiflFonier in a corner behind the table; and in
any absence of the family the Skfitek was placed on a chiffonier

or on a table to guard the house. The Slovaks call this spirit
Skrata or Skriatek and conceive him as a drenched chicken;
while in Poland he
is
known
as Skrzatek, Skrzat, or Skrzot,
represented as a bird (again most frequently a drenched

chicken) dragging its wings and tail behind it. He often trans-
and
is
forms
himself into a small bird
emitting
sparks from
its
body, and he may be bred from an egg of a peculiar shape

carried for a certain length of time beneath one's arm-pit.
He haunts the corn-loft and steals corn; in bad weather he also
visits human dwellings; and those who give him shelter under
their roofs will profit
by
his presence, for
he brings the house-
holder grain and will make him rich.

The Slovenians in Styria likewise believe that the Skrat
money and corn. He assumes different shapes,

now like a young lad, and now like an old man or
(Skratec) brings
looking
or he can transform himself into a cat, dog, goose, etc.;

but since he is covered with hair, he takes great pains to hide
woman,
body. He likes to dwell in mountains and dense forests,

and does not allow people to shout there; by day he perches on
his
SLAVIC
246
MYTHOLOGY
a beech-tree or takes his rest in dark caves; at night he haunts

villages
and smithies, where he forges and hammers
until the
dawn.
This goblin may be hired for one's services or bred from an
egg of a black hen; but to gain his assistance it is necessary to
promise him one's own self, as well as one's wife and children, and such an agreement must be signed in one's own
blood. In return for all this the Skrat will bring whatsoever
a
man may
wish, placing these things on the window-sill, alcarries money, he comes in the shape of a
though when he
fiery
broom, flying down the chimney. Since millet gruel is his

it must be placed on the window-sill whenever
favourite dish,
he brings anything.
The Russians call the
Domovoy Chozyain
or Chozyainusko
("Master of the House"), the Bulgarian appellation Stopan

and the Bohemian Hospodaficek having a similar meaning.
The Bulgarians believe that every house has its own Stopan,
who is descended from an ancestor distinguished for valour
and bravery. The Stopan guards his family, securing them
and numerous progeny; he makes the sheep
yield abundance of wool and milk; he promotes
rich harvests and causes the vineyards to produce heavy grapes
and the orchards to bear plenty of fruit, the only reward which
he asks being that the family hold him in high honour and give
him sufficient food. If they shirk this duty, he will have his
revenge: fields and vineyards may be damaged by hail; dohealth, long
life,
multiply and
mestic animals and even persons

disease;
and whole
families
may
may
go to
contract
all
sorts of
ruin.
The Bohemian Hospodaficek is believed to bring food and

money and to warn the householder of impending danger.
His symbol
the snake, which is also often called Hospodar,

Hospodaficek, or Domovnicek. Such a snake lives behind the
oven or below the threshold; whoever kills him destroys the
happiness and well-being of the family; and if he dies, the life
is
of the master of the house
must
also end.
He
is
very
much
THE HOUSEHOLD GODS
247
attached to the family, especially to children; and in time of

harvest, when there is no one in the house, he keeps watch over
the
home and
Frequently two snakes

male and a female; and similar ideas con-
looks after the cattle.
live in the house, a
cerning snakes called Zmek, Smok, or

among other Slavs as well.
The worship
of family genii
is
Cmok
are widely current
often closely associated with
myths about dwarfs, those about the Ludki ("Little People")

being particularly common. In the belief of the Lusatian
Serbs these Ludki were the
first
inhabitants of Lusatia (Lausitz),
where they lived in ages long past and had their own king.
They were pagans and could not endure the ringing of bells,
but later they left the country, so that now they are rarely
small in stature, their heads were disproportionately large, and their eyes protruded; they dressed
gaily and wore big hats or red caps upon their heads. They
seen.
They were
own language, which was a much altered form of

and
had a peculiar mode of talking by following up any
Serbian,
positive assertion by a negative expression of the same idea.
They lived partly in human dwellings and partly in woods, on
mountains, and also underground, their abodes resembling
bakers' ovens and being furnished like an ordinary house.
The Ludki grew corn, picking the kernels with an awl;
and when the ears had been thrashed, the grain was ground
between two stones. This coarse and sandy flour was made
into bread by placing the dough between two smooth stones
and keeping it underground till it became hard; but it was
necessarily sandy, coarse, brown, and doughy. Moreover they
consumed roots of plants and wild fruit; in case of need they
borrowed bread from human beings and they often cut grain
in time of harvest, stole pods and turnips, and carried away
anything suitable for food. They were familiar with all sorts
of handicraft, especially with the smith's trade; and it was
they who taught mankind the art of building houses.
Fond of music and singing, the Ludki knew how to play
spoke their
III
17
SLAVIC
248
MYTHOLOGY
upon an Instrument resembling
and being endowed

with the art of prophecy, they often foretold things that were
to happen. They lived In families and had pompous feasts
at their weddings and christenings; but the Ludkl households
were hostile to each other and waged violent Internecine wars.
Toward human beings, on the other hand, they were well
disposed, and they borrowed kneadlng-troughs, churns, and
pots from men, doing their best to recompense those who
willingly complied with their requests, but cruelly punishing
those
who
offended them.
a cymbal;
Their friendly relations, however,
were restricted to one special human household, which gave

them food, mostly millet, and conversed with them.
When such a Ludek died, his relatives burned his body, put
the ashes into vessels, and buried the latter in the earth.
During the funeral ceremonies the friends and relatives of the
dead wept copiously, collecting the tears In small jars which
they held under their eyes and burled when filled, whence the
urns, pots,
and lachrymatories found
remind us of these Ludki. The Poles

similar beings
In ancient graves
in
Prussian Poland
KrasnoludI or Krasnoludkl; and
Slovaks In Hungary the Lutky are small spirits

In mines.
mountains and
still
call
among the
who live on
CHAPTER
IV
GENII OF FATE
evidence of fatalism
INTERESTING
Greek historian
Procopius,"
who
recorded by the
asserts that the Slavs
is
knew nothing about fate and denied that it had any sort of
influence on man; when threatened by death or overcome by
illness, or when preparing for war, they vowed to offer a
should the peril be luckily passed.
may be considered as proof that the Slavs
were not blind fatalists, but believed in a higher being who
sacrifice to the gods,
This evidence
dealt out
by
and whose favour might be won

reports about these beings have been
and death,
life
Many
sacrifices.
preserved.
Among
the ancient Russian deities written tradition makes
mention of Rod and Rozanice,^^ to whom the ancient Slavs

offered bread, cheese, and honey. This worship of Rod and
Rozanice points to the fact that, in the
belief of the ancient
man depended, first of all, on

male forefathers and ancestors and on
Slavs, the fate of

viz. his
(rozanice).
The
his descent,
his
mother
function of the ancestors as the dispensers of

from the belief of the people,
fate having gradually disappeared
the Rozanices alone kept their place, this being easily explained
by the fact that the connexion between a new-born child and
its
mother
much more
is
with the whole

(protectors of
intimate and apparent than that

Similarly the Roman Junones
line of ancestors.
women) were
originally souls
of the dead,^^
while the Disirs of Scandinavian mythology are spirits of

deceased mothers that have become dispensers of fate.
Among the
Croatians and Slovenians the original appellations
SLAVIC
250
MYTHOLOGY
of Rodjenice, Rojenice (from roditi, "to give birth") are still

much in vogue. As they were believed to predestine the fate
of
new-born children, they were also called Sudice ("Givers
of Fate"), Sudjenice, Sujenice (Croatian), Sojenice, Sujenice

(Slovenian), Sudzenici (Bulgarian), or Sudicky (Bohemian).
The Bulgarians have their own name for them, viz. Narucnici
{narok, "destiny") or they call them Orisnici, Urisnici, Uresici
(from the Greek o/Jtôi^re?, "establishing, determining"); and
in northern Russia they go by the name of Udelnicy, i. e.
"Dispensers
(of
Destiny)."
genii of fate are usually regarded as pretty lasses or

as good-natured old women. The Southern Slavs speak of
These
as being beautiful like fairies, with white, round cheeks,

attired in white garments; their heads are covered with
them
and
a white cloth, their necks are adorned with gold
and
silver
and with jewellery, and in their hands they hold

burning candles, so that on moonlit nights their ethereal figures
may easily be seen. The Czechs entertain similar ideas: the
goddesses of destiny appear like white maidens or old women;
trinkets
they are
tall in stature,
and
their bodies are well-nigh trans-
but their eyes sparkle and may

bewitch people. Their garments are white, and their heads
are covered with white kerchiefs, although sometimes their
parent; their cheeks are pale,
whole faces are shrouded with a white veil. According to other

traditions they wear a glistening robe, and their hair is adorned
with precious stones; yet, on the other hand, they are also
described as being very plainly attired with only a wreath of
silvan flowers
on their heads. The Bulgarian Nariicnici wear
a white dress.
Although definite forms are thus ascribed to the fate-spirits,

they are very seldom visible. Whoever catches a glimpse of
them will be stupified with horror and will be unable to move
a single step.
The members
of a family very rarely see them,
this experience usually being reserved for a visitor or a beggar.
The Bohemians
believe that after sending deep sleep
upon
GENII OF FATE
251
woman lying in childbed, the Destinies put the infant upon

the table and decide his or her fate. Usually three Destinies
a
appear, the third and oldest being the most powerful; but
mention is also made of one, four, five, seven, or nine, with a
queen at their head. Their decisions often thwart one another,

but what the last says is decisive and will be fulfilled. The chief
matters which they determine are how long the child will live,
it will be rich or poor, and what will be the manner of
whether
its death.
According to a wide-spread belief, the first spins,
the second measures, and the third cuts off" the thread whose
length signifies the duration of life of the new-born mortal.
generally held that the Destinies may be induced to give

a favourable verdict by means of presents and sacrifices; and
It
is
on the night
after the birth the Croatians
in the habit of placing
wax
and Slovenians are
candles, wine, bread,
the table of the room where the
woman
lies;
and
salt
upon
should this be
omitted, an evil fate would be in store for the child. The

Slovenians of Istria bring bread to the caves where the
Rodjenices live and put it under stones near the entrance;
while in Bulgaria a supper is prepared for the Oresnicis, and
the relations are invited to partake of it. In Bohemia a table
covered with a white cloth was made ready for them, chairs
were placed around it, and on it were laid bread, salt, and
butter, with the occasional addition of cheese and beer; and
at the christening feast, in similar fashion, remnants of the
meal were left on the table in order to propitiate the spirits
of destiny.
Russian tradition personifies the fate bestowed upon a
man
at his birth as a supernatural being called Dolya, who is described as a poorly dressed woman capable of transforming herself into
is
either
various shapes.
good or evil.
She usually
by day and by night and serves him

to his death.
lives
behind the oven and
The good Dolya
She takes care of
and meadows with dew, works
protects her favourite

faithfully from his birth
his children,
waters his
fields
for him, drives fish into his
SLAVIC
252
and swarms
nets
MYTHOLOGY
him against
of bees into his hives, protects
wild beasts, guards his flocks, gets purchasers for his goods,
increases the price of his crops, selects good, full ears from
other people's sheaves for him, and bestows good health upon
him. No one will succeed unless she helps him, and without
her assistance all his efforts will be in vain. Woe to him who
gets
an
and
all his
evil
Dolya (Nedolya, Licho)

endeavours will be of no
for his share
avail; his evil
All his toil
Dolya does
nothing but sleep or dress herself or make merry, never thinking of offering him any aid. Her power has no limits, so that a
proverb says,
your Dolya,"
to
sell her,
or
"Not even your

i.e. it is
make
horse will get you away from

impossible to get rid of her; all attempts
her lose herself in woods, or drown her in
the sea are bound to
fail.
The Russian Dolya has a Serbian counterpart In the Sreca,

her relation to the Dolya being the same as that of the Latin
fors to fortuna and of sors to fatum. She is described as a
beautiful girl spinning a golden thread, and she bestows welfare upon the mortal to whom she is assigned, caring for his
In national songs and traditions

the Sreca frequently occurs as an independent being by the
fields
and grazing
side of
The
his flocks.
God.
SreCa
is,
latter case she
Nesreca.
however, not only good, but also evil, in which

is misfortune personified and may be called
In this aspect she
is
represented as an old
woman
with bloodshot eyes, always sleeping and taking no notice of

her master's affairs, although she is also said to be engaged in
spinning. Unlike the Dolya, a
drive her away.
man may
get rid of her and
CHAPTER V
NAVKY AND RUSALKY
THE
souls of children that
have died unbaptlzed, or are
born of mothers who have met a violent death, are personified as Navky, this term being cognate with Old Slavic
Russian navie, Little Russian navk ("dead")/^ and being
found throughout the Slavic languages
Bulgarian Navi,
Little
Russian
Navjaci;
Nejky, Mavky, Majky; Slovenian
navi,
etc.
Navje, Mavje;
In the traditions of the Little Russians the
Mavky, who
are
children either drowned by their mothers or unbaptized, have

the appearance of small babies, or of young, beautiful girls
with curly hair. They are either half-naked or wear only a
white shirt; and on moonlit nights they rock on branches of
trees, seeking to attract
crying of infants or
hands.
by
Whoever
their beauty,
may
by laughing,
their
follows their enticing voices will be bewitched

last will be tickled to death and drawn
steppes.
Very often
be seen in young corn; and by day they walk along

crying and wailing. In summer they swim in rivers
fields,
and
lakes, beating the
me and
giggling,
by imitating the
and clapping
and at
the
run about
either
They live in woods and on
into deep water.
they
young people
fields
left
me
water merrily; during the fairy-week they

and meadows, lamenting, "Mother has borne
unbaptized."
They
are angry at those
who
al-
lowed them to die unchristened, and whosoever chances to hear

"I baptize thee in the name
their wailing voices should say,
of
God
This
the Father,
will set
to take pity
them
God
free;
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit."

if for seven years they find no one
but
on them, they are turned into water-nymphs.
SLAVIC
254
MYTHOLOGY
According to Bulgarian tradition
and Navjaci are
in
Macedonia, the Navi
invisible genii soaring in the depths of the
firmament, appearing in the shape of birds, and crying like

infants. They are the souls of children who have died unbaptized, and in their search for their mothers they attack
and trouble women in childbed. They may be set free, however,
the baptismal formula is said over them. The Slovenian

Navje, in like manner, are believed to fly about in the form of
if
who
huge, black birds,
moved
to pity
by
plead to be baptized.
their wailing
their great benefactor; but
if
If any one is
and baptizes them, he will be
he ridicules them or whistles at
them, he will rouse their anger. The Poles call such beings
Latawci. A child that has died unchristened wanders about
the world for seven years and begs for baptism; but if it
meets no one to take compassion on it, it will be turned into
one of these
Very
spirits.
similar
to
the
Navky
are
the
Rusalky ("Water-
Nymphs"), whose name is derived from the Rusalye, of which

more will subsequently be said.^^ Belief in them is most widely
spread among
who have died
the Russians, who hold that they are children

unbaptized, or have been drowned or suffocated,
or else that they are girls and young wives who have met an
unnatural death, or have been cursed by their parents. Sometimes the Rusalky appear as girls seven years old, sometimes
as
maidens
tiful
in the full
bloom
of youth.
They cover
their beau-
bodies with green leaves, or with a white shirt without a
and at Whitsuntide they sit on trees, asking women for

a frock and girls for a shirt, whence women hang on the branches
strips of linen or little shreds torn from their dresses, this being
belt;
meant
as a sacrifice to propitiate these
The Rusalky
live
in
water-nymphs.
woods, meadows, fields, and waters.
Generally appearing when the corn begins to ripen in the

fields, and concealed amidst it, ready to punish him who
wantonly plucks the ears, they dance and make merry,

adorned with the many-coloured blossoms of the poppy and
NAVKY AND RUSALKY

with their hair flying
meadows,
rocking upon
them
live
and under
loose.
or they frolic
make
it,
it
At Whitsuntide they run about the
among the high-standing corn and,

wave to and fro. Whole bevies of
on lonely spots along the streams, or

rapids.
255
Sitting in the
in
deep places
depths of brooks and rivers,
they entangle the fishermen's nets; by breaking the dikes they

flood the adjoining fields and wreck the bridges; and they may
cause fatal storms, dangerous rains, and heavy hail.
Rising to the surface of the stream on clear summer nights,
also
they bathe, sprinkling the water around them and frolicking in

the waves; they like to sit on the mill-wheel, splashing each
and then they dive deep, crying, "Kuku." In late spring

especially they come out of the water, and run about the
other,
neighbouring woods and thickets, clapping their hands and

turning somersaults upon the grass, while their laughter re-
sounds far and wide

to rock
in the forests.
In the evening they like
slender branches, enticing
unwary wanderers;
in
one
succeed
they
leading any
astray, they tickle him
to death, or draw him down into the depths of the stream.
and
upon
if
The Rusalky
and singing; and

their fine voices lure swimmers to deep places, where they
drown. The water-nymphs also divert themselves by dancing
in the pale moonlight, and they inveigle shepherds to play with
them, the places where they dance being marked by circles
in which the grass is particularly luxuriant and green. Fond of
spinning, they hang their yarn on trees; and after washing
the linen which they weave, they spread it on the banks to
dry. If a man treads on such linen, he becomes weak and lame.
are extremely fond of music
during Whitsuntide that the Rusalky display their

greatest activity, and then, for fear of them, people do not stay
outdoors by night more than is necessary, do not bathe in
It
is
do not clap their hands, and avoid all work in the fields
that might anger the water-nymphs, while on the banks of
rivers and brooks lads and lasses place bread, cheese, butter,
rivers,
and other kinds
of food for them.
CHAPTER
VI
VILY
THE
Greek historian Procoplus
^^
testifies to
the ancient
Slavic worship of beings similar to the Greek nymphs,

and he also tells us that the Slavs offered sacrifices to them.
The most common designation of these beings is "Fairy"
(Vila), and they are frequently mentioned in the ancient written traditions of the Russians, the Southern Slavs, and the
Czechs, although their worship flourished most among the
Southern Slavs, where they were made to unite many features
of other fabled beings.

The signification of the
word Vila
^^
(Bulgarian Samovila,
Samodiva) has not yet been explained in a satisfactory manner,

but it seems to come from the root vel ("perish") and to be
cognate with Lithuanian
veles ("spirits of
the deceased").
According to popular tradition the fairies are souls of the

departed, and Serbian legends declare that originally they
were proud maidens who incurred the curse of God. The Bulgarians believe that the Samovily are girls who have died
unbaptized, and among the Slovaks there is a wide-spread
story that the fairies are souls of brides who died after their
betrothal, and finding no rest, are doomed to roam about at
night.
The
Poles think that the Wili are souls of beautiful
who
are condemned to atone for their frivolous

young girls
life by floating in the air midway between sky and earth;
they do good to those who have favoured them during their
lifetime,
but
evil to those
close relationship
is
who have
offended them.
held to exist between the fairies and
the souls of the deceased, as
is
evidenced by the belief that
VILY
may often be
those who have
they
of
seen dancing by moonlight near the graves

died a violent death. The festivals for the
Rusalky, which are meant to

of the deceased, are, at the
in
whose honour
young
257
recall the
same time,
memory
of the souls
festivals of the Vily,
sorts of ceremonies are performed;
all
and
people of both sexes betake themselves to the
picking flowers, making

about the fairies.
them
into bouquets,
meadows,
and singing songs
The Vily
tact
and
are believed to have lived originally in close confriendship with human beings. In the happy days of
when
the fields produced wheat and other sorts of cereals

without the help of man, when people lived in peace and conyore,
tentedness and mutual goodwill, the fairies helped
garner their harvests, to
and to build
mow
them
to
their grass, to feed their cattle,
their houses; they taught
to sow, to drain meadows, and even
them how
to plough,
how
to bury the dead.

But so soon as men had departed from their old virtues, when
the shepherds had thrown away their flutes and drums and
songs, and had taken whips into their hands and commenced
to crack them in their pastures, cursing and swearing, and
reports of guns were heard, and nations

began to make war against each other, the Vily left the country
and went to foreign lands. That is why only very few chance
the
when,
finally,
to see
them dancing
or a deserted
cliff,
first
in the fields, or sitting
upon a bare rock

and
weeping
singing melancholy songs.
In like manner the Slovenians believe that the
fairies
were
kind and well disposed toward human beings, telling them what
times were particularly suitable for ploughing, sowing, and harvesting.
They themselves
also took
good care of the crops,
tearing out weeds and cockles; and in return for all this they
asked for some food, which they ate during the night. So long
as their anger was not aroused, they would appear every sum-
mer; but when mankind commenced to lead a sinful hfe, and

when whistling and shouting and cracking of whips began to
increase in the fields, the Vily disappeared, never to return
SLAVIC
258
MYTHOLOGY
day has dawned. The belief that a Vila may

become a man's sister also points to the existence of close relations between them and human beings and it is a popular conuntil a better
viction that not only every young lad and, indeed, every honest
man has a fairy for his sister who helps him in case of need, but
even some animals, such as stags, roes, and chamois, for whom
the Vily have a special liking, may possess such supernatural
The
kindred.
fairies will aid their
their property,
and
will
bestow
brothers in danger, will bless
all sorts
of presents
upon them.
In numerous folk-tales Vily are married to young men.
They
and
excellent housekeepers, but their husnot remind them of their descent, or they will
are dutiful wives
bands must
disappear forever, though they still continue to keep secret

watch over the welfare of their children.
The Vily
are pictured as beautiful women, eternally young,

with pale cheeks, and dressed in white. Their long hair is
usually fair or golden, and their life and strength are believed
a fairy loses a single hair, she will

Slovenians, however, assert that a Vila will show
herself in her true shape to any one who succeeds in cutting
to depend
die.
upon
it,
so that
if
The
her hair. Their bodies are as slender as the stem of a pine,

and as light as those of birds; and they are frequently provided
off
with wings. A man who robs a fairy of her pinions will bind
her to himself; but so soon as she has regained possession of
The
lightning, and their voices are so
eyes of the Vily flash like

fine and sweet that to hear
them once
forever.
them, she
scinated
will
will
is
by
disappear.
to
remember them
their beauty; he
who once
Men
are often fa-
chances to see a Vila,
yearn for her from the depths of his soul, and
will kill
The
him
at
his longing
last.-
fairies like to ride horses
and
stags,
and they have the
power of transforming themselves into horses, wolves, snakes,

falcons, or swans. They live in the clouds, on forest-clad
mountains, and in the waters.
clouds, sleeping, singing,
The
first
kind
sit
among
the
and dancing. They may cause winds
VILY
and storms, and have
259
eagles for their helpers;
now and
then,
transforming themselves into birds, they float down to the

earth to prophesy the future and to protect mankind against
disaster.
They
forests dwell
also live in the stars, while the Vily of the
on high mountains,
in caves,
and
in ravines,
magnificent castles for their abodes.
sides
having
about the woods on horseback or on
like to
inseparably united.
and
Roaming
stags, the fairies of the
forests chase the deer with arrows; they kill
them; and they
be-
men who
defy
perch on trees with which they are
The Water-Vily
live
in
rivers,
lakes,
although for the most part they stay outside

the water. When, on moonlit nights, they leave their abodes,
the waters rise and foam; and the fairies, dancing on the banks,
springs,
wells,
drown young men who happen to be bathing there. If they

perceive a man on the opposite bank, they grow in size so as
to be able to step across the stream. They bathe their children
in the water, or throw things in to poison it; and whoever
quenches his thirst there must die, just as they will punish any
one who drinks of their springs without their permission.

The fairies are fond of singing and dancing; and enticing
young lads and shepherds or singers to dance with them, they

distribute happiness or misfortune among them. Places where
the
fairies
have been dancing
may
be recognized from afar,
being distinguished by thick, deep, green grass (fairy-rings);

and if any one presumes to step inside, he must expect punish-
ment. Their voices are so wonderfully sweet that a man might

listen to them for many days without eating or drinking; but
no one knows what language they use
in singing,
and only
who enjoy their friendship can understand them. They

remarkable for their strength and bravery; and when
those
are
fighting with each other, as they often do, the forest resounds
with din and clamour, while the ground shakes.
They have
the power of foretelling the future and of curing diseases.

When free, they give birth to children, but are apt to foist
them upon mortal women; such
offspring are remarkable for
SLAVIC
26o
their excellent
MYTHOLOGY
memory and wonderful
cleverness.
On
the other
hand, they kidnap children, feeding them with honey and

instructing
Though
them
in all kinds of knowledge.
the fairies are, on the whole, good-natured and

may also do evil to people; and accord-
charitable beings, they

ingly they
may
be classed as white (beneficent) or black (malef-
icent) fairies, the latter sending cruel maladies
wounding
Many
upon people, or
their feet, hands, or hearts with arrows.
kinds of offerings are
still
dedicated to the Vily.
In Croatia young girls place fruits of the field, or flowers, or

silk ribbons upon stones in caves as offerings to them; and
in Bulgaria gay ribbons are hung on trees, or little cakes are
placed near wells.
The Judy
of
Macedonia and
of the
Rhodope Mountains
strongly resemble these Samovily. They are female beings with

long tresses, snake-like and disgusting bodies, and vile natures,
living in rivers and lakes. If they see a man in the water, they
undo
and throwing it around him, will drown

him. They may be seen sitting on the banks, combing their
hair, or dancing on meadows; and they destroy those whom
they induce to dance with them.
will
their hair,
PLATE
XXX
Lesni Zenka
As
in so
many
mythologies, the
wood-nymphs
of
kindly and dangerous

and
their
like
that of divine beings
qualities,
love,
is
to
be
generally,
apt
dangerous to mortals. OrigiSlavic
belief
nally the Lesni
have
both
Zenka and
may have
similar Slavic
minor god-
corresponded to the Lettish forestMeschamaat.

