{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8109/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8109","id":"gutenberg_8109","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8109","summary":null,"tags":["Bards and bardism","Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: History - European","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Civilization, Celtic, in literature","Epic literature, Irish -- History and criticism","Language and culture -- Ireland","Tales -- Ireland -- History and criticism"],"text":"Produced by Ar dTeanga Fein\n\n\n\n\n\nEARLY BARDIC LITERATURE, IRELAND.\n\n\nBy Standish O'Grady\n\n11 Lower Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin\n\n\n\nScattered over the surface of every country in Europe may be found\nsepulchral monuments, the remains of pre-historic times and nations, and\nof a phase of life will civilisation which has long since passed away.\nNo country in Europe is without its cromlechs and dolmens, huge earthen\ntumuli, great flagged sepulchres, and enclosures of tall pillar-stones.\nThe men by whom these works were made, so interesting in themselves, and\nso different from anything of the kind erected since, were not strangers\nand aliens, but our own ancestors, and out of their rude civilisation\nour own has slowly grown. Of that elder phase of European civilisation\nno record or tradition has been anywhere bequeathed to us. Of its\nnature, and the ideas and sentiments whereby it was sustained, nought\nmay now be learned save by an examination of those tombs themselves, and\nof the dumb remnants, from time to time exhumed out of their soil--rude\ninstruments of clay, flint, brass, and gold, and by speculations and\nreasonings founded upon these archaeological gleanings, meagre and\nsapless.\n\nFor after the explorer has broken up, certainly desecrated, and perhaps\ndestroyed, those noble sepulchral raths; after he has disinterred\nthe bones laid there once by pious hands, and the urn with its\nunrecognisable ashes of king or warrior, and by the industrious labour\nof years hoarded his fruitless treasure of stone celt and arrow-head, of\nbrazen sword and gold fibula and torque; and after the savant has rammed\nmany skulls with sawdust, measuring their capacity, and has adorned them\nwith some obscure label, and has tabulated and arranged the implements\nand decorations of flint and metal in the glazed cases of the cold gaunt\nmuseum, the imagination, unsatisfied and revolted, shrinks back from all\nthat he has done. Still we continue to inquire, receiving from him no\nadequate response, Who were those ancient chieftains and warriors for\nwhom an affectionate people raised those strange tombs? What life did\nthey lead? What deeds perform? How did their personality affect the\nminds of their people and posterity? How did our ancestors look upon\nthose great tombs, certainly not reared to be forgotten, and how did\nthey--those huge monumental pebbles and swelling raths--enter into and\naffect the civilisation or religion of the times?\n\nWe see the cromlech with its massive slab and immense supporting\npillars, but we vainly endeavour to imagine for whom it was first\nerected, and how that greater than cyclopean house affected the minds\nof those who made it, or those who were reared in its neighbourhood\nor within reach of its influence. We see the stone cist with its great\nsmooth flags, the rocky cairn, and huge barrow and massive walled\ncathair, but the interest which they invariably excite is only\naroused to subside again unsatisfied. From this department of European\nantiquities the historian retires baffled, and the dry savant is alone\nmaster of the field, but a field which, as cultivated by him alone,\nremains barren or fertile only in things the reverse of exhilarating. An\nantiquarian museum is more melancholy than a tomb.\n\nBut there is one country in Europe in which, by virtue of a marvellous\nstrength and tenacity of the historical intellect, and of filial\ndevotedness to the memory of their ancestors, there have been preserved\ndown into the early phases of mediaeval civilisation, and then committed\nto the sure guardianship of manuscript, the hymns, ballads, stories, and\nchronicles, the names, pedigrees, achievements, and even characters, of\nthose ancient kings and warriors over whom those massive cromlechs were\nerected and great cairns piled. There is not a conspicuous sepulchral\nmonument in Ireland, the traditional history of which is not recorded\nin our ancient literature, and of the heroes in whose honour they were\nraised. In the rest of Europe there is not a single barrow, dolmen, or\ncist of which the ancient traditional history is recorded; in Ireland\nthere is hardly one of which it is not. And these histories are in many\ncases as rich and circumstantial as that of men of the greatest eminence\nwho have lived in modern times. Granted that the imagination which for\ncenturies followed with eager interest the lives of these heroes, beheld\nas gigantic what was not so, as romantic and heroic what was neither one\nnor the other, still the great fact remains, that it was beside and in\nconnection with the mounds and cairns that this history was elaborated,\nand elaborated concerning them and concerning the heroes to whom they\nwere sacred.