After a picture by N. Ales.
goddess
For other idealizations by this artist see Plates
desses
XXXIII-XXXVI.
i\)c
H&H
M.
i'jftv
^->^
^'
/<{.
^0,(f
CHAPTER
VII
SILVAN SPIRITS
Russians
a silvan spirit Lesly, Lesovik (cf. Russian

lesii, "forest, wood"), and such a being shows himself
either in human or in animal guise. When he appears in the
THE
former shape, he
call
is
an old
man
and with
with long hair and beard, with

body covered by a thick coat
his
flashing green eyes,

of hair. His stature depends on the height of the tree, etc.,
which he inhabits: in the forests he may attain the size of
high trees; in the fields he is no taller than grass. In the

woods the Lesiye frequently appear to travellers as ordinary
people or as their friends; but at other times they take the
shapes of bears, wolves, hares, etc.
and
in fields; forests, fields,
which they rule.

but if there are
They
and meadows
deep woods
are the realm over
live in
Usually there is only one Lesiy in each wood;

Some
several, a "silvan czar" is their lord.
Lesiye remain alone by themselves in forest solitudes and

in caves, while others are fond of society and build in the
woods spacious dwellings where they

and children.
live
with their wives
The
principal business of the silvan spirits is to guard the

forest. They do not allow people to whistle or to shout there;
they drive away thieves, frightening them by their cries and

playing pranks upon them. The deer and the birds enjoy
their protection;
they feast and
but their favourite
is
the bear, with
whom
revel.
When
the Lesiy walks through the forest to look after his

property, a rustling of the trees accompanies him; he roams
through the wood, rocks upon the boughs, whistles, laughs,
MYTHOLOGY
SLAVIC
262
claps his hands, cracks his whip, neighs like a horse, lows like
dog, and mews like a cat. The echo is

and
since
a
work;
strong wind constantly blows around
him, no man has ever seen his footsteps either in sand or in
a cow, barks like a
his
snow.
He
mocking and teasing disposition, and is fond of

those
who have lost their way, removing boundarymisleading
stones and signposts, or taking the shape of a wanderer's
of a
is
friend to confuse
He
also entices
him and lure him into thickets and morasses.

girls and children into his copses, where he
keeps them until, long afterward, they escape with their

honour lost; and he likewise substitutes his own offspring for
human
children, such a changeling being ugly, stupid,
voracious, but strong as a horse.
If a
man
suddenly
and
falls
ill
while in the forest, he believes that this affliction has been

sent upon him by the Lesiy; to recover his health he wraps a
slice of salted
bread in linen and lays
it
in the
woods
as a
present for the silvan spirit.
Shepherds and huntsmen gain the Lesly's favour by presents.
The former make him an
offering In the shape of a
cow and
thus secure his protection for their flocks; while the latter
place a piece of salted bread on the stump of a tree and leave
for
him the
first
game which they
take.
Moreover, the
recita-
tion of certain formulae secures his services, and there are
to obviate the danger of being led astray by him,

by turning one's garments inside out, putting the right
shoe on the left foot, bending down to look between one's
many ways
as
legs, etc.
dryads likewise show themselves in the woods,

and are pictured as beautiful girls, wearing a white or green
Nymphs and
gown, and with golden or green hair. In the evening, when

stillness reigns in nature, they divert themselves by dancing
and singing; and they also dance at noon, when it is dangerous to approach their circles, since they dance or tickle
to death those
who
allow themselves to be attracted by their
SILVAN SPIRITS
263
songs. They are most perilous to young lads, whereas they

often feel pity for girls and richly reward them.
The dryads punish children who shout in the woods while
gathering mushrooms; but, on the other hand, if they are

courteously asked, they show where these fungi grow in abund-
The
ance.
forest
where they
whose waters cure
well
country
lads,
but they
live
usually contains a magic
diseases. Sometimes they marry

not permit themselves to be insulted
all
will
or reminded of their descent.
Woods and mountains
are the
home
of
"Wild
Women"
(Bohemian Divozenky, Lusatian Dziwje Zony, Polish Dziwozony, Slovenian Divje Devojke, Bulgarian Divi-te Zeni), goodlooking beings with large, square heads, long, thick hair
(ruddy or black in colour), hairy bodies, and long fingers.
lived in underground burrows and had households like
mankind. They either gathered ears in the fields or picked
them from the sheaves, and having ground the grain on a
stone, they baked bread which spread its odour throughout
They
the wood. Besides bread they ate the root of the liquorice and
caught game and fish. They were fond of combing hemp,
which they wove into frocks and
The "Wild Women" knew
shirts.
the secret forces of nature, and
from plants and roots they prepared unguents with which

they anointed themselves, thus becoming light and invisible.
They were fond of music and singing; and storms were believed
to be caused
by
their wild frolicking.
Lads and
lasses
were
them and afterward reaped rich rewards.

maintained
a
They
friendly intercourse with human beings,
invited to dance with
frequently entering their villages and borrowing kneadingtroughs and other necessaries. Those who did not forget to
reserve
some dish
Women"
for
them were
well repaid, for the "Wild

swept their rooms and
kept their houses in order,
courtyards, cleared their firesides of ashes, and took care of

their children; in the fields they reaped the corn, and gathering
up the
grain, tied
III 18
it
into sheaves; for the
women
they not only
SLAVIC
264
MYTHOLOGY
spun hemp, but also gave them crops that never diminished.
Many stories are told about their marriages with country lads.
They were model wives and housekeepers, but they vanished
if any one called them "Wild Women," and uncleared firesides
or unscrubbed kneading-troughs were also apt to drive
them
away.
They were dangerous to any person whom they might meet

alone in the forest, turning him round and round until he lost
his
way. They lay in wait especially
become mothers and substituted
human
children,
these
changelings,
women who had
for
just
own
offspring for the
called
Divous ("Wild
their
Brats") or Premien ("Changelings"), being ugly, squalling,
and unshapely. The "Wild Women" did much harm to avaricious and greedy persons, dragging their corn along the fields,
bewitching their cows, and afflicting their children with whooping-cough, or even killing them. It was during Midsummer
Night that they were most powerful.
The Lusatian Serbs believe that the Dziwje Zony ("Wild
are white beings who reveal themselves at noon or
at evening. They like to spin hemp; and if a girl spins or
combs it for them, they reward her by leaves that become
Women")
gold.
In
Polish
the
Dziwozony are superhuman

females with cold and callous hearts and filled with passionate
sensuality. They are tall in stature, their faces are thin, and
their hair is long and dishevelled. They fling their breasts
over their shoulders, since otherwise they would be hindered
in running; and their garments are always disarranged. Groups
of them go about woods and fields, and if they chance upon
human
superstition
beings, they tickle the adults to death, but take the
them
and playmates. For

never
to
the
woods
alone, but only
young people
go
in groups. In the belief of the Slovenians the Divje Devojke,
or Dekle, dwell in the forests; at harvest-time they come down
young
folk with
to be their lovers
this reason
to the fields to reap the corn, and the
"Wild
Men"
bind
it
SILVAN SPIRITS
Into sheaves, the farmers' wives bringing
265
them food
in return.
Where they came from no one can tell, and the cracking of
whips has driven them away at last. The Divja Zena is a
woman
of tall figure, with an enormously large head and long

black hair, but very short feet; she dwells in mountain caves.
If a woman does not nurse her child properly, the "Wild
Woman"
comes and either substitutes a changeling for it or

carries it away.
The Bulgarian Diva-ta Zena lives in the woods and is covered
with a thick coat of hair; she throws her long breasts over
her shoulders and thus nurses her children. She is strong and
savage, and her enunciation
More
forests,
is
defective.
rarely mention is made of "Wild Men." They live in

and their entire bodies are covered with hair or moss,
while a tuft of ferns adorns their heads. If they catch a young

girl, they take her to wife; and if she runs away from them,
they tear her child to pieces. They appear to lonely wanderers
by terrible gusts of wind, they frighten

them into morasses. The "Wild Men" like to
and, accompanied
them and
lead
and forest-rangers by imitating the hewing,

felling of trees; and they chase deer in the woods,
tease gamekeepers
sawing, and
hooting horribly
Divji
Moz
all
the while.
("Wild Man")
In Slovenian tradition the
lived in a deep forest cave
and was
possessed of terrible strength. The peasants of the neighbourhood who wished to avoid being harmed by him had to carry
food to the cottage that was nearest his cave; but he was well
disposed toward the peasants who cooked their meals in his
hut and advised them how to
set to
work.
Besides these silvan spirits there are similar beings of various

names. The ancient Czechs were familiar with Jeze and
Jezenky ("Lamias"), who were said to have the faces of
women, the bodies
of sows,
and the
legs of horses.
People
believe in Jezinky who, living In caves, put out the eyes

of human beings after lulling them to sleep, and who kidnap
still
small children,
whom
they feed on dainty morsels in their
SLAVIC
266
caverns.
stories
The
of
MYTHOLOGY
ancient Poles, too,
Jendzyna, who
figures
knew
in
of
them and
still tell
popular fairy-tales as
Jaga-baba, Jezibaba, Jendzibaba, etc.

In Moravia the "Wild Beings" are small and ungainly,
live in fields, and may transform themselves into all sorts of
animals.
Since their
mankind and
treat
own
children are ugly, they steal those of

well; but the changelings whom
beings are hideous and bald, with huge
them very
they foist on human

heads and stomachs; they neither grow nor
talk,
but eat a
great deal, whining and whimpering constantly. The Slovaks

have their Zruty, or Ozruti, who are wild and gigantic beings,
living in the wildernesses of the Tatra Mountains.
CHAPTER
VIII
FIELD-SPIRITS
the fields there appears, usually at the time of harvest,
the Poludnica, or Polednica ("Midday Spirit"). According
IN
to
Bohemian
tradition she has the appearance of an airy,
white lady, or of an old woman who wanders about the fields

at noon and haunts the dwellings of men. She also floats,
amid violent gusts
of wind, high
up
in the air;
she touches will die a sudden death.
and whomsoever
Sometimes she
is
slight
and slim like a girl twelve years old and has a whip in her
hand with which she strikes any one who crosses her path,
such a
She
man
is
being doomed to meet an early death.

who have repeculiarly fond of ambushing women
cently borne children and who go out into the street at midday.
If a mother leaves her child alone in the fields at harvest-time,
be stolen by a Poludnica, whence crying children are

hushed by the threat that this spirit will come and carry them
it
may
away.
In Moravia the Poludnica
clad in a white
gown and
face, slanting eyes,
is
represented as an old
woman
said to have horses' hoofs, an ugly
and dishevelled
hair.
In Polish belief the Poludnica (Poludniowka, Przypotudnica)

manifests herself in the shape of a tall woman, dressed in a
white robe reaching to her feet, and carrying a sharp sickle
in her hand. During the summer she stays either in the fields
or in the woods, giving chase to the people who work there.
if
Frequently she propounds hard questions to them, and
maladies
sends
upon
grievous
they are unable to answer, she
them.
Sometimes she appears, during a storm,
in cottages;
SLAVIC
268
MYTHOLOGY
and various natural phenomena, such as the fata morgana^

are ascribed to her by the peasants. When she leaves the
fields
dogs;
or the forests, she
is
accompanied by seven great black
and women and children are her favourite victims.
Among
the Lusatian Serbs the Pripotdnica
(Pfezpotdnica)
the subject of many stories, being represented either as a
tall old woman dressed in a white gown and carrying a sickle
is
in her hand, or else as a
young female. Coming out of the

woods at midday, she appears to those who may be working
there; and any person whom she meets in the fields at that
time of the day must talk with her for fully an hour about one
and the same thing, those who fail to do this either forfeiting
their heads or having some illness sent upon them. Frequently
she herself puts questions to them, e.
of flax and hemp, and punishes those
Her most usual
g.
concerning the growing

are unable to answer.
who
young women who either

in childbed. At noon she
victims, however, are
have children at home or are
still
guards the corn from, thieves and punishes children

upon the ears.
who
tread
The Russians
a
tall
and
believe that the Poludnica has the shape of

beautiful girl dressed in a white gown. She not only
small children into the corn, but walking about the

fields at harvest-time, she seizes the heads of those whom she
lures
working there at midday, and twisting their necks, causes

them violent pain. The Siberian Russians picture her as an
finds
old
woman
among
with thick, curly hair and scanty clothing; she lives

the reeds, or in the dense thickets of nettles, and kid-
naps naughty children.
In other parts of Russia she appears
as guardian of fields.
Besides
the
Poludnica
the
Russians
have a
field-spirit
or Polevoy (cf.
pole, "field") who is
about the height of a corn-stalk until harvest-time, when he
named Polevik
shrivels to the size of stubble.
of the scythe
when
and hides among
Russian
He
runs
before the swing

the stalks that are still standing;
away
the last ears are cut, he gets into the hands of the reaper
FIELD-SPIRITS
269
brought to the barn with the final sheaf. The Polevik

appears at noon or before sunset; and at that time it is unsafe
and
is
the Polevik, roaming about on

horseback, will ride over those who are sleeping there, or will
to take a nap in the
field, for
send disease upon them.
The White
man
Russians, again,
tell
stories
about the Belun,
with a long white beard and gown, who helps the

reapers and bestows rich presents upon them. He shows himself only during the day and guides aright those who have lost
an old
their
way.
CHAPTER IX
WATER-SPIRITS
SPIRIT living in the water is
Vodyanik or Deduska
Vodyanoy ("Water-Grandfather") by the Russians, Vodnik by the Bohemians, Vodeni Moz ("Water-Man") by the
Slovenians, Topielec ("Drowner") by the Poles, etc. He is
a bald-headed old man with fat belly and puffy cheeks, a
high cap of reeds on his head, and a belt of rushes round his
waist. He can transform himself in many ways, and when in
a village, he assumes the form of a human being, though his
true nature is revealed by the water which oozes from the left
He
side of his coat.
called
in the
deeper portions of rivers,

in
the
or
brooks,
lakes, mostly
neighbourhood of mills; and
there he possesses stone-built courtyards in which he keeps
numerous herds
lives
of horses, cattle, sheep,
and
pigs, driving
them
out at night to graze. During the day he usually lies concealed

in deep places, but rises to the surface at night, clapping his
hands and jumping from the water like a fish; or sometimes

he sits on the mill-wheel, combing his long green hair.
The Vodyanik
the master of the waters
but although he
is endowed with terrible strength and power so long as he is
in the water, he is weak when on dry land. He likes to ride
a sheat-fish, or saddles a horse, bull, or cow, which he rides
till
it
waters
the
falls
is
fish
is
dead
done by
in the morasses.
his will.
When
into the fisherman's net
that happens in the

in good humour, he drives
All
and guides
sailors
to safe
places in stormy weather; but when his mood is irritable, he

lures them to dangerous coasts and upsets their boats. He
tears the spikes out of the mill-wheels, diverts the water from
WATER-SPIRITS
its
course,
and
and
floods the mill;
if
271
the miller wishes to
succeed, he should bury some living being in the foundations

of his mill, such as a cow, a sheep, or even a man. There is
Vodyanik drowns those who
also a wide-spread belief that the
bathe at midday or at midnight.

The Vodyanik is married and is the father of a family, being
said to have one hundred and eleven beautiful daughters who
torture and torment the drowned.
or drowned and
He
marries water-nymphs
have been cursed by their
unhappy girls who

and when the waters
fathers or mothers;
of a river or a lake
overflow their banks, he is believed to be celebrating his

wedding, for on that occasion he is apt to get drunk, to make
the waters rise, and to tear down dikes, bridges, and mills.
When
about to be confined, he comes to the villages

in human shape to get a midwife and sponsors whom he afterward richly rewards with gold and silver.
He
his wife
is
markets, and his appearance foretells the

he buys dear, there will be a bad harvest, if
cheap, a good crop may be expected. During the winter he
remains in his dwelling; and in early spring, when he wakes
likes to visit
price of corn;
if
he is hungry and troublesome, breaking the

the
waves
in commotion, and frightening the fish.
ice, setting
To propitiate him a horse, smeared with honey, is sacrificed,
and for three days he impatiently awaits this offering, betraying
from
his slumber,
by making the waters heave and by howling

Fishermen
dismally.
pour butter into the water as a sacrifice
to him, while millers kill a black, well-fed sow and off'er it in
his greediness
his
honour that he
their sleep.
not tear
may
In order to
make
the
the Vodyanik from destroying
head
in
it
down
dam
their
durable and to prevent
it.
Women"
water
or trouble
the Ukranians bury a horse's
The "Water-Nymphs" (Vodni Panny),

dressed
dams
often called
(Bile Pani) as well, are tall, sad,
in
green, transparent
in crystal palaces
which
robes.
may
and
They
pale,
live
"White
and are
under the
be approached by paths
SLAVIC
272
MYTHOLOGY
strewn with gold and silver gravel. They like to rock on

and lure young lads by their wonderful singing. In the
evening they leave their hiding-places and betake themselves
trees
to villages to join the dancing and other
water-nymph who
amusements
of the
has been captured will

village
help people wash their linen and tidy their rooms; but she
will disappear if presented with a new robe.
folk.
CHAPTER X
SUN,
MOON, AND STARS

mention
sun-worship. Arabian
travellers
speak of the Slavs as adoring the sun and
assert that many renounced the Christian faith, preferring
writers
EARLY
Slavic
^^
to worship the sun and other heavenly bodies. These passages

might be multiplied considerably, but here it must suffice to
note that an old Bohemian homilist records
^^
Czechs not only worshipped sun, moon, and

adored water, fire, mountains, and trees.
We
have no detailed accounts to
tell
that the pagan

stars,
but also
us whether the ancient
Slavs possessed real solar gods which were represented by idols;

it is only among the pagan Russians that the existence
and
be regarded as proved.
This adoration of the sun implies that the moon likewise
of a god of the sun
^'^
may
received worship from the Slavs. There was a wide-spread

conviction that the luminary of night was the abode of the
souls of the departed;
and
later she
came
to be regarded as
the dwelling-place of sinful souls which had been transported

thither by way of punishment. Popular belief still ascribes
moon
great influence upon the growth and development

of both the vegetable and the animal worlds.
to the
a close relationship between

There are as many men on earth as there are
All Slavs maintain that there

stars
and men.
stars in the sky.
At
his birth
is
each
man
receives a star of his
own; and when his end is drawing near, that star falls to earth,
the man dies, and his soul floats upward to the clouds.
PART
THE
DEITIES OF
II
THE ELBE SLAVS
THE
THE
DEITIES OF
THE ELBE SLAVS
religion o the ancient Slavs
was not
restricted to a
but was further developed into the worship

of gods. They made themselves idols, in which they thought
their deities were embodied, and they prayed to them.
There are two records which show how the pagan Slavs
belief in genii,
to adopt the worship of one chief deity. The Greek

historian Procopius writes as follows concerning Slavs and
came
Antae:^
"They
believe that there
is
one single god
who
the
is
creator of the lightning and the sole lord of all things, and
to him they sacrifice cattle and all sorts of animals.
.
They
they
also worship rivers,

sacrifice to all
and
nymphs, and some other
deities;
foretell the future in these offerings."
similar account concerning the Elbe Slavs
chronicler Helmold:^
"Among
is given by the
the multiform divine powers
whom
they ascribe fields, forests, sorrows, and joys they do

not deny that one god rules over the others in heaven and that
to
he, pre-eminent in might, cares only for things celestial;

whereas the rest, obeying the duties assigned them, have
sprung from his blood and enjoy distinction in proportion to
their nearness to that
The name
us.
There
god of gods."
of the chief
is,
god of the Slavs has not come down to

it was Svarog,
however, a well-founded belief that
who, in old chronicles, is often identified with Hephalstos;^

and we have more certain evidence regarding his sons, one of
whom is called Dazbog, and the other Svarozic ("Son of
Lack
of historical data renders
impossible to
say what gods were worshipped by the Slavs while they were
still living in their ancient homes ;^ and our only documents
Svarog").^
it
SLAVIC
278
MYTHOLOGY
of a really precise character concern solely the religion of the

Elbe Slavs and the Russians.
For the idolatry of the former the record of the chronicler
He
^
that in
says
those regions there were as many temples as there were districts, and that these shrines served the worship of their
Thietmar
is
of the greatest importance.
particular demons.
PLATE XXXI
SVANTOVIT
This
statue,
supposed
Slavic deity Svantovit,
to
represent
who may
the
great
again appear in
the divinity Triglav (see pp. 284-85), was found in

1848 near the river Zbrucz on the Russo-Galician
frontier.
modern
Plate
This figure
may
be contrasted with the
idealized conception of the
XXXIV,
i.
god shown
in
iteSa^îHiJ-^
MUXCItR iC
CHAPTER
SVANTOVIT
the numerous deities of the Elbe Slavs the most
AMONG
prominent
place was occupied by Svantovit. The centre

of his worship was in Arkona, on the island of Riigen; and in
the middle of the town, which towers on the summit of a lofty
cliff,
stood his temple, skilfully built of wood and richly adorned

Within the sanctuary, which was
with embossed ornaments.
enclosed by two fences, arose a gigantic statue of Svantovit,

surpassing in size all human dimensions, and having four
necks and four heads, two of them facing in front and two
The beard was shaved, and the hair was cut short,
behind.
was the custom among the people of Riigen. In the right

hand was a horn inlaid with various metals, and this was
as
annually filled with mead by a priest well versed in the ceremonies due to the divinity, the harvest of the following year
being predicted from the liquor. The left hand was set akimbo.
The mantle, reaching to the idol's knees, was made of another

sort of wood and was so closely fitted to the figure that even
the most minute observation would not enable one to
where
it
was
joined.
The
legs
touched the
was hidden in the ground.

Not far from the statue lay the
bridle
floor,
tell
and the base
and the saddle of the
many other appurtenances of the deity, special

attention being attracted by a sword of wonderful size, whose
god, as well as
edge and scabbard were richly chased and damascened with

silver. In addition to all this, the temple contained a sacred
flag which was carried in front of the army on military expeditions as ensuring victory.
Ill
19
28o
SLAVIC
beautiful white horse
MYTHOLOGY
was consecrated to Svantovit and
was fed and groomed by the head priest, to whom the people
of Riigen showed the same respect that they manifested for
the king himself. They believed that Svantovit, mounted on
this steed, fought those who opposed his worship; and in the
morning the horse was often found bathed in sweat after
having been ridden during the night.
Success or failure in
weighty projects was foretold by means of this animal. Whenever a warlike expedition was about to be undertaken, three
rows of palings were erected by the priests in front of the
temple, each consisting of two lances thrust into the ground
with a third lance laid across the top. After solemn prayer,
a priest brought the horse to the palings; if it stepped across
with the right foot first, it was considered a favourable omen,
but
if
the order was reversed, the enterprise must be aban-
doned.
Since Svantovit was
more famous
for his victories
and more
renowned because of his prophecies than any other divinity,

he was held in high honour by all the neighbouring Slavs, being
regarded as the god of the gods; compared with him, the other
deities were but demigods. From far and near prophecies were
sought from him, and to win
his
favour the neighbouring
nations sent tribute and gifts to his sanctuary.
Even
the
Danish King Sueno, though a Christian, offered a precious

goblet to him; foreign merchants who came to Riigen were
obliged to dedicate a part of their merchandise to the treasury
of his temple before being allowed to offer their wares for
sale;
and every year a captive Christian was chosen by
lot
to be sacrificed to him.
retinue of three hundred horsemen
was
set aside for the
and whatsoever they won by war or by

was
freebooting
given to the priest, who expended it in the
purchase of all sorts of adornments for the temple. In this
service of Svantovit,
treasure of incredible value, including huge quantities

of gold, was accumulated, and the fame of the shrine spread
way
PLATE XXXII
Festival of Svantovit
This
festival
much modernized
may
conception of Svantovit's
be compared with the similar idealiza-
tion of an ancient Slavic sacrifice in Plate
After a
painting by Alphons Mucha.
XXXVI.
SVANTOVIT
far
and wide, while so numerous were
281
its
old
and precious
vestments that they were rotting with age.
When, in 1168, Valdemar, the Danish King, conquered

Arkona after strong resistance, he first seized the treasure of
the temple and then ordered the destruction of the sanctuary.
vast multitude of the native inhabitants assembled, expect-
every moment that Svantovit would annihilate their

enemies, but finally even his statue was torn down, whereupon
the demon is said to have left it in the shape of a black animal
ing
which disappeared before the eyes of the spectators. Then the

Danes, casting ropes around the idol, dragged it to the ground
in sight of the Slavs;
and at
last,
smashed
in pieces, it
was
burned.
Not only
Arkona, but also in many other places, there

were sanctuaries of Svantovit which were under the care of
an
in
inferior class of priests.
Shortly after harvest a great festival was held in honour of

Svantovit, and on this occasion people assembled from all
quarters of the island of Riigen to sacrifice cattle and to join
in the rites. On the day before the ceremonies began the sanctuary was carefully swept by the priest, who alone had access
he was very careful not to

breathe; and when he could no longer hold his breath, he
hastened to the door lest the presence of the deity be desecrated
to
it.
While he remained
inside,
by the exhalation of a mortal man. On the following day,

while the people were waiting before the entrance, the priest
took the vessel from the hands of the god to see whether the
had diminished in quantity; if such was the case, he
foretold a bad harvest for the ensuing year and advised his
hearers to reserve some grain for the coming time of dearth.
Then, having poured the old wine at the feet of the divinity
by way of sacrifice, he filled the vessel again and offered it to
the deity, asking him to bestow upon himself and his country
liquid
the good things of this earth, such as victory, increase of

wealth, and the like. When the prayer was finished, he emptied
all
282
SLAVIC
the cup at one draught, and

in the god's right hand.
MYTHOLOGY
refilling it
with wine, he placed
it
After this ceremony a festal cake was brought in, flavoured

with honey and as large as a man. Placing it between himself
and the people, the priest asked whether he was visible to
them, and if they answered in the affirmative, he expressed

the wish that they might not see him next year, this ceremony
being believed to ensure them a better harvest for the coming
season. Finally, when he had admonished them to do dutiful
homage to the god and to offer to him sacrifices which would

secure them victory both by land and by sea, the rest of the
day was devoted to carousing, and it was considered a proof
of piety if a man became drunk on this occasion.
The festival, as described above, shows a remarkable resem''^
blance to the autumnal dziady in Russia,^ especially to those

held in the Government of Mohilev. On the eve of the dziady
the courtyard is carefully cleaned and 'put in order, while the
scrub the tables, benches, vessels, and floor. Lenten
dishes are served that day, and on the following morning the
women
women
in
cook, bake, and fry all sorts of dishes, at least twelve

number. One of the men takes these to church; and when
he returns, all the family assemble in the common room, the

householder boiling a drink with pepper, while his wife lays
a clean cloth on the table, adjusts the icons, lights a candle,
and puts a pile of cakes on the table. After a long and fervent
prayer the family sit down, and the farmer, hiding behind
the cakes at a corner of the table, asks his wife, who sits at
the extreme farther end of it, "Can you see me.'*" whereupon
she answers, "No, I cannot," his reply being, "I hope you
may not see me next year either." Pouring out a cup of vodka
and making the
sign of the cross, he
now
invites the
Dziadys
to partake of the feast; he himself, imitated by his wife and

all the members of the family, empties the cup; and then
they eat and drink till they can do so no longer.
The custom
of foretelling the
future from cakes
is
also
SVANTOVIT
preserved
among
performed
in
White Russians
the
some
283
in
Lithuania, being
districts at the harvest feast,
other Slavic countries
it is
whereas
in
celebrated on Christmas Eve.
The
appellations of other deities worshipped in the island

of Riigen were closely connected with the name of Svantovit.
In the sanctuary of the town of Korenice (the modern Garz)

stood a colossal oaken idol, called Rugievit (or Rinvit), which
was
man, could
chin with his axe when he was about to
The image had one head with seven faces,
so high that Bishop Absalon,
scarcely reach
break
it
its
in pieces.
though a very
tall
its belt, and it held an eighth blade in its

Another sanctuary was the shrine of Porevit (or
Puruvit), who had five heads and was unarmed ;^ and worship
was also given to Porenutius (or Poremitius), whose idol had
seven swords hung in
hand.^
four faces and a fifth in
its
breast;
its left
hand was raised to

The Pomeranians
its
forehead, and
in
Volegost (Hologost) worshipped a war-god
its
right touched
its
chin."
named Gerovit
whose sanctuary hung an enormous shield,

skilfully wrought and artistically adorned with gold. This
was carried before the army and was believed to ensure victory;
but it might be taken from its place in the shrine only in case
of war, and it was forbidden for mortal hands to touch it.^^
(or Herovit), in
All the idols just considered
and Gerovit
seem
Rugievit, Porevit, Porenutius,
to have been nothing

analogues of the chief Elbe deity, Svantovit.
more than
local
CHAPTER
II
TRIGLAV
the town of Stettin were three
INdedicated to Triglav, the chief

gold and had three heads, while
hills,
the central one being
This idol was of
local deity.
eyes and lips were covered

priests declared that Triglav
("Three-Heads") was tricephalous because he wished to make
it known that he ruled over three realms, i. e., heaven, earth,
with a golden
veil.
its
The pagan
and the underworld; and he covered

not see the sins of men.
his face
because he would
In Stettin were four temples, the most important of which

was built with wonderful skill. On the inner and outer sides
of the walls were various
embossed
men, birds, and

animals, so well made that they seemed to live and breathe.
Their colour was always fresh and durable, and could be
figures of
damaged neither by rain nor by snow. According to the custom of the ancestors one tenth of all booty was stored in the
treasury of the temple, and there was, moreover, an abundance
of gold and silver vessels used by the chieftains on festive occasions, as well as daggers, knives, and other rare, costly, and
beautiful objects. In honour of and in homage to the gods
colossal horns of wild bulls, gilded and adorned with precious
stones,
were kept there, some serving for drinking-vessels,
and some for musical instruments. The other three temples

did not enjoy so high a reputation and were, therefore, less
richly ornamented. They contained only tables and chairs for
assemblies and meetings, and on certain days and at certain
hours the inhabitants of Stettin gathered there to eat, drink,
or discuss matters of importance.
TRIGLAV
A
285
horse of noble stature and black colour also played a part

worship of Triglav. No mortal man was allowed to
in the
mount
this steed,
and
it
was used
in divination like the horse
In front of the temple, whenever a warlike expedition wa<s about to be undertaken, the priests placed nine
lances about a yard apart. The head priest then led the horse,
of Svantovit.^^
adorned with a gold and silver saddle, thrice across these

lances; if he stepped over without touching any of them, it
was considered a favourable omen, and the expedition was
decided upon.
town of WoUin. When

was
Bamberg,
destroying heathen temples and
breaking pagan idols, the Slav priests are reported to have
taken this statue secretly and to have given it to a woman
Another
idol of Triglav stood in the
Otto, Bishop of
living in a lonely place in the country.
She hid
of a large tree, but let herself be deceived
by
hollow
it
in the
German who
told her that he wished to thank the god for having saved
him from death

idol,
in the sea.
but being unable to
The woman then showed him the

take it from the tree, the German
which was hanging from a branch.

Stettin was broken by Bishop Otto him-
stole the god's old saddle,
Triglav's statue in
and its head was sent to the Pope. The pagan temples
were burned to the ground, and churches were built in honour
of St. Ethelbert and St. Peter on the hill that had once been
self,
sacred to Triglav.
Triglav was also worshipped by the Slavs of Brandenburg.

When, in 11 54, Prince Pribyslav of that country was baptized,
he ordered "his three-headed, unholy, and ugly statue" to be
broken
It
is
in pieces."
practically certain that Triglav
was not the
real
name
of the god worshipped in WoUin and Stettin, but merely an

appellation of one of his idols which possessed three heads;
and since the cult of this divinity shows a striking resemblance
be assumed that Triglav was

^^
merely a local form of the great deity of the Elbe Slavs.
to that of Svantovit,
it
may
CHAPTER
III
SVARAZIC
THE
Rhetarii,^^ a division of the Lutices (between the
Elbe and the Oder), worshipped a god named Svarazic
("Son of Svarog"), and the chronicler Thietmar
testifies
^^
that
wooden temple
made by the
hands of men. These idols, wearing armour and helmets,
struck terror into those who beheld them; and each of them
had his name carved on his image. The most important of
them was Svarazic (Zuarasici), whom St. Bruno, the apostle of
their castle of Radigast (Radgost) contained a
in
which were numerous statues of
the Prussians, writing to

diabolus."
divinities
Emperor Henry
H,^^ terms "Zuarasiz
Further evidence of a deity worshipped in Radgost is given

^^
and his follower, Helmold.^ This idol
by Adam of Bremen
stood in a spacious sanctuary among other gods, was made of
gold, and had its base adorned with brocade. It wore a helmet
resembling a bird with outstretched wings, and on its breast

was the head of a black bison, the national emblem of the
Rhetarii; the divinity's right hand rested on this
while the left grasped a double-edged axe.
symbol,
When Adam of Bremen terms this Lutician deity "Radigast"

or "Redigast," he seems to be in error and to have confused
the name of the town (Radigast) with the divinity worshipped
shows
there, especially as the older evidence
been Svarazic
The temple
this
god
to
have
himself.^^
of Radigast
was much
visited
by
all
the Slavic
nations in their desire to avail themselves of the prophetic
PLATE XXXIII
Radigast
This god may have been in reality only a form of
Svarazic and the special patron of the city of Radigast. After a picture by N. Ales.
SVARAZIC
power
of
the gods
Human
and to join
in
287
the
annual
festivities.
beings were likewise sacrificed there, for in honour of

a victory won in 1066 the head of John, Bishop of the Diocese
of Mecklenburg, who had been captured in battle, was offered
up
to this divinity.^^
CHAPTER IV
CERNOBOG
evidence of Helmold shows
^^
that at banquets the

Slavs were wont to offer prayer to a divinity of good and
and
evil;
being convinced that happiness comes from the god
of good, while misfortune is dispensed by the deity of evil,
THE
they called the latter Cernobog or Zcernoboch ("Black God").
The conception
of
to the god of good

tianity.
The western
as the
god of evil in contrast

due
to
the influence of Chrisprobably
Cernobog
is
Slavs,
becoming
familiar,
through the
instrumentality of the clergy, with the ideas of the
and with
many
being
good.
its
new
faith
conception of the devil, transferred to the latter
worshipping him as a
powerful compared even with the god of
features of the
who was very
He was
pagan
deities,
regarded as the cause of
all
calamities,
and the
prayers to him at banquets were in reality intended to avert

misfortunes.
PLATE XXXIV
Idealizations of Slavic Divinities
i
svantovit
This modern conception of the great deity of the

Elbe Slavs (see pp. 279-83) should be compared with
the rude statue supposed to represent
him (Plate
XXXI).
V
2.
ZlVA
While the ancient Slavs,
like the Baltic peoples,
name of
worshipped many
only one of them has been preserved, Ziva, the godfemale divinities, the
dess of
life.
3.
CeRNOBOG AND TrIBOG
the Slavic
C!;emobog, or "the Black God," was
God"
the
or
(cf. the
"Triple
deity of evil, and Tribog,
the threedeity Triglav, pp. 284-85, and possibly
headed deity of the Celts, Plates VII, XII), is reof pestilence.
garded by later sources as the divinity
After pictures by N. Ales.
,:
(ife^.
11 Jf
CHAPTER V
OTHER DEITIES
addition to the deities mentioned above, the names of
other divinities of the Elbe Slavs have come down to us,
IN
although wei possess no details concerning them.

Pripegala is mentioned in a pastoral letter of Archbishop
Adelgot of Magdeburg in 1108,-'* where he is compared with
Priapus and Baal-peor (the Beelphegor of the Septuagint and
^^
This comparison, however, seems to have no
Vulgate).
foundation except the similar sound of the syllables pri and

p{h)eg.
The
idol
Podaga is mentioned by Helmold,^^ while the names

Pisamar (Besomar.^), and Tiernoglav (Triglav?)
of Turupid,
occur In the Knytlingasaga.^'^

Slavs worshipped goddesses as well as gods, and
Thietmar not only states ^^ that the walls of the temples in
The Elbe
Riedegast (Radgost) were adorned with various figures of

^^
he tells how the
deities both male and female, but elsewhere
Lutices angrily resented an affront done to a goddess. The
only female divinity actually mentioned by name, however, is
Siva (=Ziva, "the Living"), the Zywie of Polish mythology,
whom Helmold ^^
calls
goddess of the Polabians.
PART
THE
DEITIES OF
III
THE PAGAN RUSSIANS
CHAPTER
PERUN
god of the pagan Russians was Perun, whose

wooden idol, set by Prince Vladimir on a hill before his
a golden beard.
palace at Kiev in 980, had a silver head and
THE
chief
Vladimir's uncle, Dobrynya, erected a similar image in Novgorod on the river Volkhov, and the inhabitants of the city
sacrificed to
it.^
Perun was held
in high
honour by the Russians. In
his
name
they swore not to violate their compacts with other nations,

and when Prince Igor was about to make a treaty with the
Byzantines in 945, he summoned the envoys in the morning

and betook himself with them to a hill where Perun's statue
stood.
Laying aside their armour and their shields, Igor and

who were pagans took a solemn oath be-
those of his people
god while the Christian Russians did likewise in the

church of St. Iliya (Elias),^ the formula directed against those
fore the
should violate the treaty being, "Let them never receive

aid either from God or from Perun; let them never have pro-
who
tection from their shields; let
them be destroyed by their own

let them be slaves
swords, arrows, and other weapons; and

^
throughout all time to come."
old Russian manuscripts of the twelfth, fourteenth,

in
fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries mention Is made of Perun
such
as
other
Slavic
with
connexion
Chors, Volos, Vila,
deities,
In
many
Rod, and Rozanica,^ but nothing certain
is
known about
his
worship.
Prince Vladimir received baptism in 988, he went to
Kiev and ordered all idols to be broken, cut to pieces, or thrown
When
SLAVIC
294
into the
The
fire.
horse's tail
men were
MYTHOLOGY
statue of Perun, however, was tied to a

to a brook where twelve
and was dragged down
ordered to beat
it
with rods, not because the wood
was believed to feel any pain, but because the demon which
had deceived men must be disgraced. As the idol was taken
to the Dnieper, the pagans wept, for they had not yet been
baptized; but when it was finally thrown into the river, Vladimir gave the command: "If it stops, thrust it from the banks
has passed the rapids; then let it alone." This order
out, and no sooner had the idol passed through the
rapids than it was cast upon the sands which after that time
were called "Perun's Sands" {Perunya Ken). Where the image
until
it
was carried
once stood Vladimir built a church in honour of
but
it
was not
St. Basil;
end of the eleventh century that

disappeared from the land.
until the
Perun's worship finally

Similarly the pagan idols of Novgorod were destroyed by
Archbishop Akim Korsunyanin in 989, and the command went
Perun should be cast into the Volkhov. Binding the

with
image
ropes, they dragged it through the mire to the river,
beating it with rods and causing the dem.on to cry out with
forth that
In the morning a man dwelling on the banks of the

Pidba (a small stream flowing into the Volkhov) saw the idol
floating toward the shore, but he thrust it away with a pole,
pain.
Perun,' a contemptuous
eat and to drink; be off
to
have
had
diminutive], you
enough
^
with you!"
saying,
"Now,
The word
"
Perunisce ['Little
Perun
"
derived from the root per- (" to strike ")

with the ending -un, denoting the agent of an action; and
the name is very appropriate for one who was considered the
is
maker
of thunder and lightning, so that Perun was, in the first

the
place,
god of thunder, "the Thunderer," like the Zeus of
the Greeks.^ The old Bulgarian version of the Alexander-
romance actually renders the Greek Zeu? by Perun; and in

the apocryphal Dialogue of the Three Saints Vasiliy, when
asked, "By whom was thunder created?" repHes, "There
PERUN
are
295
two angels of thunder: the Greek Perun and the Jew
Chors," thus clearly pointing
to the
former as the originator
of thunder.^
Though history proves only that the worship of Perun

existed among the Russians, there are, nevertheless, data to
show that it was known among other Slavs as well, the most
important evidence being the fact that the word perun is a
very common term for thunder (pjeron, piorun, parom, etc.).
In addition to
numerous
this
remind us of Perun.
local
names
In Slovenia there
is
in Slavic countries
a Perunja Ves and a
Perunji Ort; in Istria and Bosnia many hills and mountains

go by the name of Perun; in Croatia there is a Peruna Dubrava,
and in Dalmatia a mountain called Perun; while a Perin

Planina occurs in Bulgaria. Local names, such as Peruny and
Piorunow in Poland, Perunov Dub in Little Russia, or Perun

and Peron among the Elbe Slavs, are further proof that not
only the name, but also the worship, of Perun was known in
these regions. It is even believed that some appellations of
the pagan deities of the Elbe Slavs, such as Porenutius, Prone,
be closely connected with Perun, being, in

fact, merely corruptions of the original name, due to foreign
chronicles; and in this connexion special attention should be
Proven,
may
etc.,^
mention
of a great oak grove on the way

Liibeck
as
sacred
to the god Proven.
from Stargard to
In the Christian period the worship of Perun was trans-
called to Helmold's
Nestor
tells
church of
July 20
how
St.
"
and, as we have already seen,^^

the Christian Russians took oath in the
ferred to St. Iliya (Elias)
while the pagans swore by Perun. On

Day is kept with great reverence in Russia
Iliya,
St. Iliya's
some places they still cling to the ancustom of preparing a feast and slaughtering bulls,
calves, lambs, and other animals after consecrating them in
to the present time; in
cient
church; and
it is
banquets.
The Serbians
III
20
considered a great sin not to partake of such

call St.
Iliya
Gromovnik
or
Gromovit ("the
SLAVIC
296
MYTHOLOGY
Thunderer") and pray to him as the dispenser of good harvests.

Among the Southern Slavs Tlijevo, Tlinden ("St.
Iliya's Day") is most reverently celebrated; no man does
any work in the fields at that time, and no woman thinks of
He who dared to labour then would

could not expect him to help in
and
Iliya angry
the
on
the
garnering
crops;
contrary, the Saint would slay
him with his thunderbolt. In the Rhodope Mountains the
festival is kept on a lofty summit, and a bull or a cow is killed
and prepared for the solemn banquet. All this is doubtless
nothing less than a survival of the feasts that, long before,
were celebrated in honour of Perun.^^
weaving or spinning.
make
St.
CHAPTER
II
DAZBOG
statue of the divinity Dazbog, or Dazdbog, whose
name probably means "the Giving God," " stood on a
THE
the courtyard of the castle at Kiev, and beside it were

^^
the idols of Perun, Chors, Stribog, and other pagan deities.
hill in
In old chronicles Dazbog
Svarog;"
^^
and the
is
termed "Czar Sun" and "Son of
fact that early Russian texts frequently
Greek god Helios ^^ by Dazbog ^^

may be taken as proof that he was worshipped as a solar deity.
In the old Russian epic Slovo o pluku Igoreve ^^ Vladimir and
translate the
is
of the
themselves the grandchildren of Dazbog,

easily explicable since the ancient Slavs often derived
the Russians
which
name
their origin
call
from divine
beings.^"
Dazbog was known not only among the Russians, but also
among the Southern Slavs; and his memory is preserved in
the Serbian fairy-tale of Dabog (Dajbog), in which we read,
"Dabog, the Czar, was on earth, and the Lord God was in
^^
heaven,"
Dabog being here contrasted with God and being
regarded as an
old
pagan
evil being, since in early Christian
deities
were considered
evil
and
devilish.
times the
CHAPTER
III
SVAROZIC AND SVAROG
O VAROZIC was
worshipped by the Russians as the god of
his name, being a patronymic, means "Son of

latter deity, however, is actually mentioned
This
Svarog."
which identifies him with
only in an old Russian chronicle
k_J
^^
fire;
and
^^
^'^
and speaks of him as the founder of

legal marriage. According to this text, Svarog made it a law
for every man to have only one wife, and for every woman to
have only one husband; and he ordained that whosoever tres-
the Greek Hephaistos
^^
passed against this command should be cast into a fiery furnace

a tradition which seems to imply the importance of
the
fire (fireside,
hearth) for settled family
life.
That Svarazic, worshipped by the Elbe Slavs,^^ had the

same signification as the Russian Svarozic may be considered
very probable, though the identity
is
not yet fully established.^^
CHAPTER
CHORS
IV
the idols which Vladimir erected in Kiev mention
made
AMONG
of the statue of Chors (Chers, Churs, Chros).^^
is
certain
Nothing
known about
is
but since old Slavic texts
Greek
Apollo,^ he
is
pluku Igoreve
great Chors (i.
There
is
which
e,
the functions of this deity;

seem to identify him with the
supposed to have been a god of the sun,
this hypothesis being

^^
^^
supported by a passage in the Slovo o

tells how Prince Vsevolod outstripped
the sun) like a wolf.

for the word Chors in Slavic, and
no explanation
apparently of foreign origin. The most plausible

that it comes from the Greek xpô'o^ ("gold"),
supposition
so that originally it may have been simply the name of a
the
name
is
is
golden or
gilt idol
^^
erected in Kiev and probably representing
Dazbog. If this be so, Chors and Dazbog were, in all likelihood,

merely different names applied to one and the same deity.
CHAPTER V
VELES, VOLOS,
AND STRIBOG
the god of flocks, was held in high honour by the

who swore by him as well as by Perun when
VELES,
Russians,
making
a treaty;
^^
and old Russian texts often mention him
in
connexion with the more famous divinity.^* When Vladimir

was baptized in 988, he caused the idols of Veles to be thrown
into the river Pocayna;^^ another stone statue of the same deity,
worshipped by the Slavic tribes in the neighbourhood of Fin-
was destroyed by Abraham of Rostov, who preached Chris^^

and
tianity on the banks of the Volga in the twelfth century;
land,
the Slovo
pluku
Igoreve^'' calls
the minstrel
Boyan "the grand-
son of Veles."
The memory
of Veles
In southern Russia
it is
still lives
among
customary
the Russian people.
at harvest-time to tie the
handful of ears into a knot, this being called "plaiting the

beard of Veles" or "leaving a handful of ears for Veles's
last
beard"; and in some districts a piece of bread is put among

such ears, probably as a reminiscence of the sacrifices offered
to Veles.
known among the ancient Bohemians likename frequently occurs in old Bohemian texts,
Veles was well

wise,
and
his
meaning has so utterly disappeared that

the word now signifies simply "the devil." ^^
although
its
original
After the introduction of Christianity the worship of Veles
was transferred to
St.
a shepherd and martyr of

the Byzantines called the guar-
Blasius,
Caesarea in Cappadocia, whom

dian of flocks.^^ In this capacity the saint
is still
venerated in
Russia, Bulgaria, and even in Bohemia; and the shepherds,
PLATE XXXy
Veles
This deity of flocks corresponds to the Ganyklos
(Devas),
or
"
(God) of Pasture," of the pagan

This representation, from a picture
Lithuanians.
by N. Ales,
highly idealized (cf. his conception

Plate
of Svantovit,
XXXIV, i, as contrasted with
is
the ancient statue reproduced in Plate
XXXI).
VELES, VOLOS,
AND STRIBOG
301
driving their flocks to pasture, recite ancient prayers

which are expected to secure his protection.^''
whose idol stood on the hill in Kiev beside that of
when
Stribog,
Perun,^^
was most probably the god
the Slovo
pluku Igoreve
^^
of Stribog.
and
easily understood.
The
is
chronicler
Cosmas
and
frost;
and
in
the winds are called the grandsons

of the winds as the result of cold
The conception
frost
of cold
testifies
^^
that the Bohemians wor-
shipped deities similar to Jupiter, Mars, Bellona, Ceres, etc.,

and that they made idols of them; but the names of these
gods have not been preserved, and nothing positive

concerning their worship.
Numerous names
is
known
of divinities wor-
shipped by the pagan Poles are recorded by the chronicler

to
Dlugosz,^^ but his report, belonging to a later period, seems
be influenced by Classical and Christian thought.
PART
IV
CULT AND FESTIVALS
PLATE XXXVI
Ancient Slavic Sacrifice
Idealized
voking
representation
divinity.
Cf.
of
another
Slavic
priest
modem
conception of the festival of Svantovit

XXXII. After a picture by N. Ales.
in-
artist's
in
Plate
--i2?-^^^^^
Ifti
Ft
^
'
o ftl
1^
ft*
ft
Ft
PLATE XXXVII
The Sacred Oak
The
Romowe
of
great centre of the cult of the ancient Prus-
was at Romowe, a place of uncertain localizaHere lived the head priest, the Kriwe, and
tion.
here a perpetual fire was maintained. According to
the historian Simon Grunau, who wrote in the earlysians
part of the sixteenth century, a triad of gods
Perkunas, Potrympus, and Patollus, deities of thunder

(see pp. 293, 319, 325), rivers and springs (and hence
of vegetation
and good fortune), and
world
received
respectively
place.
His conception
Preussische Chronik,
of the under-
adoration
in
this
here reproduced (cf. his

v. 2).
In the oak, which
is
II.
remained green summer and winter, and which was

screened from profane gaze, were the idols of the
gods, each with his emblem before him: the head of
a man, a horse, and a cow before Patollus; a perpetual
fire of oak before Perkunas (cf. Part III, Note 10 on
the oak as his sacred tree); and a pot containing a

serpent, carefully fed by the priests, before Potrym-
pus (the cult of the household snake, probably the

harmless common ringed snake of Europe, was an
important part of ancient Baltic
open spaces are
piles of
wood
religion).
for the sacred
In the
fire,
and
the houses of the Waidelots, or ordinary priests,

surround the whole. We have, however, no evi-
dence that the ancient Prussians possessed idols

of their gods, and in many respects the statements
of
Grunau
in C.
are open to grave doubt.
Hartknoch,
variis rebus Prussicis,
appended
the Chronicon Prussiae of Peter of

fort
After a picture
Selectae dissertationes historicae de
and Leipzig, 1679).
to
his
edition of
Dusburg (Frank-
CHAPTER
WORSHIP OF THE GODS

of animals, grain,
SACRIFICES
gods and genii;
in
tered in their honour,^

fathers
of families,
by
and food were offered to the
time of war captives were slaughThese sacrifices were performed by
and
chieftains
of clans,
and by princes;
but the existence of a special and highly developed priesthood

proved only among the Elbe Slavs, where the head priest
is
received the same honour as the king himself,^

The Elbe Slavs worshipped their idols ^ in temples adorned
with great taste and splendour; ^ and In addition to this,

trees and groves were consecrated to the gods, both among
the Elbe Slavs and
among the Russians.^ Such a svatobor, for

was
on
the
island of Riigen;^ while between Starexample,
gard and Liibeck stretched a great oak grove, guarded by a
wooden fence provided with two gates. This grove was full
of idols in whose honour sacrifices and feasts were held; and
whoever concealed himself there when threatened by death
was considered inviolable, being under the protection of the
In Bohemia it was not until 1092, in the reign of
gods.^
Bfetislav II, that the sacred groves, held in high honour by
the people, were hewn down and burned.^ The pagan Russians, so far as historical
temples for their gods,

slopes
and
hills.
evidence goes, did not build special

idols in the open on
but erected their
Besides trees and groves, sanctity also at-
tached to mountains, ^ as well as to rivers and fountains. ^^

Among the annual festivals, that of Svantovit in Arkona,
which reminds us of the autumnal
dziadys,^^
is
described at
considerable length,^^ whereas the other feasts, which in the
SLAVIC
3o6
MYTHOLOGY
main consisted
of games, dancing, and carousing, are dismissed with brief remarks. In April the Slavs on the banks of
the Havola (Havel) used to celebrate a national festival in

honour of Gerovit; ^^ in Wollin the populace assembled for a
pagan
festival in early
certain
feasts
summer;
^^
and
in 1092 Bfetislav sup-
observed about
pressed
oblations were offered to springs. ^^
Whitsuntide,
when
Popular tradition, however, still preserves many customs

and ceremonies whose origin may be traced back to the preChristian period; and these
concluding chapters.
we
shall briefly consider in
our
CHAPTER II
THE KOLEDA
THE
word koleda
{koleda)
Is
derived from the Latin calendae
("first day" of the month"; borrowed in Greek as KaXdvSat)

and denotes certain days at Christmas ^^ and Easter when
children go from house to house, singing songs and expecting
all sorts of small presents in return. During the Middle
Ages
the festa calendarum was celebrated almost everywhere in
Europe with pageants, games, songs, mummings, and the

like.
Besides the word koleda there are a
number
names
worth men-
of other
days of Christmastide which are

In
Russia
Christmas Eve is called Kutiya, or Kuccya
tioning.
(PoHsh Kucyja) the day preceding New Year is "Rich Kutiya,"
for the principal
and that before Twelfth Night is "Hungry Kutiya," since meat

is eaten on the former, while lenten dishes are
preferred on the
Eve Kukju
Vakar, and the Lithuanians call it Kuciii Vakaras. The word
Kutiya, Kuccya, etc., is derived from the name of the dish
latter.
In similar fashion the Letts term Christmas
which, in addition to many others, is prepared on that day.

Among the White Russians it is a sort of pudding composed
and honey; the Little Russians make it of

wheat groats, pounded poppy seeds, and honey; the Lithuanians
prepare it of peas and wheat, or of barley and beans; the Letts
of peas and honey, etc. The other Slavs likewise have similar
names for the holiday dinners on Christmas Eve.
of barley groats
Before supper the farmer walks about the house carrying

the kutiya, while his wife, having tidied up the room with the
help of her servants, spreads some hay over the table, and lay-
MYTHOLOGY
SLAVIC
3o8
Ing the cloth, places on it the food prepared for the evening
meal. The master of the house then says grace and brings to
who happen not to be presdown, the head of the household taka corner under the icons. Before beginning to
remembrance those
ent, after which all
of the family
sit
ing his place in

eat, the householder pours out a cup of vodka, and letting a
few drops fall upon the cloth, he empties it, whereupon all the
others do the same.
During the meal a portion of the food is

and finally the kutiya is served.
set aside for the deceased,
After supper
all rise,
the master of the house alone keeping his
and hiding behind his pot of kutiya as he asks his wife

whether she sees him.^^ Many other prophecies concerning
the coming harvest and the prospects of cattle-breeding are
attempted; and the girls, in like manner, tell their fortunes,
seat
the kutiya playing an important role in all these ceremonies.

The hay placed under the kutiya and beneath the cloth on the
given to the animals kept in the house; and the fire is

kept burning constantly on the hearth. It is considered improper to do heavy work on this day, when various disguises
table
is
are assumed,
and
village friends are visited, while in the even-
ing the young people meet to play various games, of which

dancing and singing are important features.
The Southern
Slavs
call
Christmas
Eve Badnji Dan,
Badnjak, or Biidnik ("Vigil"), badnjak or budnik being also

the log of wood which is burned on the hearth. Various
ancient customs connected with these festivities are
still
in
vogue.
Before sunrise either the head of the house or some other
member
of the family goes to the forest in search of a tree,
either oak, beech, or ash,
which
he clucks
all
serve his purpose; and

after all preparations have been made for the dinner, doffing
his cap, he carries the badnjak into the room. During this rite
like
a hen, while
will
the children,
who
stand in a row
behind him, cheep like chickens. Passing through the door, on

either side of which candles are burning, he walks, with the
THE KOLEDA
309
hadnjak in his hands, into every corner of the room, saluting

the members of the household, who throw corn upon him.
Then he lays the badnjak and a ploughshare by the fireside, together with some honey, butter, and wine, as well as a portion
and finally he addresses the
of every dish prepared for supper;
"Welcome! Come and eat your supper!"

is dressed in a new shirt, or is adorned
log with the words,
Sometimes the badnjak

with red
silk, golden threads, flowers, etc. After all this, the

householder lays the badnjak on the hearth, where a fire has
been kindled, and adds some more logs of wood which likewise
are often called badnjaki or badnjarice.

When the badnjak is burning well, the farmer takes in one
hand a
special sort of bread,
made
dough and covered with
of
decked with various animals

salt
and wheat; while
in the
other he holds a cup of wine. He now walks toward the cornloft, the children following him and imitating the sounds of
domestic animals; and after a portion of the bread and wine

has been left on the window of the loft, the rest is put on the
table in the room.
and adding a
if
sowing.
He
then
fills
a glove with kernels of wheat,
he strews the grain

children throw themselves
silver coin,
The
upon the floor, as

upon the wheat,
picking it up like poultry; and the one who succeeds in finding

the coin will have good luck. Around the hearth straw is
spread and covered with sweets for the whole family; and the
farmer, hiding behind it, thrice asks the household if they can
see him.
During or before supper the farmer's wife places a portion

of the food in a separate pan; and these viands remain in her
charge until the evening before Twelfth Night, when every
member
of the household gets a bit of
it.
show that the pagan festival of which

retains traces was a purely domestic celebrawas closely connected with the worship of the
All these ceremonies
the Koleda
tion,
penates,
upon
still
and that
it
who were
believed to exercise a profound influence
the household.
The badnjak may
certainly be regarded
3IO
SLAVIC
MYTHOLOGY
symbol of the genius of the house in his capacity

of protector of the hearth, which is rekindled on this day. Acas a special
the favourite dish, not merely at the

Koleda, but also at the funeral feast and on All Souls' Day
(November 2) in Russia.
cordingly the kutiya
is
CHAPTER
III
THE RUSALYE
the Slavs the Rusalye are celebrated at the Whitholidays. The word itself is of foreign origin (from
AMONG
sun
the Greek povadXia^ "feast of roses"), and so are
many
cere-
festival, although numerous indigenous customs have been preserved side by side with these
monies connected with the
rites.
In Russia the Rusalye were celebrated in the following way.

a small shed, adorned with garlands,
On Whitsun Monday
flowers, and fragrant grasses, was erected in the centre of an

oak grove; a straw or wooden doll, arrayed in holiday garments, was placed inside; and people assembled from all
quarters, bringing food and drink, dancing round the shed,
and giving themselves up to merriment. In the Great Russian
Governments people leave the towns and villages for the forests
on the Thursday preceding Whitsunday (Semik), singing ancient songs and picking flowers which they make into wreaths.
Then the lads fell a nice young birch-tree which the lasses
dress in woman's robes, trimming it with gay-coloured ribbons
and gaudy pieces of cloth. As they carry this tree along, they
sing festive songs; and then follows a dinner of flour, milk,
eggs, and other provisions brought for the occasion, while
wine and beer are purchased by voluntary contributions.
After dinner they take the birch, and singing merry songs,
they carry it in procession to the village, where they put it
down
in a house chosen for the purpose, leaving
it
there
till
Sunday.
The
doll which, in the course of these ceremonies,
III
21
is
finally
SLAVIC
312
MYTHOLOGY
thrown into the water or burned, is usually called Rusalka; ^'

and the ceremony itself is probably meant as a second funeral,
to secure the favour of the Rusalky, the spirits of those
who, dying a violent death, have not been buried with religious
i.
e.
rites.
The same
signification
may
be attached to the so-called
"Driving out of Death" before Easter,^^ a custom which,

though prohibited as early as the fourteenth century, has not
yet entirely disappeared in Bohemia and other countries.
The Bulgarians
in
Southern Macedonia keep the Rusalye
during Christmastide, the chief characteristic of the festival

here being warlike games which remind us of the ancient
funeral combats {trizna, tryzna).^^
CHAPTER
IV
THE KUPALO AND JARILO
THE
Kupalo now coincides with the ChrisJohn the Baptist (June 24). Originally,
festival called
tian feast of St.
have been a purely domestic celebration when

marriages were performed, and new members were admitted
however,
it
may
into the family, thus accounting for the erotic elements of the
customs still connected with St. John's Day. In the course of

the family feast the memory of the deceased ancestors, under
whose protection individuals were received into the household,
was revived, and this, in its turn, may explain the funereal
elements of the commemoration.
During the Kupalo the girls go to the woods or the fields
early in the morning to pick flowers of which wreaths are"
made; and at the same time they amuse themselves by trying
to foretell their future in the following fashion. Choosing the
prettiest girl among them, they take her into the forest, sing-
ing and dancing.

lands, they
who
Blindfolding her and decking her with garhands and dance around her, while the
seize her
now
called kupaljo^ picks up the garlands, one

and distributes them among her dancing companions. Those who receive a wreath of fresh flowers will be
fortunate in their wedded life; but those whose flowers are
girl,
is
after the other,
withered are doomed to unhappiness. After all the garlands

have been distributed, the girls run away, doing their best to
avoid being caught by the kupaljo, since any maiden
she touches is fated to remain unwed for the year.
whom
Another way of prophesying the future is as follows. The

young people meet near the river and bathe till twilight, when
SLAVIC
314
a fire
Is
MYTHOLOGY
and lasses, taking each other's

over the flame, two by two. Those who do not
kindled, and the lads
hands, jump
loosen their hands v/hile jumping will become husband and
wife, the same thing being predicted by a spark which comes
out of the
fire
after them.
Funereal elements
may
be found in the fact that in
many
Kupalo and Marena are made

and afterwards drowned and burned like a Rusalka;^^ while
in some places Jarilo and Kostroma are buried in a similar
parts of the country figures of
way
instead of Kupalo. ^^
PART V
BALTIC
MYTHOLOGY
By the Editor
BALTIC
THE
MYTHOLOGY
closest kindred of the Slavs are the Baltic peoples
the Prussians and Yatvyags (both long extinct), the Lithuanians, and the Letts. Their early history is unknown, but we
have reason to believe that they are the Aestii of Tacitus ^ and
Jordanes;^ and two divisions of them, the Galindae and Sudeni,
are mentioned
by the geographer Ptolemy
as living south of
the Venedae, i.e. the Slavs who were later driven from the Baltic shores. Like the Slavs, the Baltic peoples seem to have been
part of the Aryan hordes of Sarmatians who formed a portion
of the ethnological congeries somewhat vaguely termed Scythians;* and since those Scythians with whom we are here con-
cerned were very closely related to the Indo-Iranian race, in

certain regards Baltic religion is strikingly similar to the Iranian, as
it is
set forth in
our earliest documents. Arrived on the
Baltic coast, these peoples
became
subject, like so
invaders, to the influences of the races

tled there, this being especially
Letts,
whom
marked
many
other
they found
set-
in the case of the
who, near neighbours of the Finno-Ugric Esthonians,

marked changes in their religion; while Scandina-
received
vian elements, from Norse sojourners and traders, must not

be overlooked.
The
territory of the Baltic peoples stretched, roughly speak-
ing, from the Vistula to the Dvina, and occupied approximately

the districts now known as East Prussia, Courland, Kovno,
Pskov, Vitebsk, Vilna, Suwalki, and Grodno, though the
boundaries have fluctuated widely and have shown a constant

tendency to contract. With the exception of the Lithuanians,
who
erected a considerable
to share the
unhappy
kingdom
in the
Middle Ages, only

have
fate of Poland, the Baltic peoples
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
3i8
In a backwater of civilization,
their
retaining in extraordinary measure the primitive forms of
played
little
part in history.
mode
tribal organization, their
language,^ they were no match
of
life,
and
their religion,
for those
who sought
their
to subdue
them, though they fared less hardly at the hands of the Slavs
than at those of the Germans.
If,
then,
tified
we
mythology, we are jus-
find a paucity of Baltic
in assuming that
it
was destroyed by the oppressor.
Undoubtedly it once flourished, in simple form, perhaps, as

became a rude folk; and among the Letto-Lithuanians, where
fate was less cruel than in Prussia, we still have a number of
ddinos (folk-songs) of mythological content.^ For Baltic religion
we have a
hostile observers
fair
amount
who
of material,
utterly failed to
and ignorantly misinterpreted
it,
though recorded by
comprehend
and who,
its
spirit
in all likelihood,
much of value that is now irretrievably lost;^ for Baltic

mythology we have little more than fragments of sun-myths.
omitted
Prussian mythology has vanished, leaving not a trace behind.

We are, therefore, restricted to the Lithuanians and the Letts.
here our older sources record but two myths, both lamentably meagre. Drawing his information from the Camaldolite
hermit Jerome, who had long been active as a missionary in
Even
Lithuania, Aeneas Sylvius de' Piccolomini (afterward Pope

Pius II, who died in 1464) tells us ^ of a Lithuanian people
"who worshipped the sun and with a curious cult venerated
an iron hammer of rare
size.
When
the priests were asked
what
that veneration meant, they answered that once upon a time

the sun was not seen for several months, because a most mighty
king had imprisoned it in the dungeon of a tower right strongly
fortified.
Then
the signs of the zodiac bore aid to the sun,
broke the tower with a huge hammer, and restored to men the
liberated sun, so that the instrument whereby mortals regained
the light was worthy of veneration." This is probably, as
Mannhardt
winter and
of the darkening of the sun in

his reappearance during the storms of spring. In
suggested, a
myth
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
319
Russian and Slovak folk-tales the sun is represented as a ruler of

twelve realms, or as served by twelve maidens,' ever young and
fair.^ The real destroyer of the tower was Perkunas, god of
thunder and the chief Baltic deity; and in this connexion it

may be noted that the Lithuanian name for a prehistoric celt
Perkuno kulka (''Perkunas's ball"), a term which, like

Perkuno akmu ("Perkunas's stone"), is also applied to a
belemnite. The parallel with the hammer of Thor in Eddie
is
mythology at once suggests
The
other
lightning
myth
still
itself.
briefer.
Perkune Tete, "mother of
and thunder," we are
weary, dusty sun,
and
is
whom she
told,^^ receives at night the

sends forth on the morrow, bathed
shining.
We
have seen the difficulties with which Baltic national

consciousness was forced to contend. It was not until the rise
of the Lithuanian poet Christian Donalitius (1714-80) that
any real literature could be created either in Lithuanian or in
Lettish; Prussian
was long
since dead.^^
Then
attention was
directed to the rich store of folk-songs in both the living languages, and their treasures became available for mythological
investigation,^^ the foremost
name
in this
study being that
Wilhelm Mannhardt.^^ Late as these ddinos are, the mythological material which they contain is very old, far antedating
the introduction of Christianity and presenting a point of view
prior to the thirteenth century ;^^ and though, as we shall see,
certain Christian changes and substitutions have been made,
of
these are not sufficient to cause serious confusion.
nately our material
is
restricted to
myths
Unfortu-
of the sun,
moon,
stars, although surely there had once been myths of other

natural phenomena, especially as we are told that when the
Aurora Borealis appears, the Murgi or lohdi (spirits of the air
and
and
souls of the dead) are battling, or that the souls of warriors
^^
It is inconceivable that, with the
are engaged in combat.
wealth of Baltic deities of very diverse functions, no myths
were associated with at least some of them.
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
320
Of the Baltic sun-myths perhaps the most famous
is
con-
tained in the following daind:^"^

the Moon once led the Sun
In the very primal spring;
Early did the Sun arise,
But the Moon from her withdrew.
Leaving her, he roamed afar,
And the Morning Star he loved;
"Home
Perkuns then was filled with wrath,

With his sword he smote the Moon.
'Wherefore hast thou left thy Sun?
Wherefore roam'st alone by night?
Wherefore lovest Morning Star?'
Full of sorrow was his heart."
Here we
see the
myth
'
of the conjunction of sun
and moon;
till at last the latter is in conjunction

the
with
morning star; the wrath of Perkunas, who is not
merely the god of thunder,^^ but the great Baltic deity; and the
explanation of the moon's changing form as he wanes. The
their gradual divergence
poem
is
told of early spring,^^ but the
not peculiarly vernal.

In the Baltic languages the sun
describes
phenomenon which
it
is
is
feminine (Lithuanian
sdule, Lettish saûle), and the moon is masculine (Lithuanian

menu, Lettish menes). The feminine Morning Star and Evening
Star of the Lithuanians (Ausrine, Vakarine), however, appear

among the Letts as masculine, the "sons of God" {Deezua
dehli), who, we shall see, woo the "Daughter of the Sun," whose
2"
Lithuanian suitor, as in the daind just given, is the moon;
yet, with the frequent inconsistency of myth, these feminine
stars have masculine doublets in Lithuanian itself in the Devo
sunelei, or
"Sons of God."
Lettish variant of this myth^^ carries the story a little

further. The sun and the moon have many children, the stars ;2^
and the betrothed of the masculine Lettish Morning Star is

none other than the sun's own daughter, the fruit of a tema clear personification
porary union with Pehrkon himself
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
321
The moon, in shame and anger,

and
is
visible
avoids his spouse,
only by night, while she appears by day in the sight of all mankind.
The wooing of Morning Star brought grief to her as well as
to the moon, as is related in another daind.^^
of a thunder-storm at dawn.
"When Morning
Star was wedded,

Perkuns rode through the door-way
And the green oak ^^ he shattered.
Then
forth the oak's blood spurted,
Besprinkling all my garments,

Besprinkling, too, my crownlet.
With streaming
eyes. Sun's daughter

For three years was collecting
The leaves, all sear and withered.
Oh
where, oh where,
Shall
And
my
mother.
now wash my
garments,
where wash out the blood-stains.^
My
daughterling, so youthful.
Swift haste unto the fountain
Wherein nine brooks are flowing.
Oh
where, oh where, my mother.

I now dry my garments.
Where dry them in the breezes ?
Shall
My
daughter, in the garden

roses nine are blooming.
Where
Oh
where, oh where,
Shall I
my
mother,
now don my garments
Bright gleaming in their whiteness?
Upon
When
that day, my daughter,

nine suns shall be shining."
Here the fountain with nine brooks, the garden with nine roses,
and the day with nine suns symbolize the rays of the sun,^^ as
does the apple-tree with nine branches in another daind.^^ The
role of Perkunas receives an explanation in the marriage custom
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
322
that he
who conducts
the bride to the groom should appear
armed and,
as he rides forth, should strike at the door-post, the

^^
door, the roof, or even the air, probably to exorcize the demons.
On
the other hand, it is possible that his association with dawn

or sunset is secondary and due to the likeness of evening and
morning glow to the
and
it is
equally possible
that his splitting of the tree, of which we shall soon hear more,
represents the evening twilight, the oak's blood being the red
rays of the setting sun.^^
lightning's fire;^^
All our sources for Baltic religion agree in stating that Perkunas, god of thunder and lightning, was the chief deity of
these peoples.
The thunder was
his voice,
and with
it
he re-
vealed his will to men; it was he who sent the fertilizing rains;
he was to the Prussians, Lithuanians, and Letts what Indra
was to the Indians of Vedic
days.^"
Moreover he has
still
an-
is equally
striking. When
he does not kill the fiend, but
other resemblance to Indra which
he smites a devil with
his bolt,
merely strikes him down to hell for seven years, after which
the demon again appears on earth, just as Indra and his Iranian
doublets (especially Thraetaona) do not slay their antagonist,
the storm-dragon, but only wound him or imprison him so insecurely that he escapes, so that the unending battle
constantly be renewed.^^
must
role of Perkunas is relatively a minor one,

deal
sun-myths
only incidentally with storms, whether in
their beneficent, fertilizing aspects, or in their maleficent, de-
In the ddinos the
for
Still, he is there, under a relatively tenFor "God," "God's horses," "God's steers"
^^
above all
"God's
(the darkening clouds of evening), and
sons" are frequently mentioned; and "God" (Old Prussian
deiwaSy Lithuanian dhas, Lettish deews) can have meant in
Baltic none other than Perkunas, who was the deity par excel-
structive functions.
uous disguise.
Greece "from Homer to the dramatic poets

the unqualified use of eo9, *god,' invariably refers to Zeus."^'
His sons are nine in number: three shatter in pieces, three
lence^ just as in
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
323
thunder, and three lighten; or, in other poems, he has only five;
but in any case they all live in Germany, in other words, in the
darkening west, whither (or across the sea) he himself goes to

seek a bride. He smites the demonic lohdi; he strikes the sea
in which the sun is drowned at evening; but, on the other hand,
where he goes with his gentle, smoke-grey horses (the clouds),
the meadows flourish; the sun rises through the saddle of his
and the moon through the bit, while at the end of the
is the morning star; he gives the moon a hundred sons
steed,
rein
(the stars)
to
in a
word, he
is
the sky-god in process of elevation
all-god.^''
In the ddinos, however, as we should expect from their theme,

the sun is the important figure. We cannot enter here into all
the rich details elaborated by Mannhardt, nor can we repeat the
wealth of description and allusion in the folk-songs themselves. One example must suffice to show how delicate the
shading
is.
We
in the ddinos
think of the sun as golden, and rightly so. Yet

read that, wearing silver shoes, she dances on
we
the silver mount, or sails over a silver sea, or scatters gifts of

silver, or sows silver, or is herself a silver apple, or a boat of
bronze, and gold, or one half of gold and half of silver

referring to the various shadings caused by her different
silver,
all
positions in the sky.^^
Her hundred brown
horses are her rays,^^
or she has two golden horses ;^^ "God's" horse and the waggon
of Mary (the planet Venus .^) stand before her door while her
daughter (the evening twilight) is being wooed; and in the east,

where she rises, lives a gold and diamond steed.^^ She even
"God"
because his sons (the evening and morning stars) stole the rings from her daughters (twilight and
quarrels with
dawn).^^
The red berries in the forest are the dried tears of the sun
and the glow on the green tips of

the wood at sunset is her silken garment hung out to air; when
she sets, she gives a golden crown to the linden, a silver coronet
to the oak, and a golden ring to each little willow.'^" She weeps
(the red clouds of sunset?),
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
324
bitterly because the golden apple has fallen
myth
of sunset), but
brass, or silver.^^
She
"God"
is
will
herself
make
from the tree
(a
her another of gold,
an apple, sleeping
in
an apple-
garden, and decked with apple-blossoms (the fleecy clouds of

^2
dawn).
Disregarding the counsel of Perkunas, she betroths
her daughter to Morning Star, though first she gives the

maiden to the moon, who takes the young girl to his home, i. e.
at twilight the moon is the first to become visible, thus preceding the morning star, which bears away the dawn.^
moon with
a silver stone; in other words,

her rising orb obliterates the moon, this being the cause of
three days' battle with "God." ^^ She dwells on a mountain
She strikes the
(the vault of heaven), and standing in mid-sky, she reproves

her daughters because one had not swept the floor, while the
other had failed to wash the tablc*^
"God's daughter" {Devo dukryte), watches over

things, as is set forth in a charming little daind.^^
She,
"O
all
thou Sun, daughter of God,
Where delayest thou so long,

Where sojoumest thou so long,
Since thou hast from us withdrawn?
O'er the sea, beyond the hills,

there is that I must watch,
Shepherds, too, that I must guard;
Wheat
Many
are
my
gifts in sooth.
thou Sun, daughter of God,
Tending thee at morn and
Who
Who
eve.
doth make for thee thy fire,

prepares thy couch for thee?
Morning Star and Evening Star:

Morning Star doth make my fire,
Evening Star prepares my couch;
Many
are
my
kin in sooth."
In comparison with the sun the moon is a very minor figure,*^

and his chief importance is his connexion with the sun. When
his spouse reproaches
him
for his pale colour, he replies that
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
man by day,
water.^^ He wears a
while she shines for
night in the
sun,
is
pents,
The
liable to
and
be destroyed
325
he can only look at himself by

mantle of stars ^^ and, like the
(i.e.
by dragons,
eclipsed)
ser-
witches.^"
sun, as
we have
seen, has daughters,
and
"God"
at
yet
(i.e.
least in
Perkunas, the deity of thunder and storm,
the
the
has
sons.
latter
are
somesky-god)
Though
germ
times given as nine or five in number,^^ only two have any real
and they are "God's sons" {D'evo sunelei) par

just as the sun has only one daughter or two daugh-
individuality,
excellence,
ters (Sdules duktele),^^ according as the twilights of
morning are considered
phenomenon
as separate
evening and
phenomena or as the same

The "sons of God"
in twofold manifestation.^^
are the morning and the evening star (sometimes combined as

the planet Venus), the former being by far the more important;^^ the "Sun's daughters" are the
twilight;
ddinos.
and
They
their close association
morning and the evening

a common theme in the
is
are the Baltic counterparts of the Vedic Asvins
and Usas, or of the Greek Dioskouroi and Helen.^^
We may begin our study of these figures with a daind which

has at least a partial resemblance to the familiar "Jack and
the Beanstalk" cycle. ^
"O
Zemina, flower-giver,
Where shall I now plant the roses?

'On the lofty mountain-summit.
By
the ocean, by the sea-side.'
Zemina, flower-giver.
Where
shall I find father,
mother,
deserted and a pauper.^

'Haste thee to the lofty mountain.
By the ocean, by the sea-side.'
I,
Forth then from the rose-trunk springing.

a mighty tree and lofty
Till its branches reached the heavens;
1 will climb up to the heavens
On the branches of the roses.
Grew
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
326
There I found a youthful hero

Who was riding on God's charger.
*0 fair youth, O valiant horseman,
Hast thou not seen father, mother?'
my maiden, O my youngling,
Seek the region of the valley;
There thy father, there thy mother
Plan the marriage of thy sister.'
'O
So
hasted to the valley;

'Father, good day and good morning;
I
Mother, good day and good morning;

Why did ye leave me, an infant,
To
the mercy of the stranger?
'Grown to be a sturdy maiden,

I alone have found the cradle
Where in childhood I was happy.'"
Here sun and moon have departed from their daughter, the
morning twilight. Yet, though so heartlessly abandoned, she
seeks them, climbing the sun-tree. There she finds "a youthful hero, mounted on God's charger," who is plainly the evening
star; and he tells her that she will find her parents "in the valat the place of sunset In the darkening west.^^ The
sun also seems to have had a night-tree. In addition to the
rose-tree of day.^^
ley,"
I.e.
The "youthful hero"
Introduces us to a veritable love-myth

of "God's sons" with the "daughters of the sun." We have
^^
some fugitive allusions to the wooing and we may
already had
now trace the story In more detail. Seeking to win the "daugh-
ter of the sun,"
"God's son" makes
of the sea
either the first dark
(I.e.
for her
an Island
In the
midst
shadows of evening or the
of light at dawn); or the two sons kindle two lights

In the sea, awaiting her, and In the centre of the ocean they
first bits
build a bridal chamber, which she enters tremblingly; and she Is

urged to awake early, for "God's sons" are coming to roll
^^
apples.
he
When "God's son"
rides a grey steed in his wooing,
the evening star, since greyness covers the sky at evenbut

when from the golden bushes he watches the sun's
ing;
Is
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
327
the morning star, gazing on the

beauty of the rising dawn.^ When all the other stars are visible,
the morning star is absent, for he has gone to woo the daughter
daughter as she bathes, he
Is
of the sun; she hastens toward him; and they are wedded in
Germany beyond the sea.^^ Of course lovers occasionally quar-
and so the daughter of the sun breaks the sword of "God's

son" (dawn surpasses the brightness of the morning star); and,
in their turn, "God's sons" deprive her of her ring (the solar
rel,
disk) at evening, though, as
from the sea
(at
dawn) when
we
shall see,
it falls
they presently fish it

from her finger at evening.*
But
"lovers' quarrels are love's renewal," and since evening

star and evening twilight, morning star and morning dawn,
are inseparably associated, "God's sons" dance in the moonlight beneath an oak by the spring with "God's daughters,"
as the following daind
tells.
"'Neath a maple lies a fountain

Whither God's sons hast'ning
Go to
dance with God's own daughters

While the moon shines o'er them.
In the fountain by the maple
my face was laving;

my white face I was bathing,
Lo, my ring I washed off.
I
While
Will the sons of God come hither

With their nets all silken?
Will they fish my ring so tiny
From the depths of water?
Then
there came a hero youthful,

His brown charger riding;
Brown
And
the colour of the charger,

his shoes were golden.
'Hither come,
maiden,
Hither come, O youngling!
With fair words let us be speaking,
With fair counsel let us counsel
Where the stream is deepest,
Ill
22
And where
love
is
sweetest.'
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
328
'Nay,
cannot, hero,
cannot, youngling.
For my mother dear will chide me,
Yea, the aged dame will chide me
Nay,
If I
tarry longer.'
'Speak thus to her, maiden.

Speak thus to her, youngling:
"Thither came two swans a-flying
And
the water's depth they troubled;
Till it cleared I waited.'"

(
jf
'T
is
not true,
my
daughter.
For beneath the maple

With a young man thou wast talking
With a youth thou wast exchanging
Words
of love's sweet language.'"
Life is not all love, unfortunately, and both "God's sons" and
the daughters of the sun have their tasks to perform. Some of
these we already know.^^ In Germany the morning star must
prepare a coat of samite (i.e. the rich hues of dawn); "God's

sons" must band the broken solar orb after the summer solstice;
they must heat the bath
(of
dawn)
as the
workmen
of
Sun and
Moon, or as the servants of Perkunas, they are reproved for

not mowing the meadows, etc. (i.e. preparing for the dawn);
but after uprooting the birch-forest
traces of day) they go to
Germany
(i.e.
dissipating the last
to play games.^^
As
for the
sun's daughter, the golden cock crows on the edge of the

"Great Water" (Daugawa) ^^ to rouse her that she may spin
the rays of the rising sun.^^ Her chief

task, however, is to wash her golden jug (the solar disk) at
evening. This she loses, and she herself is drowned ;^ or else
she falls into a golden boat, which remains behind her on the
the silver thread,
i.e.
waves, or "God's sons" row the boat which rescues her as she
wades in the sea, so that she can reappear at dawn.^^ Occasion-
however, "God's son" stands passively on the mountain

while she sinks; or, instead of wedding her, he merely escorts
ally,
her to Germany. ^2 Behind this mountain stands an oak (the

tree, no doubt, beneath which the lovers dance), and on this
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
329
and the sun's daughter her

"
crown.
When, in other ddinos, the solar jug is broken by little
John," this obviously refers to the waning strength of the sun's
"God's son" hangs
his
girdle,
^^
rays after Midsummer Night's Eve (St. John's Eve, June 23).^^
When the sun is drowned in the sea,^^ her daughter is naturally regarded as an orphan; and thus we are enabled to under-
stand a daind that

(the sunset) to
tells
which
how "God" makes
a golden hedge
only the
his sons (strictly speaking, here
evening star) come riding on sweating horses. Here they find

an orphan girl (twilight) whom they make its guardian, charging her not to break off the golden boughs (the rays of the setting sun); but she disobeys and flees to the valley of "Mary's"
bath-chamber (the darkness of night). Thither "God" and his
sons come, but refuse forgiveness for her transgression of their

commands. "Mary" is perhaps, as we have suggested in an-
other connexion, ^^ a Christianized substitute for the planet

Venus as the evening star.
In the story of the daughters of the sun

quent mention of a sea, and the sun herself
we have found fresails, as we know,^^
across a silver sea. This sea, like the brooks
and springs which
^^
have also occurred, is none other than the celestial ocean,

rivers, etc., which are so prominent a feature of Indo-Iranian
mythology ;^^ and the "Great Water" (Daugawa), though now
identified
by the Letts with the
in similar fashion.^" This
cause
it is full
river
Daugawa
to be interpreted
flows black at evening be-
Dvina,
is
and at midnight a
Very appropriately,
of the souls of the departed,
star descends to
"the house of souls."
^^
therefore, the sun's daughter has the key to the realm of the
dead; and at evening "Mother Earth" (Semmes Mate), from
whom
be lost or hidden, ^^ is besought

to give this key.^^ In the afternoon "God's children" shut the
door of heaven, so that one should be buried in the morning;
one asks whatever
may
and, accordingly, the sun's daughter is entreated to give a key

that an only brother's grave may be unlocked. ^^
We have a few ddinos in honour of a deity Usching, whom
BALTIC MYTHOLOGY
330
a Jesuit mission report of 1606 declares to have been a horsegod worshipped In the vicinity of Ludzen and Rossltten, in the
extreme south-east of Lithuania. ^^ These are not, however, of

mythological value, and the only Baltic figure remaining for
our consideration here is that of the celestial smith. This smith
has his forge in the sky, on the edge either of the sea or of the
Daugawa; and there he makes spurs and a girdle for "God's
^^
in other
son," and a crown and ring for the sun's daughter
words, from his smithy come the rays of the rising sun and the
solar disk itself. Mannhardt regards this smith as the glow of
dawn or of sunset, and compares him to the Finno-Ugric II-
marinen, the Teutonic Wieland, and the Greek Hephaistos.^^

A still closer analogue, however, is the Vedic Tvastr, who
wrought the cup which contains the nectar
of the gods;^^
and
even possible that he is ultimately the same as the Slavic

deity Svarog.^^ His name is given as Telyaveli or Telyavelik
it is
Russian redaction (dating from 1261) of the Byzantine

historian John Malalas, which says that he "forged for him
(Perkunas) the sun as it shines on earth, and set the sun in
in the
heaven."
Such are the pitifully scanty remnants of what must once

have been a great mythology. Yet, fragmentary though they
they possess a distinctive value. They help to explain the
migrations of important divisions of our own Indo-European
are,
race
a problem into which we cannot enter here; they cast
and are themselves illuminated by, the mythologies

and Iran; they reveal the wealth of poetic imagery and fantasy inherent in the more primitive strata of our
race; they show how baseless is the charge of gross materialism,
selfishness, and fear to which so many shallow and prejudiced
thinkers would fain trace the origin of religious thought. We
light upon,
of far-off India
lament the paucity of the extant Baltic myths; yet let us

not forget to be grateful and thankful that even a few have
may
survived.
NOTES
CELTIC
Introduction
Citation by author's name or by title of a text or a volume of a series refers to the
in the various sections of the Bibliography.
Where an author has written
several works they are distinguished as [a], [b], etc.
same
1.
2.
Caesar, De bello Gallico, vi. 14.

See especially CIL, CIR.
1896 ff.
See infra, pp. 157-58.
5. The exact meaning of simulacra in this passage is a little uncertain. Possibly they were boundary stones, like the Classical herms
(cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 194-95); ^^^ they were
probably "symbols" rather than "images" (see MacCuUoch [b],
3.
3 vols., Leipzig,
4.
284-85),
pp.
and may
have
been
standing-stones
(see
pp. 158-59).
6.
De
7.
ib. vi. 18.
8.
MacCulloch
[b],
pp. 29
Argonautica,
iv.
609
9.
10.
bello Gallico, vi. 17.
Diodorus Siculus
ff.
f.
(first
century
b. c.)j
ii-
47-
11. Herakles, 1 ff.

12. Solinus, xxii. 10.
13.
Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hiberniae,

iii.
399 ff.
ii.
34
ff.
14. Pharsalia,
15.
16.
De
Livy, V. xxxix. 3.
17. Pausanias, X. xxiii. 7.
18. Avienus (fourth century a.
19.
ZCP
i.
d.),
Ora maritima, 644
ff.
27 (1899).
20. ib.
21. Justin (probably third century a. d.),
Diodorus Siculus, V. xxiv. I.
XXIV.
iv. 3.
22.
23. See infra, p. 117.

24.
Diodorus Siculus,
25. Propertius, V.
iv. 19.
x. 41.
26. Pliny, Historia naturalis, xxix. 3.

27.
Lucan, Pharsalia,
i.
455
ff.;
Diodorus Siculus,
v. 28.
infra,
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
334
28. Cf.
Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916,
De
i.
6-8.
De facie
29. Plutarch,
dejectu oraculorum, 18,
lunae, 26.
30. See infra, pp. 54, 90, 95-96, 119-20, 122, 127, 132, 192,
31. Procopius, ed. W. Dindorf, Bonn, 1833, ii. 566 f.
32. Cf.
33.
Claudian, In
34.
Villemarque
Riifinuni,
[a],
i.
i.
145-46.
123.
Le Braz
136;
i.
35. Pliny, Historia naturalis, iv.
[a],
i.
p. xxxix.
13; Strabo,
ii.
4 (= p. 104, ed.
Casaubon).
36. Historia naturalis, ii. 98.
37. So called from the Greek
Euhemerus (fourth century
b.
c),
who, in a philosophical romance, of which only scanty fragments

have survived, showed how the gods had been actual men and their
myths records of actual events (see E. Rohde, Der griechische Roman
und seine Vorldufer, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1900, pp. 236-41, and J. Geffcken, "Euhemerism," in
38. Cited as LL and
in
ERE
LU.
v.
572-73).
They have been
edited at Dublin
1880 and 1870 respectively, but neither has been completely
translated.
39. See Bibliography of Irish Philology
and
of Printed Irish Litera-
ture, Dublin, 1913, pp. 80-122.

40. See Wentz, passim.
Chapter
1.
2.
3.
141 ff. {ITS).

text and translation in Eriu, vili.
Harleian MS. 5280, text and translation by
Keating,
MS H
RCelxn. 61
i.
2, 18;
ff.
i ff.
W.
(1915).
Stokes, in
(1891).
4. ib. XV.
5.
LL
69 (1894).
169 a, 214 b.
6.
RCel XV. 439 (1894).
7.
Harleian
MS.
8.
ib.
f.,
9.
10.
25
5280, 39
f.
165.
E. O' Curry, in Atlantis, iv. 159 (1863).

Harleian MS. 5280, ii, 33 f.
11. ib. 53
f.
of Promise" is a name for Elysium, perhaps borrowed by Christian editors from Biblical sources.
12.
The "Land
13.
E. O'Curry, in Atlantis, iv. 159

Harleian MS. 5280, 74 f.
14.
15. ib. 84
16. ib. 88
17.
ib.
ff.
(1863).
f.
f.
96, 122; see also infra, pp. 51, 120.
NOTES
i8.
19.
See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1917, vi. 50.

Harleian MS. 5280, 100, 122, LL 11 a, W, Stokes,
XV. 541 (1894).

20. Harleian
21. Harleian
22. Harleian
23. ib. 129
MS.
MS.
MS.
28. Loth,
31.
W.
LL
MS.
i.
5280,
f.
306.
166
f.
Stokes, in RCel xv. 311
RCel
f,
Mabinogion,
29. Harleian
in
5280, 102, 122, S. H. O'Grady, ii. 219.

5280, 123, W. Stokes, in RCel xvi, 59 (1895).
5280, 125 f.
24. MacNeill, i. 135 (ITS).

25. Harleian MS. 5280, 137, 149
26. Book of Fermoy, 24 b.
27. Harleian MS. 5280, 162 f.
30.
335
f.
(1894).
b.
32. There is some connexion between Manannan and Eogan,

Fand says that she dwelt in Eogan's bower.
33. Cf. supra, pp. 14-15, on Plutarch's myth of Elysium.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
for
LL
275 b; d'Arbois, Cours, ii. 356 ff.

Stokes, in RCel xvi. 273 (1895).
D'Arbois, Cours, ii. 145.
W. Stokes, in RCel xii. 129 (1891),
L. C. Stern, in Festschrift Whitley
W.
Leipzig, 1900, p. 17.

39. Text and translation
by E. O'Curry,
Stokes
gewidmet,
in Atlantis, iv.
159
ff.
(1863).
40. Harleian
MS.
5280,
f.
Chapter
1.
404
ff.
Annals of Tigernach,
3.
4.
LL
5.
S.
6.
ib.
7.
tr.
W.
Stokes, in
RCel
xvi. 394,
(1895).
TOSv. 234 (i860).

Binds enchas, ed. and
2.
and
ed.
gii.; Keating,
H. O'Grady,
ii.
ii.
ii.
tr.
79
W.
ff.
Stokes, in RCel xv. 446 (1894).
(ITS).
260.
171.
See MacNeill, i. introd., pp. xxv, xxxviii

New Ireland Review, xxv-xxvi (1906).
f.
(ITS), and his
articles in
9.
LL
W.
245 b.
10.
LL
7 a.
11.
D. Fitzgerald,
8.
TOSm.
114(1855)-
in
RCel
iv.
187
ff.
(1879);
cf. S.
H. O'Grady,
in
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
336
Chapter
1.
IT
E. Windisch, in
i.
III
Stokes,
14;
Tripartite Life of Saint
Patrick, p. 314.
W. M. Hennessy,
2.
Ed. and
tr.
3.
O'Curry
[a],
4.
LL
5.
Book
of Fermoy, iii
8.
9.
i.
3 (1889).
Text and
ZCP
E. O'Curry, in Atlantis,
f.;
(1870).
translation
(1863).
7. L. C. Stem, in
xxviii.
RIJ.TLS
in
505.
246.
RIA:IMSi.^S^'
6.
i.
by E. O'Curry,
iii.
385 (1862);
in Atlantis, iv.
v. 523 (1905); Stirn, in
330 (1906-07).
A, Nutt, in RCel xxvii. 328 (1906).
LL 209 b; text and translation by L. Gwynn,
RCel
113
ff.
xxvii. 332,
in Eriu, vii.
210
f.
(1914).
10.
See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916,
11.
MacCuUoch
[b], p.
i.
5-8.
81.
Chapter IV
De
1.
Caesar,
2.
S.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
H. O'Grady,
ii.
203.
iii.
387
f.
(1862).
H. O'Grady, ii. 243.

S. H. O'Grady, in TOS iii. 113 f. (1855); see infra, pp. 171-72.
For other instances see infra, pp. 59, 62-63, 80, 154, 184-85.
Skene [a], i. 532; J. G. Evans, Llyvyr Taliesin, p. 26.
S.
Guest, iii. 356 ff.

E. Windisch, in IT III.
i.
235
f.
ID.
W.
12.
Book of Fermoy, 131
13.
MacNeill,
14.
W.
W.
17.
W.
Stokes,
18.
S.
Stokes, in RCel xv.

11. Larminie, p. 82.
i.
444 (1894).
Nutt
a;
[c],
i.
119 {ITS).
Stokes, ib. xvi. 65 (1895).

15.
16. ib. p. 69.
Ib.
ii.
H. O'Grady,
200 (1874).
ii.
311
ff.
64
ff.
NOTES
Chapter
LU
1.
[c],
42
i.
133 , Harleian
3.
2,
16; text
and translation
in
Nutt
ff.
Book
Nutt
2.
MS.
337
Nutt
of Fermoy, 85 a;
[c], ii.
24
[c],
i.
58
ff.
f.

Windisch, Tain, pp. 342, 366.
N. O'Kearney, in TOS ii. 80 (1855).
4.
5.
6.
Windisch, Tizw, p. 550.

E. Windisch, in IT iii. 2.
9. S. H. O'Grady, in TOS iii. 87 ff. (1855).
10. "The Gilla Dacker," in S. H. O'Grady, ii. 300.
11. "Diarmaid and Grainne," in TOS iii. 69 ff. (1855).
7.
8.
12. ib. p. 179.
LU
13.
[c],
63 b;
W.
Stokes, in RCel xvi. 139 (1895); J. F. Campbell
p. xxxix.
W.
14.
Chapter VI
Text and translation by K. Meyer,
1.
cf.
W.
2.
3.
note
Stokes,
ib.
in
RCel
x.
212
ff.
(1889);
xv. 465 (1894).
E. Windisch, in IT II. ii. 241 f.

For the meaning of this phrase see MacCulloch
[b],
p.
67,
iii.
175
I.
4.
LU J^
5.
LL
a, Jj a; Windisch, Tain, pp. 306, 312 f.

119 a; text and translation by W. Stokes, in RCel
(1877)6.
7.
Loth, Mabinogion,
See infra, p. 165.
8.
Text and translation by R.
9.
See infra, p. 89.
i.
302.
W.
I.
Best, in Eriu,
iii.
149
f.
(1907).

O'B. Crowe, in JRHAAI IV. i. 94 ff. (1871); W. Stokes, in
RCel XV. 482 (1894), xvi. 152 (1895); see also infra, p. 121.
12. W. Stokes, in RCel xiii. 426 f. (1892).
13. D'Arbois, Cours, v. 370; W. Stokes, in RCel xvi. 45 (1895).
14. See infra, pp. 156, 179.
15. See infra, pp. 80-82.
TO.
11. J.
16.
17.
Book
of Bally mote, 139

See supra, p. 70.
^.
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
338
l8. Text and translation by W. Stokes, in RCel xxii. 9 ff. (1901);

for the relation of the different accounts of Conaire to each other,
see
M.
Nettlau,
ib. xii.
229
ff.
(1891).
Chapter VII
Leahhar Breac, Dublin,
1.
1872-76, p. 242; O'Curry
[a],
pp.
426, 632.
Text and translation from Egerton Manuscript 1782

Museum) by E. Miiller, in RCel iii. 342 f. (1877).
2.
O'Curry, loc.
LU 129 b.
3.
4.
W.
W.
5.
(British
cit.
Stokes, ib. p. 291 E. Gwynn, in RIJ.TLS vii. 3, 70 (1900).

For the text and translation of the story of Etain see Leahy, i. iff.;
6.
L. C. Stern, in ZCP v. 524 (1905); E. Miiller, in RCel iii. 350 (1877);

A. Nutt, ib. xxvii. 334 (1906).
7. Code of Manu, ix. 8 (tr. G. Biihler, in Sacred Books of the
East, XXV. 329 [1886]); J. A. MacCulloch, "First-Born (Introductory
and Primitive),"
in
ERE
vi. 34.
8.
LU 60 a.
9.
Text and translation by L. Duvau,
in
RCel
ix.
i ff.
(1888);
d'Arbois, Cours, v. 22; E. Windisch, in IT \. 134 ff.

10.
120 a, text also in Windisch, Kurzgefasste irische
LU
Gram-
by d'Arbois, Cours, v. 385, where the gods'

wrongly regarded as the realm of the dead (see MacCulloch
matik, p. 120, translation
land
is
[b], p.
374)-
IT
11.
W.
12.
Lais de Marie de France, ed. K. Warnke, pp. 86-112.
Stokes, in
iii.
335.
LU
13.
25 b; text and translation by
(1889); see also d'Arbois, Cours, v. 485.
W.
14. See supra, p. 36.

\.
205
15. Z,f/ 43 f.; E. Windisch, in
in Leahy, i. 51 f., E. O'Curry, in Atlantis,
59); cf. d'Arbois, Cours, v. 170 f.
IT
16.
H. O'Grady,
S.
ii.
Stokes, in
f.;
i.
text
362
RCel
x.
63
f.
and translations
f.,
ii.
98
f.
(1858-
196.
17. Text and translations of the versions

iii.
xvi. 151 (1895) and
510 (1892).
by W. Stokes,
in
RCel
FL
18.
19.
syria,
W.
Stokes, in RCel xv. 437-38 (1894).

For instances see M. Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and AsBoston, 1898, p. 550; Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 399; G. Mas-
pero. Etudes de mythologie egyptienne, ii. 226, Paris, 1893; J. Muir,

Original Sanskrit Texts, London, 1858-72, v. 320; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, London, 1910, p. 194; C. G. Seligmann, Mel-
NOTES
New
anesians of British
L. Spence, in
653, V. 682
ERE
339
Guinea, Cambridge, 1910, pp. 656, 734;
cf. J. A. MacCuUoch, ib. iv.

561 (Chinook)
(1911-12); see also E. Westermarck, Origin and Deiii.
velopment of the Moral Ideas, London, 1906-08.

20. W. Stokes, in RCel xvi. 148 (1895).
21.
$1 ^; W. Stokes, in RCel xv. 332, xvi. 73 (1894-95); d'Ar-
LU
bois, Cours, ii. 364.

22. See pp. 37, 181.
23. S.
24.
25.
26.
H. O'Grady, ii. 204, 213, 220.

W.
W.
W.
Stokes, ib. p. 441.
Chapter VIII
1.
2.
3.
Holder, s. v.; W. Stokes, in RCel xv. 279 (1894).

Loth, Mabinogion, i. 81 f.; Guest, iii. 7.
E. Anwyl, in ZCP I 288 (1899).
i.
264; J. G. Evans in his Llyvyr Taliesin transwhich Rhys and Skene agree as referring to an
imprisonment of Gweir by Pwyll and Pryderi in Caer Sidi as
4.
Skene
lates the
follows
"
[a],
lines
his victory at Whirlpool's Fort [Caer

reason of extraordinary thought and care."
Complete was
By
Sidi],
Skene's rendering is
"
Complete was the prison of Gweir in Caer Sidi,
Through the spite of Pwyll and Pryderi."
Rhys renders "spite" as "messenger." The text is Bu gweir gyvrang
yng Haer sidi, drwy oi chestol bwyll a phryderi. Evans does not regard Gweir, Pwyll, and Pryderi in the text as proper names.
5. Loth, Mabinogion,
6. ib. i. 173 f.; Guest,
7.
Loth, Mabinogion,
8.
Rhys
[a],
i.
301.
iii.
i.
189
f.
195.
p. 276.
Cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 273-76.

10. Rhys [c], p. 157; J. G. Evans, Llyvyr Taliesin, p. 63.
9.
11.
Skene
12. ib.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
i.
[a],
i.
543,
282, 288;
ii.
145.
Rhys
[a],
p. 387.
Loth, Mabinogion, i. 301.

Skene [a], i. 286-87.
Loth, Mabinogion, i. 300.
Skene [a], i. 275, 278; Myrvyrian Archaiology, i. 167.
Guest, iii. 255.
Loth, MabinogioUf i. 119, 151 f.; Guest, iii. 81, 143 f.
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
340
FLR
V. I f. (1878).
19.
Britanniae, ii. 11.

22. Bathurst, p. 127.
23. E.
24.
Anwyl,
Nutt
in
[c], ii.
ZCP
331; Geoffrey of
i.
i.
Monmouth,
327.
127 (1899).
ii.
17.
25. Skene [a], ii. 51; J.

G. Evans, Llyvyr Taliesin,

28. Elton, p. 291.
i.
29.
Skene
30.
MacCulloch
i.
[a],
Historia
p. 54.
307.
302.
[b], p.
242.
94 f., [c], ch. ii; cf. MacCulloch [b], p. 33. For

Yama see Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1917, vi. 68-70, 159-60.
32. Skene [a], i. 298.
33. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Britanniae, iii. i f.
34. Loth, Mabinogion, i. 119, 360.
35. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Britanniae, iv. i f.
36. Skene [a], i. 431.
31.
Rhys
p.
[a],
Rhys [a], p. 90, et passim.

38. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Britanniae,
37.
131
40. See supra, pp. 24-25.
42.
Rhys
[a],
i.
44. See infra,
Skene
20.
233.
p. 609.
43. Itinerarium Cambriae,
45.
iii.
f.
i.
[a],
i.
8.
p. 194.
i.
293.

47. Train, ii. 118.
i.
284, 315, 331.
i.
293 (1899).

49. E.
Anwyl,
in
ZCP

51. Guest,
52.
Skene
iii.
[a],
Taliesin, pp. 10
356
i.
ff.,
f.
260, 274
27
f.,
278, 281
f.,
286
f.;
J.
G. Evans, Llyvyr
ff.
See supra, p. 104; J. G. Evans, op. cit. p. 64 f.

54. See infra, p. 1 66.
55. Skene [a], i. 265; J. G. Evans, op. cit. p. 127.
53.
56.
MacCulloch
[b], p.
57. Cf. Mythology of

59.
Skene
[a],
i.
275.
118.
II
Races, Boston, 1916, x. 5-7.
NOTES
60.
Skene
of Welsh,
61. N.
62. J.
(1881);
[a],
260, 498, 500,
i.
London, 1803,
5,
also
Rhys
ii.
W.
O. Pughe, Dictionary
(1898).
in
Cymmrodor,
iv.
ff.
163
passim.
[d],
H. O'Grady,
234;
s. v.
Thomas, in RHR xxxviii. 339

Rhys, "Welsh Fairy Tales,"
cf.
63. S.
ii.
341
94
f.
Chapter IX
1.
2.
3.
4.
Text and translation in Nutt [c], i. 2 f.

S. H. O'Grady, ii. 198 f.; see also supra, p. 89.
S. H. O'Grady, ii. 238.
Strabo, iv. 6 (="p. 198, ed. Casaubon); Mela,
Culloch
5.
385 f.
E. Windisch, in
iii.
6; see
Mac-
[b], p.
IT
iii.
183
f.;
S.
H. O'Grady,
in
TOS
iii.
213
f.
(1857).
6.
7.
Nutt
8.
ib.
9.
LL
10.
11.
218
[c],
i.
52
iii.
387 (1862).
f.
56 f.
246 a.
Holder, s. v. "Braciaca."
Cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston,
i.
1916-17,
x.
46-48,
i.
ff.
See pp. 95-96, 151, 192.

Derga's Hostel, ed. W. Stokes, in RCel
13.
12.
14.
15.
16.
209
Da
W.
W.
W.
xxii. 14 (1901).
Stokes, in RCel xv. 546 (1894); O'Curry [b], ii. 142 f.
Stokes, in FL iii. 506 (1892).
Stokes, in RCel xv. 315 (1894); S. H. O'Grady, ii. 519;
b.
17. S. H. O'Grady,
18. ib. ii. 253.
ii.
390.

20. O'Curry [a], pp. 388, 621.
21. Skene [a], i. 285.
22. See infra, pp. 194-95.
23.
MacDougall,
24.
Hyde
[c],
p. 261.
p. 440.
25. Cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916,

26. Nutt [c], i. 276, 289.
27.
MacCulloch
[b], p.
373.
i.
147-48.
LL
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
342
Chapter
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Holder, s. v.; cf. also MacCuUoch [b], ch. xiv.

E. Windisch, in IT i. 96 f.; W. Stokes, in RCel xvi. 63 (1895).
See infra, p. 177.
in RIJ.TLS xvi. 65 (1910).
Stokes, in RCel xv. 426, 474 (1894).
Stokes, ib. xiii. 449 (1892), xv. 470 (1894).
K. Meyer,
W.
W.
O'Daly, in
8. J.
TOS
vi.
133 (1861).
9. J. F.
10.
11.
Campbell [b], i. 53.

W. Stokes, in RCel xv. 421, 471, 473 (1894).
LU 64
12.
LL
13.
O'Curry [a], p. 388.

Leahy, ii. 105; W. Stokes,
14.
69 a;
Rhys
15.
16. J.
17.
[d],
in
IT
iii.
295.
passim.
O'Daly,
W.
h;
in
TOS
vi.
Stokes, in RCel
223 (1861).
104 (1891); S. H. O'Grady,
xii.
ii.
199; E.
in Atlantis, iv. 163 (1863).
O'Curry,
H. O'Grady, ii. 292 f.

Fled Bricrend, ed. G. Henderson, London, 1899, p. 38 {ITS).
20. W. Stokes, in RCel xii. 347 (1891).
21. Loth, Mabinogion, i. 303; Guest, ii. 269 f.
18. S.
19.
H. O'Grady,
22. S.
23. See Plates
ii.
123.
VHI, XH, XVI, XXV.
24. See supra, pp. 24-25, 47, 107-08.

25.
Text and translation by A. O. Anderson, in RCel xxiv. 126 ff.

ii.
3 ff.; G. Henderson, in J. F. Campbell [c], p. i ff.;
(1903); Leahy,
J.
O'B. Crowe,
26.
Dean
in
RU.IMS
i.
134
ff.
of Lismore^s Book, ed.
G. Henderson,
(1870).
and
tr.
T. McLauchlan, Edin-
Campbell [c], p. 18
burgh, 1862, p. 54
27. See supra, pp. 54-55, 66.
28. Cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 87-88.
f.;
30.
of the
in J. F.
N. O'Keamey, in TOS ii. 51, 69 (1855); for parallel instances

"swallow" motif among the North American Indians see
Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, x. 69, 79, 139.

31. LU 113; J. O'B. Crowe, in JRHAAI IV. i. 371
32.
W.
33. S.
34.
f.
f. (1870).
Stokes, in RCel xv. 304 (1894); S. H. O'Grady, ii. 523.
H. O'Grady, in TOS iii. 125 (1855).

W.
NOTES
W.
W.
W.
W.
W.
W.
LL
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
343
xv. 326 (1894).
Stokes,
ib.
Stokes,
ib. xvi.
Stokes,
ib. p. 77.
Stokes,
ib.
Stokes,
ib. p.
72 (1895).
xv. 295 (1894).
434.
Stokes, ib. i. 256 (1870).
82 b, 86 b; Windisch, Tain, pp. 477, 547
(cf.
also pp. 338,
366).
42. Fled Bricrend, ed. G.
N. O'Kearney,
43.
44. Cf. supra, p.
LL
45.
76
a,
in
Henderson, London, 1899,
TOS
i.
84 (ITS).
p.
107 (1853).
34..
69 a; Windisch, Tain, pp. 338, 191.
Chapter XI
Sebillot [a];
1.
cf.
also the
same scholar
[b].
See stipra, p. 73, and cf. p. 135.

see the Rennes Dind'senchas, ed. and tr. W. Stokes,
3. For these
in RCel XV. 429 f., 483 (1894), xvi. 50, 65, 146, 153, 164 (1895).
2.
4.
W.
Stokes,
xv. 302 (1894).
ib.
See MacCulloch
pp. 167 ff.

v. 10.
7. D'Arbois, Cours,
8. W. Stokes, in RCel xv. 460, 284, xvi. 44, xv. 279 (1894-95).
9. LL 16 b.
[O. See supra, pp. 42, 81.
W. Stokes, in RCel xii. 95 (1891).
5.
[a],
6.
W.
[3.
Stokes, ib. p. 71.

O. Connellan, in TOS v. 96 (i860); S. O'Grady,
[4.
W.
[2.
i.
84.
RCel xv. 279 (1894).
Stokes, in
:5.
See supra, p. 75.
[6.
W.
RCel
Stokes, in
xvi. 51 (1895).
[8.
See supra, pp. 54-S5 87, 131.

W. Stokes, in RCel xv. 421 (1894), xvi. 279 (1895).
[9.
D. Fitzgerald,
[7.
ib. iv.
185 (1879).
20. See supra, pp. 9-17-
Chapter XII
1.
2.
3.
4.
IT i. 210.
E. Windisch,
D'Arbois, Cours, v. 14; K. Meyer, in RCel vi. 174 (1884).
IT iii. 393.
Coir Anmann, ed. W. Stokes,
See supra, pp. 64-65, 83.
Ill 23
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
344
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
LL
58 a; W. Stokes, in IT iii. 282.

E. Windisch, in IT i. 211.
loi b; LL 123 h.
Windisch, T'am, pp. 345, 669.
ib. p. 106 f.
LU
11.
LU 59 h.
Windisch,
12.
For the meaning of
10.
Tflzw, p. 118.
X.
this
term
of.
Mythology of All Races,
ff.
17
Boston,^ 1916,
13. Eriuy vii. 208 (1914).
14. Cf. Fled Bricrend, ed. G, Henderson, London,
1899, p. 67
{ITS); Caesar, De hello Gallico, vii. 47.
15. Windisch, Tain, p. 130 f.
16. In his conversation with Emer, Cuchulainn boasted of his
and wisdom, and said that, taught by

Cathbad, he was "an adept in the arts of the god of Druidism."
17. Cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 34-35.
greatness, trustworthiness,
18.
Two
versions are here combined
"The Wooing
of
Emer"
(Tochmarc Entire), ed. K. Meyer, in RCel xi. 442 f. (1890), and "The
Training of Cuchulainn" {Foglaim Chonculaind), ed. W. Stokes, ib.
xxix. 109
19.
20.
W.
f.
(1908).
Stokes,
ib. xvi.
46 (1895).
See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1917,

21. See supra, pp. 124-25; E. Windisch, in IT
i.
vi.
i.
332.
96
f.;
A. H. Leahy,
41.
22. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai, iv. 40.
23. Poseidonius, in
Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai,
iv. 40.
24. Fled Bricrend, ed. G. Henderson, London,

Windisch, in IT i. 235; d'Arbois, Cours, v. 81 f.
1899 (ITS); E.
25. See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1917, xii. 41, 49.
26. E. Windisch, in IT ii. 173; d'Arbois, Cours, v. 149 f.
27. G. Keating, ii. 223 {ITS); O'Curry [b], iii. 81.
28. J.
O'B. Crowe,
in
JRHAAI
IV.
i.
371
f.
(1870);
cf.
supra,
pp. 131-32.
29. Keating,
W.
ii.
223
f.
{ITS).
RCel xv. 449 (1894); Keating, ii. 235 {ITS).

30.
31. R. Thurneysen, in ZCP ix. 189 f. (1913); J. Baudis, in Eriu,
vii. 200 f. (1914); cf. MacCuIloch [a], ch. v.
32. Skene [a], i. 254; cf. Loth, Mabinogion, i. 261.
Stokes, in
33.
R.
34.
O'Curry
I.
Best, in Eriu,
[b],
ii.
iii.
97.

163 (1907).,
NOTES
345

39. See jw^m, pp. 130-31.
40. Text and translation of the version in LL by Windisch, Tain;

text of the version in
and Book of Lecan, ed. J. Strachan and
G.
in
i.
O'Keeffe,
Eriu,
J.
(1904), translation by L. Winifred Faraday,
The Cattle Raid of Cualnge, London, 1904. See also Hull [c]. For
references in the Dindsenchas see W. Stokes, in RCel xv. 464, xvi.
LU
156 (1894-95).
41. See supra, pp. 31, 100.
42.
Text and translation by W. Stokes,
d'Arbois, Cours, v. 330
cf.
43. O' Curry
f.;
Hull
[c],
RCel
in
p. 253
iii.
175
f.
(1877);
f.
p. 479.
[a],
44. ib.
45.
46.
[c],
W.
W.
Stokes, in RCel xv. 472 (1894); S. H. O'Grady,

Stokes, in RCel
viii.
49
[a],
ii.
525.
p. 637;
Hull
pp. 87, 267.
47. Rhys [e], p. 316.

48. D'Arbois [b], pp. 25, 65
49.
S.
(1887); O'Curry
f.
D'Arbois
63,
[b], p.
Reinach, in RCel
xviii.
f.,
RCel
253
f.
RCel
xix.
xx. 89 (1899).
246 (1898), xxviii. 41 (1907);
50. Caesar, De hello Gallico, vii. 65; d'Arbois [b], p. 49,

xxvii, 324 (1906).
51.
Diodorus Siculus,
Races, Boston, 191 6,
iv.
f.
i.
cf. S.
(1906);
Reinach, in RCel
Chapter
xi.
N. O'Keamey, in TOS i. 32 f. (1853).

Maclnness and Nutt, p. 407; MacNeill,
3.
MacNeill,
4.
LU
5.
Ed. and
TOS
6.
7.
iv.
S.
16 h;
281
ff.
LL
p. xxvi {ITS).
h,
127 a;
W.
Stokes, in
RCel
D. Comyn, Dublin, 1902, and
xv. 300 (1894).

J.
O'Donovan,
in
(1859).
H. O'Grady,
Comyn,
i.,
p. xxxii {ITS).
i.,
tr.
[b], p. 39 f., and RCel

224 (1890).
XHI
2.
1.
and RCel
56; for the Dioscuri see Mythology of All
26-27, 247, 301-02.

52. D'Arbois [b], p. 57 f.; cf. supra, p. 129.
54. Caesar, De hello Gallico, vi. 17; d'Arbois
xxvii. 313
cf.
(1897).
p. 18
ii.
203.
f.
8.
LU \ih;^.M.
9.
See supra, p. 25.
Hennessy,
in
RCel
ii.
86
f.
(1873).
S. H. O'Grady, ii. 131, 225, 245.

D'Arbois [b], p. 53; Holder, s. v. "Camulos"; K. Meyer,
RCel xxn. 390 (191 1).
10.
11.
in
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
346
"
12.
MacNeill,
13.
Comyn,
14.
MacNeill,
15. S.
16.
33, 133 (ITS).

f.
p. 23
134 (ITS).
H. O'Grady, ii. 142 f.
LU 41
17.
i.
b.
Comyn,
O'Kearney,
i.
in
p.
41
TOS
cf.
f.;
K. Meyer,
in
RCel
v.
201
(1882);
N.
174 (1855).
18. See supra, pp. 109-10.
19. J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, London, 1879-89, p. 690; J.
G. Frazer, in JR i. 172 f. (1888); M. R. Cox, Cinderella, London,
1893; Miss Buckland, in JAI xxii. 29 (1893); W. H. Dall, Third
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1884).
20. K. Meyer, in RCel xxv. 345 (1904).
21.
Comyn,
22. Curtin
ii.
p. 50.
[a], p.
204.
J.F.Campbell [b],i.33 f., [a], iii. 348 f.; J.G.Campbell [c],p. 16 f.

24. S. H. O'Grady, ii. 172.
25. N. O'Kearney, in TOS i. 13 (1853); S. H. O'Grady, ii. 221.
26. J. F. Campbell [b], i. 198.
27. S. H. O'Grady, ii. 163.
28. W. Stokes, in RCsl xv. 333 (1894).
29. N. O'Kearney, in TOS ii. 167 f. (1855).
30. K. Meyer, in RIA.TLS xvi. 22 f. (1910); cf. supra, p. 145.
31. N. O'Kearney, in TOS ii. 161 (1855).
32. Text and translation by W. Stokes, in RCel vii. 289 (1886);
23.
cf.
MacNeill, i. 28, 127 {ITS).

Joyce [a], p. 177.
34. J. G. Campbell [c], p. 74.
33.
35.
O'Curry
[b],
37. J.
[b],
i.
G.
ii.
345; MacNeill,
(ITS).
p. xxxvii
Campbell, in
36. MacNeill,
i.
SCR
68; J. G.
38. J.
Campbell
G. Campbell, in
[c],
i.
i.
207 (ITS).
115, 241
(1881); J. F.
p. 131.
SCR
loc.
cit.;
A. MacBain, in
Campbell
CM
ix.
130
(1884).
iii. 77, Eud. Ethics, IIL
Varia
Historia, xii. 22.
baeus, Eclogae,
40; .^lian,
A.
and
G.
Kelleher
Schoepperle, in RCel xxxii. 184
40.
41. MacNeill, i. 30, 130 {ITS).
39. Aristotle,
Nicom. Ethics,
i.
25; Sto-
f.
(191
vii.
42.
ib.
i.
38, 140; see supra, pp. 68-69.

44. S.
H. O'Grady,
ii.
292
f.;
Joyce
46. S.
47.
ib.
H. O'Grady,
ii.
247
f.
ii.
222-31.
[a],
p.
253
f.
1).
NOTES
48. S.
H. O'Grady,
li.
347
141, 146.
300; O. Connellan, in TOS v. 69 (i860).

50. MacNeill, ii. 5, loi (ITS).
51. S. H. O'Grady, ii. 331; W. Stokes, in RCel xvi. 147 (1895).
52. MacNeill, i. 21, 118 (ITS); Comyn, p. 20.
49. ib.
ii.
55. See supra, p. 29; MacNeill, ii. 34, 134 (ITS).

54. Cath Finntrdga, ed. and tr. K. Meyer, Oxford, 1885, pp. 13, 32.
Campbell [b], i. 65; MacDougall, p. 268.

K. Meyer, in RIJ.TLS xvi. 51 (1910).
55. J. F.
56.
57. ib. p. xxiii.

58. J.
40
f.
H. Lloyd, O.
Bergin, and G. Schoepperle, in RCel xxxiii.
J.
(1912).
59. J. H. Lloyd, O. J. Bergin, and G. Schoepperle, ib. p. 160,

60. ib. p. 157.
61. According to Keating, the Tuatha De Danann, when
Greece, quickened dead Athenians by their
lore,
in
sending demons
into them.
62.
Text and translation by
S.
H. O'Grady,
in
TOS
iii
(1857).
63. MacNeill,
45, 149 (ITS).
64. J. F. Campbell [a], iii. 49.
i.
65. W. Stokes, in RCel xv. 448 (1894).

66. J. G. Campbell [c], p. 53 f.
67. K. Meyer, in RCel xi. 131 (1890).
73.
i. 120, 121,
165, 200 (ITS);]. F. Campbell [b], i. 164.
N. O'Kearney, in TOS i. 68 f. (1853); J. F. Campbell [b], i. 182.
K. Meyer, in RIA:TLS xvi. 69 (1910); of. introd., p. xxv.
J. F. Campbell [a], iv. 242, [b], i. 195; MacDougall, pp. 73, 283.
74.
Nutt
68. MacNeill,
69.
70.
71.
72.
75. S.
76. J.
[c],
i.
51.
H. O'Grady,
F. Campbell
ii.
ro2, 158-59.
[b],
i.
198.
O'Daly, in TOS iv. 233 (1859).

78. Curtin [a], p. 327 f.
79. N. O'Kearney, in TOS i. 20 f. (1853);
77. J.
J.
O'Daly,
ib. iv.
243
f.
(1859).
N. O'Kearney, ib. i. 131 f. (1853).

H. O'Grady, ib. iii. 230! (1857).
82. N. O'Kearney, ib. i. 93 (1853); S. H. O'Grady, ib. iii. 257,
291 (1857); for other poems see the other volumes of this series, as
well as K. Meyer, in RIJ.TLS xvi (1910); Dean of Lismore^s Book^
ed. and tr. T. McLauchlan, Edinburgh, 1862.
83. D. Hyde, in RCel xiii. 417 f. (1892).
80.
81. S.
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
348
Chapter XIV
Historia Britonum, 50.
De excidio Britanniae, 26.
3. Historia regum Britanniae, viii. 19
6. E. Anwyl, in
ii. i.
1.
"
2.
ff.^
ERE
Holder, j. to. "Artaios," "Artos"; Rhys [c], p. 39

8. Loth, Mabinogion, i. 243 f.
9. See supra, p. 181, on the king of Tir na nOg.
7.
11.
Loth, Mabinogio7i,
12.
Maclnness and Nutt, p. 53.

Skene [a], i. 261 f., ii. 458; Loth, Mabinogion,
Skene [a], i. 295.
13.
14.
is
i.
15. See supra, p. iii.

Arthur's shield.
17.
18.
Skene
i.
[a],
f.
256.
i.
328, 337.
In Geoffrey
i.
310.
(ix.
4)
Prytwenn
265; J. G. Evans, Llyvyr Taliesin, p. 127.
See supra, p. 151.

i.
307, 334.
see
also
305;
supra, pp. II2, 120.
20. ib.
i.
21. ib.
i.
259, 269.
22. ib.
i.
278.
23. ib. i. 260.

24. Cf. supra, pp. 130-31, 154.
25.
26.
Weston [f], ii. 205

Rhys [c], p. 335.
f.
27. See supra, pp. 180-81.

28. Weston [f], ii. iii.
29.
Layamon,
Brut, ed. F.
Madden,
ii.
144, 384.
30. Otia Imperialia, ed. F. Liebrecht, p. 12.
31. Stuart-Glennie [a];

32. Cf. E. Anwyl, in
Hartland
ERE
33.
Weston
34. ib.
i.
[f],
288
f.,
i.
ii.
Nutt
[b], p.
198.
287.
ii.
250,
[e],
p. 81 f.;
Windisch, Tain, p. xxxix.

Mabinogion, i. 288.
37. Weston [a], p. 32 f.
38. ib. ch. viii, [b], p. 46 f.
36. Loth,
p. 207;
5.
P- 72-
35. See
[a],
Loth, Mabinogion,
i.
introd.,
NOTES
39. F.
349
Sir Gawayne, p. xxxii.
Madden,
Rhys [c], p.
21; Malory, Morte d'Jrthur,

41. Loth, Mabinogion, i. 274, 286.
40.
42. ib.
43. ib.
44.
i.
286
i.
330, 338.
Rhys
[c],
318
f.,
19.
f.
p. 59.
45. Historia
regum Britanniae,
46. Loth, Mabinogion, i. 286.
47. Historia regum Britanniae,
48. Historia Britojium, 40 f.
ix. ii, x. 3.
x. 3, 9.
De
excidio Britanniae, 25.

Historia
50. Geoffrey,
regum Britanniae ,
49. Gildas,
51.
i.
Weston
ii.
[f],
vi. i7-viii. 20.
112.

53. See supra, pp. 72, 52.
54.
Weston
Weston
[g].
[f], i. 330 f., ii. 249 f.; cf. also [e], p. 75 f.

K. Meyer, "Eine verschoUene Artursage," in Festschrift Ernst
Windisch
dargehracht, Leipzig, 1914, pp. 63-67, believes that
he has found allusions to Arthur in Irish literature.
55.
56.
1.
2.
ii.
76
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
LL
LL
4
4
b,
Chapter
XV
TOS
244
12 a.
b; J.
O'Daly, in
(1859); d'Arbois, Court,
15; Harleian MS. 3. 18, p. 38.

See supra, pp. 109-10, 112, 57-59.
See supra, pp. 51-52.
Book of Fermoy, p. iii f,; in RIJ.IMS i. 46 f. (1870).
J. O'B. Crowe, in JRHAAI IV. i. 94 f. (1870).
D'Arbois, Cours, v. 18; Hull [c], p. 4; O'Curry [a], p. 637
W.
in
RIA:TLS
Stokes, in RCel
iii.
185 (1877).
11.
Text and translation by
IV.
i.
12. S.
13. ib.
O'Curry
14. E.
O'B. Crowe, in
a; J.
S.
JRHAAI
IV.
i.
371
f.
(1870).
H. O'Grady, and by W. Stokes,
in
I ff.
H. O'Grady,
ii.
103 f., 107, 179.
136, 147, 168; other prophecies of Fionn's are given
ii.
[a],
p.
393
O'Curry,
f.
in Atlantis, iv. 115 f. (1863); see supra, p. 51.

in Nutt [c], i. 87 f., cf. ii. 8, 30 f.
Text and translation
15.
16. ib.
f.;
xiv. 17 (1906).
LU 37
17.
f.
LU
10.
IT
iv.
f.
K. Meyer,
9.
i.
14, 22.
E. O'Curry
[a],
p.
30
f.
by
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
350
1
8.
See supra, p. 183.
O'B. Crowe, in JRHAAI IV. i. 371 f. (1870).

H. O'Grady, ii. 179.
21. Guest, iii. 325.
22. Kulhwch and Olwen, in Loth, Mabinogion, i. 314.
23. W. Stokes, in RCel xv. 468 (1894).
19. J.
20. S.
SLAVIC
Introduction
1.
Chronicon,
i.
14,
3, 7,
iii.
19, v. 23, vi. 17-18,
23-25, 38,
viii.
59, 64-65, 69.

2.
ii.
3.
i.
4.
iii.
18-19,
2, 6, 13,
Gesta
50, 52, 60; Descriptio
insularum Aquilonis,
21-23, 38, 52, 69, 83, 93, 163,
Danorum, pp. 444-45,
505, 564
ff.,
ii.
18.
12.
S74~75i S77, S7^-
5. Ixxxvi, cxxi-cxxii.
6.
Herbord,
ii.
31-33, 35,
iii.
6-7, 22-23, 26; Ebbo,
ii.
13,
iii.
I, 8.
7.
X, xxxviii-xxxix,
Ed. and
Ixv
(tr.
Leger, pp. 9-10, 61-68, 148-53).
A. Boltz, Berlin, 1854,

1884, ed. O. Partytzkiy, Lwow, 1884.
8.
9.
10.
De
tr.
hello Gothico,
iii.
tr.
H. von Paucker, Berlin,
14.
Les Prairies d'or, ed. and tr. C. Barbier de

Pavet de Courteille, Paris, 1861-77, especially ii. 9,
Meynard and
iii.
63-64,
iv.
58-60.
11.
VAhrege des
merveilles, tr.
Carta de Vaux, Paris, 1898, pp.
115-16.
12.
i.
4,
ii.
8,
iii.
i, 8,
136.
Homiliar, pp. 4, 54, 57, 74, 79.

discussion of the pas14. Opera, Cracow, 1873, x. 47-48 (cf. the
xiv.
in
JSP
A.
170-82 [1892]).
Briickner,
sage by
15. See A. Briickner, in JSP xiv. 183-91 (1892).
13.
Part
1.
Cf. Krek, Einleitung, pp. 4^4-39; Leger, Mythologie, pp. 204"Death and Disposal of the Dead (Slavic)," in
10; O. Schrader,
Encyclopcedia of Religion and Ethics, iv. 508-09.

2. C. M. Frahn, Ihn Foszlan's und anderer Jraber Berichte uber
cf. also Leo
die Russen dlterer Zeit, Petrograd, 1823, pp. 10-21
;
Diaconus, Historia, ix. 6.

ii.
3. Les Prairies d'or,
4.
On
this
9,
custom and
hochzeit, Jena, 1904.
iii.
its
63-64.
significance see 0. Schrader, Toten-
SLAVIC
352
MYTHOLOGY
Chronica Polonum, ed. A. Przezdziecki, Cracow, 1862, pp.
5.
28-29.
De
aliarsacrificiis et idolatria veterum Borussorum, Livonum,

1 551; the most generally acvicinarum
Konigsberg,
gentium,
umque
cessible text is in SRL ii. 389-92.
Baltic feast of the dead which
7. With this we may compare the
6.
was held from about September 29 to October 28, whence October

was called Walla Manes ("Month of Wels," Wels being a god of
the dead), Semlicka Manes (Lettish semme likt, "to lay [sacrifices]
on the earth "), or Deewa Deenes ("God's Days "). In Lithuania
the festival was termed Ilgi (Lithuanian ilgas, "long"). Cf. Einhorn (t 1655), Historia Lettica, iv, v, xiii (ed. in SRL ii. 585, 587,
598), Reformatio gentis Letticae, vii
61
(ed.
ib.
p.
630); Guagnini,
f.
a.
8.
i.
83.
9.
i.
5.
10.
Cf. Leger, Mythologie, pp. 158-62.
11.
De
hello Gothico,
iii.
14.
and the passages collected

407-08.
13. See, however. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 291.
14. Cf. Leger, Mythologie, pp. 201-03.
15. See infra, pp. 311-12.
12. Cf. Leger, Mythologie, pp. 164-65,
by Krek,
De
16.
Einleitung, pp. 384, note
hello Gothico,
iii.
i,
14.
See the references collected by Krek, Einleitung, pp. 384,

note I, 407, note i, and cf. Leger, Mythologie, pp. 166-77.
18. Ibrahim ibn Vasifshah, UAbrege des merveilles, p. 115.
17.
19. Homiliar, p. 4.
Part
1.
De
hello Gothico,
iii.
II
14; for the
Antae
cf.
Krek, Einleitung,
pp. 292-96.
2.
i.
3.
e. g.
the
83.
in the Chronicle of
Byzantine
historian
Einleitung, p. 378, note
Hypatius (an Old Slavic paraphrase of

Hamartolos), cited by Krek,
Georgios
2.
4. See infra, pp. 297-98.

des Slaves," in Bulletins et
5. Cf. S. Zaborowski, "Les Origines
memoires de la societe d' anthropologic de Paris, V. v. 671-720 (1904);
abridged English translation in Smithsonian Report, 1906, pp. 399-
422.
6.
vi. 18.
NOTES
7.
Saxo Grammaticus, pp. 564
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
353
ff.
Saxo Grammaticus, p. 577; Knytlingasaga,

Saxo Grammaticus, p. 578; Knytlingasaga,
Saxo Grammaticus, p. 578.
Herbord, iii. 6; Ebbo, iii, 8.

14. Chronicle of Pulkawa,
in Pontes
cxxii.
cxxii.
rerum Bohemicarum,
v.
89,
Prague, 1893.
15.
iii.
i;
The
chief sources for Triglav are Herbord, ii. 31; Ebbo, ii. 13,
of Priefling, Vita Ottonis episcopi Babenhergensis, iii. i.
Monk
The name appears
in various forms, Rhetari, Redarii, Riaduri,

of their capital, Riedegost, etc.
as
does
that
Riediries, etc.,
16.
17. vi. 23.

18. Epistola
Brunonis ad Henricum regem, ed. A. Bielowski,
Monumenta Poloniae
historica,
i.
226,
Lwow,
in
1864.
18.
19.
ii.
20.
i.
21.
For the opposite view, that there actually was a deity Radi-
2, 21, 52.
gast, see Leger, Mythologie, pp. 144-51.

22.
of Bremen, iii. 50; Helmold,
Adam
23.
i.
i.
23.
52.
ASP
vi. 220-22 (1882).

24. Cited by A. Bruckner, in
25. Priapus was a Graeco-Roman deity of fertility who was represented in obscene form and worshipped licentiously; for Baal-peor
cf. Numbers xxv. 1-5, Hosea ix, 10, as well as Numbers xxxi. 16,
Revelation
26.
i.
ii.
14.
83.
27. cxxii. Leger, Mythologie, p. 22, regards

for *Carnoglovy ("Black-Headed").
Tiemoglav
as
an error
28. vi. 17.
29. ib. vii. 47.

30.
i.
52.
Part HI
1.
2.
3.
Nestor, xxxviii (tr. Leger, p. 64).

ib. xxvii (tr. Leger, p. 41).
ib. (tr. Leger, p. 37).
See the passages collected by Krek, Einleitung, p. 384, note
Nestor, xliii (tr. Leger, pp. 96-97, 98).
Ed. Petrograd, 1879, pp. 1-2.
Cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 153, 159-60.
Afanasiyev, i. 250.
.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
i.
MYTHOLOGY
SLAVIC
354
Saxo Grammaticus, p. 578; Helmold, i. 83.

For the oak as sacred to Perun see Leger, Mythologie,
pp. 73-75; cf. also the Lithuanian association of Perkunas and the
9.
10.
Cf.
i.
83.
oak, infra, p. 321. Guagnini, f. 83 a, states that a perpetual fire of

oak burned before Perun's idol in Novgorod, death being the penalty
of any priests who might carelessly allow the flame to be extinguished.
11. In the Oriental Churches many of the great figures of the Old
Testament rank as saints, quite unlike the rule in the West.
See supra, p. 293.

For the blending of Perun and St. Iliya see Leger, Mythologie,
pp. 66-73. The Biblical basis for the identification is sought in such
passages as I Kings xvii. i, xviii. 24 ff., xix. 11-12, II Kings i. 10-12,
12.
13.
ii.
II,
Luke
ix.
54,
James
v. 17-18.
p. 391, note 2, Leger, Mythologie, p. 121.

accordingly, plainly to be compared with the Samogitian god "Datanus [*Datanus, "Inclined to Give"; see T. von
Grienberger, in ASP xviii. 19-20 (1896)] donator est bonorum, seu
14.
The
Cf.
deity
Krek, Einleitung,
is,
largitor," of Lasicius, ed. Mannhardt, p. 11.

15. Nestor, xxxviii (tr. Leger, p. 64).
16. Cf. supra, pp. 286-87, on Svarazic and infra, p. 298,
17. See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916,
18. Chronicle of Hypatius, ed. V. Jagic, in
ASP
on Svarozic.
241-43.
i.
v.
(1881).
19. Tr. Boltz, pp. 17, 20.
20. Cf.
Krek, Einleitung, p. 393; Leger, Mythologie, pp. 5-6, I2i,

very sceptical as to the mythological value of this epic.
21. Cf. V. Jagic, in ASP v. 11-12 (1881).
22. See Krek, Einleitung, p. 395, note i.
23. Cf. the Elbe god Svarazic, supra, pp. 277, 286-87, and the
similar statement regarding Dazbog {supra, pp. 277, 297).
note
2, is
24. Cf. V. Jagi6, in
ASP
iv.
412-27 (1880).
25. See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 205-08.

26. See supra, pp. 277, 286-87.
27. If, as V. Jagic has suggested {ASP iv. 426 [1880]), the author
of the Chronicle connected the name Svarog with Russian svariti,
svarivati ("to weld, braze, forge"), the deity may be identical with
the celestial smith of Baltic folk-songs (see infra, p. 330). For older
explanations of the name see Krek, Einleitung, pp. 378-82.
29. Leger, Mythologie, p. 117.
30. See
i.
175-82.
31. Tr. Boltz, pp. 34-3532. In similar fashion
worshipped at the
Gammer
")
mouth
an
idol (in this instance
of the
carved of stone)
Obi was called Zolota Baba ("Golden
by the Russians (Guagnini,
ff.
85 b-%6 a).
NOTES
355
33. Nestor, xxi, xxxvi (tr. Leger, pp. 24, 59).

34. Cf. the passages collected by Krek, Einleitung, p. 384, note i.
35. Zitiye blazenago Volodimera, ed. Makarii, Istoriya russkoi
cerkvi,
i.,
3rd
257-61, Petrograd, 1889.

vodvorenii Christianstva v Rostove, ed. G. KushelefPamyatniki starinnoi russkoi literatury, i. 221-22,
ed.,
36. Povyest
Bezborodko,
Petrograd, i860.
37. Tr. Boltz, p. 8.
38. Cf. the passages quoted by Krek, Einleitung,
Mythologie, p. 114.
39. Cf. J. Bolland, in j4cta Sanctorum, Feb.
Annus
ecclesiasticus
I,
p. 454,
and Leger,
pp. 357-58; J.
Mar-
61;
Leger, Mythologie, pp. 1 12-16; Krek, Einleitung, pp. 468-69, where
the theory maintained by the present writer is disputed.
tinov,
Grceco-Slavicus,
Brussels,
40. Cf. Leger, Mythologie, p. 116.

1863,
p.
42. Tr. Boltz, p. 13.

43.
i.
II.
ASP
44. See A. Bruckner, in

by Guagnini, f. 9 b, identifies
xiv.
170
ff.
(1892). Dtugosz, followed
Yesza with Jupiter, Lyada with Mars,

with
Venus, Nyja with Pluto, Dzewana with Diana,
Dzydzilelya
and Marzyana with Ceres; he also knows of an air-god, Podoga, and
a deity of
life,
Zywie.
Part IV
1. Helmold, i. 23,
Grammaticus, pp. 565
i.
52, 83,
ff.;
ii.
12;
Procopius,
Adam
De
of
Bremen,
hello Gothico,
4, iii. i; Nestor, xxxviii, xxxix, xliii (tr.

2. Helmold, i. 6, 52, 69, ii. 12.
iii.
iii.
14;
50;
Saxo
Cosmas,
Leger, pp. 64, 67-68, 98).
Thietmar, vi. 17; Helmold, i. 83, ii. 12; Adam of Bremen, ii.
Herbord, ii. 31; Ebbo, ii. 13, iii. i; al-Mas'iidi, Les Prairies
(Tor, iv. 58-60; Saxo Grammaticus, p. 577; Knytlingasaga, cxxii;
3.
18;
Zitiye blazenago Volodimera, ed. Makarii, Istoriya russkoi cerkvi, i.,

vodvorenii Christianstva v
3rd ed., 259, Petrograd, 1889; Povy'est
Rostove, ed. G.
literatury,
i.
Kushelef-Bezborodko, Pamyatniki starinnoi russkoi

221-22, Petrograd, i860; Leger, Mythologie, pp. 34,
98-104.
Thietmar, vi. 17-18; Helmold, i. 52, 83, ii. 12; Adam of Bre18; Herbord, ii. 32, iii. 6; Saxo Grammaticus, pp. 564 ff.;
al-Mas'udI, Les Prairies d'or, iv. 58-60.
5. Helmold, i. 83; Herbord, ii. 31; Constantinus Porphyrogenitus,
De administrando imperio, ix; Cosmas, i. 4, iii. i; Homiliar, pp. 4, 79.
4.
men,
6.
ii.
Thietmar,
vi. 26.
SLAVIC
356
7.
8.
Helmold, i.
Cosmas, iii.
MYTHOLOGY
83.
i.
Nestor, xxvi, xxxviii, xxxlx,

96-97); cf. also the Russian saying,
9.
lived in the forest
xliii
(tr.
Leger, pp. 41, 64, 66,
zili v fese,
and prayed to stumps").
molilis
pnyam ("they
The Lithuanians are
frequently charged with worshipping stocks of trees as well as idols

(see the material collected by Buga, i. 3-9).
10.
11.
Cosmas, i. 4; Homiliar, p. 4.
Thietmar, i. 3; Procopius, De
hello Gothico,
iii.
14; Homiliar,
PP- 4, 57, 7912. See supra, pp. 235-36, 281-82.

13. Saxo Grammaticus, pp. 565 ff.
The Baltic peoples likewise celebrated a feast
14. Ebbo, iii. 3.
"
in honour of "Pergrubrius
(probably *devas pergubrios, "god of
return or renewal "; cf. T. von Grienberger, in ^SP xviii. 72-75
about St. George's Day (April 23) (Menecius, in SRL ii. 389Herbord, iii. 6, and Ebbo, iii. 8, regard Gerovit as a war-god.
15. Ebbo, iii. i.
16. Cosmas, iii. i.
"
is kal'edos.
17. The regular Lithuanian word for "Christmas
[1896])
90).
18.
Cf. supra, p. 282.

See A. Bruckner, in ASP xiv. 175-78 (1892), and cf. Guagnini, f. 10 a.
21. Cf. Krek, Einleitung, pp. 432-33; Leger, Mythologie, pp. 42,
205-06.
22. See supra, pp. 311-12,
23. Cf. Krek, Einleitung, pp. 403, 415; Leger, Mythologie, p. 158.
19.
20.
Part
1.
Germania, xlv.
2.
De
origine actibusque Getarum, v.
in. V. 21-22.
4. For the Sarmatians see E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks,
Cambridge, 191 3, passim. They are doubtless the Sairima of the
Avesta (Yasht, xiii. 143-44; cf- C. Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wbrterbuch, Strassburg, 1904, col. 1566), where they are mentioned together
with the Aryans, Turanians (i. e. nomadic Iranians), Saini (Chinese[?];
cf. J. J. Modi, Asiatic Papers, Bombay, 1905, pp. 241-54), Dahi
(the AdaL, or Dahae, of the Classics, dwelling along the south-east
shore of the Caspian), and "all lands." For the Yatvyags see A.
Sjogren, "Ueber die Wohnsitze und die Verhaltnisse der Jatwagen,"
3.
NOTES
357
Memoires de Vacademie imperiale des sciences de St.-Petersbourg,

Sciences politiques, VI. ix. 161-356 (1859).
5. It is well known that Lithuanian is, of all European languages,
in
the one most similar to the Indo-Iranian group.

6. For the etymology of the Lithuanian word daind, probably
cognate with Vedic Sanskrit dhend, see S. G. Oliphant, in Journal of
the
American Oriental
7.
The
writer
is
De
9.
ZE
393-413 (1912).
collecting the material
view to discussing it,

in a separate volume.
8.
Society, xxxii.
in its presentational
Lithua7iia, ed. T. Hirsch, In

vii.
SRP
on Baltic religion with a

and comparative aspects,
iv.
238.
292-95 (1875).
10. Cf. also the folk-tale recorded by J. Wentzig, Westslavischer

Mdrchenschatz, Leipzig, 1857, pp. 20-26, summarized by the present
writer in Encyclopedia of Religion

11.
Lasicius, ed.
[1875])
and
prefers to translate
Tete
Ethics,
iii.
138.
Mannhardt {ZE vii. 86

p.
"aunt" (cf. modern Lithuanian
W. Mannhardt,
11.
"aunt") rather than "mother." In his reproduction of the

myth T. Hiarn {Ehst-, Lyf- und Lettldndische Geschichte, ed. O. E.
Napiersky, in Monumenta Livoniae antiquae, i. 33, Riga, 1835) calls
her the wife of Perkunas. In a Lettish folk-song (UUmann, no. 152,
Mannhardt, no. 6) the Virgin Mary is substituted for Perkune Tete.
Mannhardt, pp. 289, 317, identifies her with the planet Venus, or
with the morning and the evening star.
12. For convenient summaries of Lithuanian and Lettish literature see the relevant sections by A. Bezzenberger and E. Wolter in
tela,
Kultur der Gegenwart, I. ix. 354-78, Leipzig, 1908. The last person
speaking Prussian died in 1677. For the scanty remnants of the
Prussian language see R. Trautmann, Die altpreussischen Sprachdenkmdler, Gottingen, 1910.
13.
The
chief collections of value in the present connexion are
L. J. Rhesa, Dainos oder litauische Volkslieder gesammelt, iibersetzt,

etc. (Konigsberg, 1825; 2nd ed. by F. Kurschat, Berlin, 1843); G. H.
F. Nesselmann, Litauische Volkslieder gesammelt, kritisch bearbeitet
und metrisch iibersetzt (Berlin, 1853); A, Schleicher, Litauisches Lese-
buch (Prague, 1857; translated in his Litauische. Mdrchen, SprichA. Juskevic, Lietuviskos
zoorte, Rdtsel und Lieder, Weimar, 1857);
Dainos (3 vols., Kazan, 1880-82); V. Kalvaitis, Prusijos Lietuviu
Dainos (Tilsit, 1905); K. Ullmann, Lettische Volkslieder (Riga, 1874);
K. Baron and H. Wissendorfi", Latwju Dainas

1910).
14.
"Die
lettischen
Sonnenmythen,"
in
(7 vols.,
ZE
261-330. References in these Notes simply to

to this study.
vii.
Mitau, 1894-
73-104, 209-44,
"Mannhardt"
refer
SLAVIC
358
15.
16.
Mannhardt,
17.
Nesselmann, no.
MYTHOLOGY
p. 87.
Stender, pp. 233, 262, 266.

2;
Rhesa, no. 27; Schleicher, no.
i;
Mann-
Mannhardt, no. 73).

18. Cf. such Lithuanian words as perkunyja, "thunder-storm,"
perkunuti, "to thunder," perkuno musimas, "thunderclap" ("Perkunas's stroke "), and Lettish terms like pehrkona lohde, "thunderhardt, no. 76
bolt
"
(cf.
also
("Pehrkon's
pehrkona
ball"),
The ordinary Prussian word
spehreens,
"
"thunderclap."
"thunder is given as percunis (for

R. Trautmann, Die altpreussischen Sprachdenkfor
the etymology see

mdler, Gottingen, 1910, pp. 395-96).
19. Mannhardt, p. 317, suggests that "in the very primal spring"
may refer to the first springtime of the world.
20.
Mannhardt,
p. 298.
21. Andrejanoff, pp. 63-64.

22. Only the earliest stars are really the offspring of this union;
the later stars are born from the wedlock of the elder ones (Stender,
p. 270).
23. Nesselmann, no. 4; Rhesa, no. 62; Schleicher, no. 4; Mannhardt, no. 78. Cf. also Mannhardt, nos. 72-75, 79, and for the Lettish version see Ullmann, pp. 145, 186, 195-96.
24. For the oak as sacred to Perkunas see the Jesuit report of
and
for the sanctity of the tree see the re-
1618 (Rostowski,
p. 251);
ports of 1583
Ill), 1606 (ed. K. Lohmeyer, in MlilG iii. 390,

1 61 8 (ed. in Mittheilungen aus dem Gebiete der Ge-
(ib. p.
394 [1893]), and

schichte Liv-, Ehst- und Kurland's, iv. 494-501 [1874]); cf. also
III. x. 159 (1865).
official report of 1657, ed. in
an
NPPBl
Mannhardt, pp. 222-25.

Alannhardt, no. 72. For nine as a sacred number in IndoEuropean see A. Kaegi, "Die Neunzahl bei den Ostariern," in
25.
26.
Philologische Abhandlungen Heinrich Schweizer-Sidler

Zurich, 1 89 1, pp. 50-70.
27.
28.
Von
Schroeder,
Mannhardt,
i.
gewidmet,
532.
p. 318.
29. ib. p. 232.
See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1917, vi. 32-35, and E.

Hopkins, "Indra as the God of Fertility," in Journal of the Ameri-
30.
W.
can Oriental Society, xxxvi. 242-68 (19 17).

31. J. Bassanovic and A. Kurschat, in MlilG ii. 342 (1887); Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1917, vi. 33, 35, 264-66, 323, 350.
32.
Mannhardt,
33.
34.
Mannhardt, pp.
p. 308.
i.
157.
91, 306-09, 316-19, nos. 13-15, 39-40, 44.
35. ib. nos. 22, 24, 42, 26, 28, 32,
and pp.
97, 100, 103.
NOTES
359
Mannhardt, no. 44, and p. 97.

Ullmann, p. 146.
38. ib. p. 147; cf. Mannhardt, nos. 42-43, Kohl, ii. 29. In Mann"
door while
hardt, no. 44, the moon's grey horses stand at "God's
36.
37.
the sun's daughter is being wooed, although "folk say the moon has
"
no horses of his own; they are the morning and the evening star
(ib.
no. 46).
39.
40.
Ullmann, p. 147;
Mannhardt, nos.
41. ib. no. 32.

42. ib. nos. 28-31,
cf.
also
Mannhardt, no.
and p. 287.
59.
ii, 12, 16,
and pp. 103-04.
43. ib. nos. 71 ^'-73, 75, and p. 298.

44. ib. nos. 70, 71 a, and p. 287.
45. ib. no. 62, and p. 97.
46. Nesselmann, no. i; Rhesa, no. 78; Schleicher, no. 2; Mannhardt, no. 4 (cf. also Mannhardt, no. 76). When, however, the sun
cares for the orphans behind the mountains, these would seem to be
the stars, regarded as the children of Sun and Moon (Mannhardt,
nos. 3-7,
47.
and pp. 303-04;
cf. supra, p. 320).

of Siecke, pp. 21-49, to lunarize these Baltic
are unworthy of serious consideration.
The attempts
sun-myths
48. Mannhardt, no.
17.
49. ib. nos. 47-48.

50. Stender, pp. 233, 265-66.
51. See supra, pp. 322-23.
The
sun's daughter is often called "God's daughter" {D'evo

This depends on the point of view, according as the twilights are associated with the sun or with the sky.
52.
duktel'e).
53. Mannhardt, p. 295.

54. ib. nos. 50, 74.
309-14; Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916-17,

30-32,
24-27, 246-47. For the concept of twin gods see J. Rendel Harris, The Cult of the Heavenly Twins, Cambridge, 1906, and
Boanerges, Cambridge, 191 3.
56. Nesselmann, no. 7; Rhesa, no. 84; Schleicher, no. 10; Mannhardt, no. 84. In a Lettish version (Mannhardt, no. 83) the maiden
is told that her parents are in Germany (i. e. the west), drinking to
the marriage of the (other .^) sun-daughter (i. e. evening twilight).
In reality this daind bears only a superficial likeness to the "Jack
"
and the Beanstalk cycle, for which see the admirable discussion by
J. A. MacCuUoch, Childhood of Fiction, London, 1905, ch. xvi.
55. ib. pp. 306,
vi.
i.
Mannhardt, p. 230,
58. ib. nos. 58, 80, and pp. 97, 234.
57.
59. See supra, pp. 321, 323, 325.

1 1 1
24
SLAVIC
36o
MYTHOLOGY
Mannhardt, no. 56, and p. 308.

61. ib. nos. 52-54, 56, 29.
"
are themselves the
62. ib. nos. 42, 63. Occasionally "God's sons
60.
moon's horses
(ib. no. 46).

63. ib. nos. 50, 67, 15.
64. ib. nos. 70, 36, 59, 60, 80, and pp. 299-300.
65. Nesselmann, no. 5; Rhesa, no. 48; Schleicher, no. 12;
hardt, no. 80.

67. Mannhardt, nos. 51
(cf. also nos. 16, 72, 75, 78, 79,

219)) 57> 81-82, 65-66, 68-69, îid pp. 299, 302.
69. Mannhardt, no. 64, and p. 302.
70. ib. nos. 34-35, 39-40, and p. loi.
71. ib. nos. 33-34,

72. ib. nos. 35, 15.
73. ib. no. 55.
74. ib. no. 57,
and
and
Mann-
and
p.
p. 308.
p. 102.
and Mannhardt, nos. 79, 82, and pp. 30203 (cf. ib. no. 74, where an orphan maid, with none to give her in
marriage, calls the sun her mother, the moon her father, the star her
sister, and the Pleiades [literally "sieve-star," setas] her brother; cf.
75. See supra, p. 323,
also ib. no. 81).

76. See supra, p. 323
and Note
11.

78. Cf. supra, pp. 321, 327.
79. Cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1917, vi. i, 25, 36-37, 43,
48, 263, 267. A similar idea occurs elsewhere, as in Egyptian mythology; cf. ib. xii. 25, 34, 113, 194.
80. Mannhardt, pp. 98-99. He also compares the Lettish riddles
"A brother and a sister go daily through the sea " (sun and moon)
and "A casket at the bottom of a spring " (the moon).
81. ib. p. 324, and no. 86. In similar fashion a child implores the
setting sun to give his mother a hundred greetings (ib. no. 90).
82. ib. no. 84; Stender, pp. 233, 269.
83.
Mannhardt,
84.
ib.
no. 89,
and
p. 324.
85. This report is edited by K. Lohmeyer, In MlilG iii. 389-95

(1893); for the text and translation of the ddinos see Wissendorff de
Wissukuok, in RTP vii. 265

(1892).
86. Mannhardt, nos. 36-38.
fif.
87. ib. pp. 319-24.

88. See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 191 7, vi. 50, 93.
connexion we
may
recall
the conclusions reached by
In this
Mannhardt
NOTES
361
whole the Lettish [i.e. Baltic] sun-myth agrees so

(p. 329): "On the
exactly with the ancient Aryan [i.e. Indian] in the Veda and with the
ancient Greek that one would scarcely meet with contradiction if he
ventured to suggest that here he had before him a fairly accurately
preserved copy of pro-ethnic, Indo-European solar mythology."
89. See supra, p. 298,
90.
The meaning
Note 27.
unknown. For the passage see
635-42 (1886) and Litovskii katichizis N.
and Part
of the
name
III,
is
E. Wolter, in ASP ix.

Dauksi, Petrograd, 1886, pp. 176-77. The name is also found in the
form Telyavel in the Galicio-Volhynian Chronicle referring to Mendowg's baptism in 1252, this portion of the text being written before
The divine smith also
1292 (ed. A. Bruckner, in ASP ix. 3 [1886]).
recurs in the Irish Goibniu {supra, p. 31; cf. the divine cerd, or
The Ossetes of the Caucasus
brazier, Creidne, ib. pp. 28, 31-32).
likewise have a
celestial
smith, Kurdalagon (H. Hiibschmann, in
xli. 535 [1887];

Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenldndischen Gesellschaft,
for myths concerning him see ib. pp. S41-42, 545 547) or Safa
(E. Delmar Morgan, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, xx.
383 [i888]).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CELTIC
AR
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
366
YBL
YCym
ZCP
ZDA
Yellow Book of Lecan.
Y
.
ZFS
(See Section
Zeitschrift
fiir
celtische Philologie.
Zeitschrift
fiir
deutsches Altertum.
Zeitschrift
fiir
vergleichende Sprachforschung.
COLLECTIONS
D'Arbois de Jubainville, H., (and Loth,
1884.
iii-iv.
V.
vi.
vii-viii.
J.),
Cours de litteratun
12 vols.
Paris, 1883-1902.
Introduction a I' etude de la litter ature celtique.
1883.
Le Cycle mythologique irlandais et la mythologie celtique,
celtique.
i.
{a).)
Cymmrodor.
IL
ii.
(English translation by R.
1.
Best.
Dublin, 1903.)
Le Mahinogion. Tr. J. Loth. 1889. (See Section VI.)

L' Epopee celtique en Irlande.
1892.
La Civilisation des Celtes et celle de V epopee homerique. 1899.
Etudes sur
le
La Metrique
droit celtique.
1895.
Loth.
1900-02.
de
auteurs
Vantiquite a consulter sur Vhistoire des
Principaux
Celtes.
1902.
Daremberg, v., and Saglio, E., Dictionnaire des antiquites grecques
ix-xi.
By
galloise.
J.
xii.
et
romaines.
Paris, 1877
ff.
London, 191 1.
DiNAN, W., Monumenta historica Celtica,
Holder, A., Altceltischer Sprachschatz. Leipzig, 1896 ff.
i.
Pauly, a.
F. von, Realencyclopddie der classischen Altertumswissen-
schaft.
III.
New
ed.
by G. Wissowa.
CLASSICAL
Stuttgart, 1904
if.
AND EARLY CHRISTIAN
AUTHORITIES
Some
of these contain merely brief references to Celtic religion or

The more important are marked.*
custom.
Aelian, De natura animalium.
Ammianus Marcellinus.
Apollonius, Argonautica.
Appian, Romanorum historiarum fragmenta.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea.
Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai.
Augustine, De civitate Dei.
AusoNius, Professores.
AviENUS.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
*Caesar, De
Cicero, De
367
hello Gallico.
divinatione.
Claudian, Carmina.
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata.
Dio Chrysostom, Orationes.

*DioDORUs SicuLus, BibHotheca historica.
Diogenes Laertius, De vitis philosophorum.
HiPPOLYTUS, Philosophumena.
Isidore, Orationes.
Justin, Epitome historiae Philippicae.

LiVY, Historia.
*Lucan, Pharsalia.
LuciAN, Herakles.
Pausanias, Descriptio Graeciae.

*Pliny, Historia naturalis.
*Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum; De facie lunae.
*PoMPONius Mela, De
Procopius, De
situ orbis.
bello Gothico.
Propertius, Carmina.
Pseudo-Plutarch, De
fluviis.
SoLiNUS, Collectanea rerum memorabilium.
Stobaeus, Eclogae physicae
et ethicae.
Strabo, Geographia.
Suetonius, Claudius.
Tacitus, Annales ; Historiae.
Valerius Maximus.
Most
of the Classical passages relating to the Celts are collected

See also Monumenta
xii, and by W. Dinan.
by dArbois, Cours,
historica Brittanica, ed.
IV.
Adamnan,
H.
Petrie,
i.
London, 1848.
MEDIAEVAL REFERENCES
Fita Sancti Columbae.
Aelred, Vita Sancti Niniani.
Geoffrey of Monmouth,
Historia Britonum; Vita Merlini; Pro-
phetia Merlini.
Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia.

Gildas, De excidio Britanniae.
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
368
GiRALDUs Cambrensis, Opera.

JocELYN, Vita Sancti Kentigerni.
Nennius, Historia Britonum.
(The Irish version
Dublin, 1848. See also Section

tion VIII, ZiMMER, [b].)
Patrick, Saint,
[b]
Ed.
Tripartite Life.
[sl]
Ed.
Writings.
W.
ed.
by
RIA:TLS
{b),
W.
Stokes.
J.
vi,
H. Todd,
and Sec-
London, 1887.
London,
Stokes and C. H. H. Wright.
1887.
V.
AND TRANSLATIONS
IRISH TEXTS
{a)
Collections
Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland.
6 vols.
Dublin,
Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters.

DubHn, 1848-51.
7 vols.
J. O'Donovan.
Annals of Tighernach.
xvii.
Ed. and
116-263,
6-33,
W.
tr.
Stokes, in RCel xvi. 374-419,
xviii.
337-420,
865-1 901.
Ed. and tr.
1
9-59,
150-303,
374-91
(1895-97)-
Book
Ed., with introd., etc.,
of Ballymote.
by R. Atkinson.
Dublin,
1887.
The work
Book of Fermoy.
as a whole exists only in manuscript.

H. Todd, Descriptive Catalogue of the Book
Portions are
tr.
of Fermoy.
Dublin, 1873.
by
J.
{RIA:IMS
Leabhar Laignech ("Book of Leinster").

R. Atkinson. Dublin, 1880.
Leabhar na hUidhre ("Book of the
Dublin, 1870.
Yellow Book of Lecan.
Dublin, 1896.
\.
i.)
Ed., with introd.,
Dun Cow").
Ed., with introd., etc.,
Ed.
by
T. Gilbert.
by R. Atkinson.
Single Texts (Irish
and
Scots Gaelic)
Aislinge Meic Conglinne ("Vision of

K. Meyer. London, 1892.
Mac
Conglinne").
(b)
J.
etc.,
Ed. and
tr.
Acallamh na Senorach ("Colloquy with the Ancients"). Ed. and

2 vols. London, 1892.
tr. S. H. O'Grady, Silva Gadelica.
Cath Finntrdga ("Battle of Ventry"). Ed. and tr. K. Meyer. Oxford, 1885.
Cormac^s Glossary.
Ed. and
tr. J.
O'Donovan and W.
cutta, 1868.
Courtship of Ferb.
Tr. A. H. Leahy.
London, 1902.
Stokes.
Cal-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature.
369
Tr. E. Hull.
London, 1898.
Selection of Ancient Gaelic Poetry. From

of Lismore^s Book.
a Manuscript Collection made by Sir James McGregor, Dean of
Dean
Lismore, in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century.

T. McLauchlan. Edinburgh, 1862.
Dindsenchas
[a]
(Bodleian).
Ed. and
tr.
W.
Stokes, in
Ed. and
FL
iii.
tr.
467-
516 (1892).
(Edinburgh).
[b]
Ed. and
tr.
W.
Stokes, in
FL
iv.
471-97
(1893).
(Rennes, supplemented by YBL and LL). Ed. and tr. W.

Stokes, in RCel xv. 272-336, 418-84, xvi. 31-83, 135-67, 269[c]
312 (1894-95).
Dragon Myth, The
(Cf. also infra,

Celtic.
By
J.
RIA.TLS
vii-x.)
F. Campbell.
Edinburgh, 191
1.
(Contains also The Geste of Fraoch and the Dragon [Tain Bo

Frdich], tr. G. Henderson.)
Ed. and tr. A. H. Leahy. 2 vols.
Heroic Romances of Ireland.
London, 1905-06. (i. "Courtship of Etain," "Mac Datho's
Boar," "Sick-Bed of Cuchulainn," "Exile of the Sons of Usnach," "The Combat at the Ford"; ii. "Tain Bo Fraich," "The
Raid for Dartaid's Cattle," "The Raid for the Cattle of Regamon," "The Driving of the Cattle of FHdais.")
Ed. E. Windisch and
Irische Texte.
1
W.
Stokes.
Irish Text Society, Publications. London, 1899 ff.

The Lad of the Ferule. Ed. and tr. D. Hyde.
i.
ii.
Fled Bricrend.
son.
iii.
iv.
vols.
Leipzig,
880-1 909.
The Feast of Bricriu.
Ed. and
1899.
tr.
G. Hender-
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G. Keating, History of Ireland. Ed. and tr. D. Comyn and

P. Dinneen.
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Book of the Lays of Finn. Ed. and tr. J. MacNeill. i. 1908.
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Leabhar na Feinne.
Ed. J. F. Campbell, i. London,
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X.
Mag
of.
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tr.
W.
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447-95*
50-95, 265 (1888-89).
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tr. W. Stokes, in RCel xii. 52-130, 306-08 (1891).
ed. and tr. J. Fraser, in
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and
Eriu,
viii.
1-63 (191 5).
ff.
Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series. Dublin, 1889
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Mesca Ulad: or. The Intoxication of the Ultonians. Ed. and
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CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
370
iv.
vi.
vii.
Cath Ruis na Rig for Boinn. Ed. and tr. F. Hogan.

1892.
The Irish Nennius from Leahhar ne Huidre. Ed. and tr. E.
Hogan. 1895. (Cf. also Section IV.)

Poems from the Dijidshenchas Ed. and tr. E. Gwynn.
The Metrical Dindshenchas. Ed. and tr. E, Gwynn.
1900.
viii-x.
1903-13.
xiii.
xiv.
xvi.
3 vols.
(Cf. also Dindsenchas.)
The Triads of Ireland. Ed. and tr. K. Meyer. 1906.

The Death Tales of the Ulster Heroes. Ed. K. Meyer. 1906.
Fianaigecht, Being a Collection of Hitherto Inedited Irish Poems
and Tales Relating to Finn and his Fiana. Ed. and tr. K.
Meyer.
1910.
Sagen aus dem alten Irland. By R. Thurneysen. Berlin, 1901.

Sick-Bed of Cuchulainn. Ed. and tr. E. O'Curry, in Atlantis^ i. 36292,
ii.
98-124 (1858-59).
Silva Gadelica.
O'Grady.
Collection of Tales in Irish.
2 vols.
London, 1892.
(i.
Text;
Ed. and
ii.
tr.
S.
H.
Translation and
Notes.)
Tain Bo Cualnge.
dem Buch
[b]
[a]
Die
Heldensage Tain Bo Cualnge nach

Ed. and tr. E. Windisch. Leipzig, 1905.
altirische
voji Leinster.
Tain Bo Cualnge.
vaches de Cooley.
Enlevement (du taureau divin et) des

Tr. H. d'Arbois de Jubainville. Paris, 191 1.
(Reprinted from RCel xxviii. 17-40, 145-77, 241-61, xxix. 153201, xxx. 78-88, 156-85, 235-51, xxxi. 5-22, 273-86, xxxii. 3042, 377-90.)
An Old
[c] The Cattle Raid of Cualnge {Tain Bo Cuailnge).
Irish Prose-Epic, Translated for the First Time from Leahhar na
hUidhri and the Yellow Book of Lecan. By L. Winifred Faraday.
London, 1904.
Ed. W. Stokes.
Three Irish Glossaries.
Three Most Sorrowful Tales of Erin.
London, 1862.
Ed. and
tr.
E. O'Curry, in
113-240 (1862-63). ("The Exile of

377-422,
the Children of Uisnech," "The Fate of the Children of Lir,"
"The Fate of the Children of Tuireann.")
Atlantis,
iii.
iv.
Tochmarc Emire ("Wooing of Emer"). Tr. K. Meyer, in AR i.

68-75, 150-55, 231-35, 298-307 (1888).
Togail Bruidne Da Derga ("Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel").
Ed. and tr. W. Stokes. Paris, 1902.
(Reprinted from RCel
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Transactions of the Ossianic Society. 6 vols. Dublin, 1853-61.
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The Battle of Gabhra. Ed. and tr. N. O'Kearney. 1853.
ii.
Festivities at the
1855.
House
of Conan.
Ed. and
tr.
N. O'Kearney.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
iii.
371
Ed. and
after Diarmuid O^Duibhne and Grainne.
H. O'Grady. 1857.
Laoithe Fiannuigheachta; or, Fenian Poems.
Ed. and tr. J.
The Pursuit
tr. S.
iv, vi.
2 vols.
O'Daly.
1859-61.
na Tromdhaimhe ; or, The Proceedings of the Great

Bardic Institution. Ed. and tr. O. Connellan.
i860.
V. Imtheacht
Voyage of Bran. Ed. and tr. K. Meyer, with essays by A. Nutt.

2 vols.
London, 1895-97.
Youthful Exploits of Fionn. Ed. and tr. D. Comyn. Dublin, 1881.
Numerous other texts and translations are contained in Eriu
and RCel. For collections of folk-tales see Section VIII.
WELSH TEXTS
VI.
Aneirin, Book
[a]
of.
Facsimile ed. by
J.
G. Evans.
Pwllheli, 1908.
ipWT)
Gododin. Ed. T. Powel, tr. T. Stephens. London, 1888.
Ed. from the Red Book of Hergest by Sir J. Rhys and J. G.
Evans. Oxford, 1890.
{OWT)
Cf. also Mabinogion, [e]; Myrvyrian Archaiology ; and Section VII, Layamon; Wage.
[a] Facsimile ed. by J. G. Evans.
Caermarthen, Black Book of.
[b]
Bruts.
{OWT)
Pwllheli, 1888.
[b]
Diplomatic text, with notes and introd. by

Ed. and
lolo Manuscripts.
Llan Ddu, Book
J.
G. Evans.
(OWT)
Oxford, 1906.
of.
tr.
T. Williams.
Facsimile ed. by
J.
Llandovery, 1848.
G. Evans and Sir J. Rhys.
Oxford, 1893.
{OWT)
Mabinogion. [a] The Mabinogion from the Llyfr Coch
Hergest and
Other Ancient Welsh Manuscripts. Ed. and tr. Lady Charlotte
Guest. 3 vols. London, 1849. 2nd ed., without Welsh text.
I vol.
London, 1877. Another ed., with notes by A. Nutt.
London, 1902.
[b]
Les Mabinogion.
(= dArbois,
Cours,
Ed. and tr. J. Loth. 2

See Section II.)
vols.
Paris, 1889.
iii-iv.
[c] Les Mabinogion du Livre Rouge de Hergest, avec les varianies

du Livre Blanc de Rhydderch. Tr. J. Loth. 2 vols. Paris, 191 3.
(This forms an entirely new edition of the previous work.)
The White Book Mabinogion: Welsh Tales and Romances,

Reproduced from the Peniarth Manuscripts. Ed. J. G. Evans.
[d]
Pwllheli, 1907.
{OWT)
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
372
Mabinogion.
the
from
Mabinogion and Other Welsh Tales

Ed. Sir J. Rhys and J. G. Evans.
(Contains also the Bruts and Triads.)
The Text of
[e]
Red Book
Oxford, 1887.
the
of Hergest.
{OWT)
of Wales, Collated out of Ancient Manuscripts.

E.
O.
Williams, and W. O. Pughe. London, 1801.
By
Jones,
2nd ed. Denbigh, 1870. (Contains the Bruts and Triads.)
Myvyrian Archaiology
Skene, W. F., The Four Ancient Books of Wales (with English ver2 vols.
sions by D. S. Evans and R, Williams).
Edinburgh,
1868.
Llyvr Taliesin: Poems from the Book of Taliesin. Facwith text, introd., notes, and translation, by J. G. Evans.
Tremvan, Llandeborg, North Wales, 1914. (OWT)
A Translation of the Re[b] Taliesin, or Bards and Druids.
mains of the Earliest Welsh Bards, and an Examination of the
Bardic Mysteries. By D. W. Nash. London, 1858.
Taliesin.
[a]
simile,
[c]
Text and
VIL
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TEXTS OF THE ARTHURIAN CYCLE
Albrecht von Scharffenberg, Der

Hahn.
Arthur,
[a]
Ed. K. A.
jungere Titurel.
Quedlinburg and Leipzig, 1842.
The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances. Ed.
from manuscripts in the British Museum by H. O. Sommer.

Lestoire del Saint Graal;
(i.
3 vols.
Washington, 1908-11.
ii. Lestoire de Merlin; iii. Le Livre de Lancelot del Lac.)
Ed. G. L. Kittredge, in Studies and
[b] Arthur and Gorlagon.
Notes in Philology and Literature, viii. 150-275 (1903). Also ed,
F. A. Milne, with notes by A. Nutt, in FL xv. 40-67 (1904).
Ed. from the Auchinlech Manu[c] Arthour und Merlin.
E.
script by
Kolbing. Leipzig, 1890.
[d] Le Morte d' Arthur.
By Sir T. Malory. Original
Caxton reprint, with introd. by H. O. Sommer. 3 vols.
ed. of
Lon-
don, 1889-91.
Ed. from Harleian Manuscript 2252 in

F. J. Furnivall.
London, 1864. New
ed. by J. D. Bruce. London, 1903. [EETS].
See also Lancelot; Ulrich von Zatzighoven.
[e]
Le Morte Arthur.
the British
Museum by
See Section VI; also Layamon; Wage.

Chretien de Troyes. [a] Sdmtliche erhaltene Werke.
Bruts.
4 vols.
iv.
Der
leben.)
Ed. W. Forster.
Halle, 1884-99. (i- Cliges; ii. Yvain; iii. Eric und Enide;
Karrenritter {Chevalier de la Charette), Das Wilhelms-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chretien de Troyes.
[b]
Le Conte
373
del Graal.
In C. Potvin, Per-
6 vols. Mons, 1866-71.

ceval le Gallois, ou le Conte del Graal.
and Manessier.)
Gautier
also
[Wauchier],
Gerbert,
(Contains
See also Section VIII,
Dream of Rhonabzvy.
EiLHART VON Oberge,
Weston,
[f].
See Section VI, Mabinogion.

Tristati.
Ed. F. Lichtenstein.
Strassburg,
1877.
Gautier de Doulens [or Wauchier de Denain].

DE Troyes, [b], and Section VIII, Weston, [f].
Gawain.
Ed.
See Chretien
Syr Gawayne, a Collection of Ancient Romance Poems.

Madden. London, 1839.
Ed. R. Morris.
Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knight.
[a]
Sir F.
[b]
{EETS)
Syr Gawayne and
London, 1864.
[c]
By
Prose.
Sir
[d]
the
J. L. Weston.
Gawain
Grene Knight, Retold in Modern
London, 1898.
at the Grail Castle.
Tr. J. L. Weston.
London,
1903.
See also Grail.
Geoffrey of Monmouth. See Section IV.

Geraint ap Erbyn. See Section VI, Mabinogion.
Gerbert. See Chretien de Troyes, [b].
Gottfried von Strassburg. [a] Tristan. Ed. R. Bechstein.
Leip-
zig, 1877.
Tristan
[b]
Weston.
Grail,
[a]
La
and
2 vols.
Iseult (prose tr. of the foregoing).
Tr. J. L.
London, 1899.
Queste del Saint Grael.
Ed. F.
J.
Furnivall.
London,
1864.
[b]
Saint Greal.
Ed. and
tr.
R. Williams.
London,
1876.
Le Saint-Graal, ou li Joseph d'Arimathee. Ed. E. Hucher,

Le Mans, 1875-78.
See also Arthur, [a]; Chretien de Troyes; Gawain, [d]; Perceval; Robert de Borron.
Guingamor and Other Lays. Tr. J. L. Weston. London, 1910.
[c]
3 vols.
Hartmann von Aue,
ed.
F.
Bech.
vols.
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Baltische Monatschrift.
CCM
fiir
FRB
MGH.SRG
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Casopis ceskeho Museum.

Pontes rerum Bohemicarum.
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Germanicarum)
MlilG
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Mitteilungen der litauischen
litterarischen Gesell-
schaft.
NPPBl
Neue
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Preussische Provinzial-Blatter.
Revue des traditions populaires.
PPBl
RTP
SRL
SRP
Scriptores rerum Livonicarum.
rerum Prussicarum.
Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissen-
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SWAW
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ZE
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ix.
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529-30.
(Lettish, Lithuanian,
240-42.
"Old Prussians,"
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486-90.
and Old Prussian),"
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^Vn.

Volume I. Greek and Roman

MacCulloch, D.D., Bridge of Allan, Scotland.

Ph.D., University of Finland, Helsingfors.

R. Campbell Thompson, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.G.S., Oxford.

A. Berriedale Keith, D.C.L., Edinburgh University.

Volume VII. Armenian, African

Alice Werner, L.L.A.

Andrews); School of Oriental Studies, London

U. Hattori, Litt D., University of Tokyo.

Volume IX. Oceanic

American {North of Mexico)

BLartley Burr Alexander, Ph.D., University

Hartley Burr Alexander, Ph.D.,

W. Max MtJLLER, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania.

New Grange is the largest of a

County Meath, on the banks of the Boyne in the

LOUIS HERBERT GRAY,

A.M., PH.D., Editor

A.M., D.D., LL.D., Consulting Editor

JOHN ARNOTT MACCULLOCH,

WITH A CHAPTER ON BALTIC MYTHOLOGY BY

By Marshall Jones Company

Printed June, 191 8

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

BOUND BY THE BOSTON BOOKBINDING COMPANY

Strife of the Gods

Tuatha De Danann and Milesians.

The Division of the

Mythic Powers of the Gods

Gods Helping Mortals

Divine Enmity and Punishment

The Loves of the Gods

The Divine Land

X. Mythical Animals and Other Beings.

The Heroic Myths

Fionn and the

XIV. The Heroic Myths

XV. Paganism and Christianity

Belief in Soul and Genii

The Household Gods

IV. Genii of Fate

Navky and Rusalky

X. Sun, Moon, and Stars

of the Elbe Slavs

of the Pagan Russians

SVAROZIC AND SvAROG

Veles, Volos, and Stribog

Cult and Festivals

Worship of the Gods

Horse, Conjoined Circles and S-Symbol

Man-Headed Horse and Wheel

Bull and S-Symbol

Sword and Warrior Dancing Before it

Wolf and S-Symbols

Squatting Divinity, and Boar and S-Symbol or Snake

Bull and Bird

Animals Opposed, and Boar and Wolf (?)

VII Three-Headed God

Reverse Side of the same Altar