\n\nOn the plain of Tara, beside the little stream Nemanna, itself famous\nas that which first turned a mill-wheel in Ireland, there lies a barrow,\nnot itself very conspicuous in the midst of others, all named and\nillustrious in the ancient literature of the country. The ancient hero\nthere interred is to the student of the Irish bardic literature a\nfigure as familiar and clearly seen as any personage in the Biographia\nBritannica. We know the name he bore as a boy and the name he bore as\na man. We know the names of his father and his grandfather, and of the\nfather of his grandfather, of his mother, and the father and mother of\nhis mother, and the pedigrees and histories of each of these. We know\nthe name of his nurse, and of his children, and of his wife, and the\ncharacter of his wife, and of the father and mother of his wife, and\nwhere they lived and were buried. We know all the striking events of his\nboyhood and manhood, the names of his horses and his weapons, his own\ncharacter and his friends, male and female. We know his battles, and the\nnames of those whom he slew in battle, and how he was himself slain, and\nby whose hands. We know his physical and spiritual characteristics,\nthe device upon his shield, and how that was originated, carved, and\npainted, by whom. We know the colour of his hair, the date of his birth\nand of his death, and his relations, in time and otherwise, with the\nremainder of the princes and warriors with whom, in that mound-raising\nperiod of our history, he was connected, in hostility or friendship; and\nall this enshrined in ancient song, the transmitted traditions of the\npeople who raised that barrow, and who laid within it sorrowing their\nbrave ruler and, defender. That mound is the tomb of Cuculain, once king\nof the district in which Dundalk stands to-day, and the ruins of whose\nearthen fortification may still be seen two miles from that town.\n\nThis is a single instance, and used merely as an example, but one out\nof a multitude almost as striking. There is not a king of Ireland,\ndescribed as such in the ancient annals, whose barrow is not mentioned\nin these or other compositions, and every one of which may at the\npresent day be identified where the ignorant plebeian or the ignorant\npatrician has not destroyed them. The early History of Ireland clings\naround and grows out of the Irish barrows until, with almost the\nuniversality of that primeval forest from which Ireland took one of\nits ancient names, the whole isle and all within it was clothed with\na nobler raiment, invisible, but not the less real, of a full and\nluxuriant history, from whose presence, all-embracing, no part was free.\nOf the many poetical and rhetorical titles lavished upon this country,\nnone is truer than that which calls her the Isle of Song. Her ancient\nhistory passed unceasingly into the realm of artistic representation;\nthe history of one generation became the poetry of the next, until the\nwhole island was illuminated and coloured by the poetry of the bards.\nProductions of mere fancy and imagination these songs are not,\nthough fancy and imagination may have coloured and shaped all their\nsubject-matter, but the names are names of men and women who once lived\nand died in Ireland, and over whom their people raised the swelling rath\nand reared the rocky cromlech. In the sepulchral monuments their names\nwere preserved, and in the performance of sacred rites, and the holding\nof games, fairs, and assemblies in their honour, the memory of their\nachievements kept fresh, till the traditions that clung around these\nplaces were inshrined in tales which were finally incorporated in the\nLeabhar na Huidhre and the Book of Leinster.\n\nPre-historic narrative is of two kinds--in one the imagination is at\nwork consciously, in the other unconsciously. Legends of the former\nclass are the product of a lettered and learned age. The story floats\nloosely in a world of imagination. The other sort of pre-historic\nnarrative clings close to the soil, and to visible and tangible\nobjects. It may be legend, but it is legend believed in as history never\nconsciously invented, and growing out of certain spots of the earth's\nsurface, and supported by and drawing its life from the soil like a\nnatural growth.\n\nSuch are the early Irish tales that cling around the mounds and\ncromlechs as that by which they are sustained, which was originally\ntheir source, and sustained them afterwards in a strong enduring life.\nIt is evident that these cannot be classed with stories that float\nvaguely in an ideal world, which may happen in one place as well as\nanother, and in which the names might be disarrayed without changing\nthe character and consistency of the tale, and its relations, in time or\notherwise, with other tales.\n\nForeigners are surprised to find the Irish claim for their own country\nan antiquity and a history prior to that of the neighbouring countries.\nHerein lie the proof and the explanation. The traditions and history of\nthe mound-raising period have in other countries passed away. Foreign\nconquest, or less intrinsic force of imagination, and pious sentiment\nhave suffered them to fall into oblivion; but in Ireland they have been\nall preserved in their original fulness and vigour, hardly a hue has\nfaded, hardly a minute circumstance or articulation been suffered to\ndecay.\n\nThe enthusiasm with which the Irish intellect seized upon the grand\nmoral life of Christianity, and ideals so different from, and so hostile\nto, those of the heroic age, did not consume the traditions or destroy\nthe pious and reverent spirit in which men still looked back upon those\nmonuments of their own pagan teachers and kings, and the deep spirit\nof patriotism and affection with which the mind still clung to the\nold heroic age, whose types were warlike prowess, physical beauty,\ngenerosity, hospitality, love of family and nation, and all those noble\nattributes which constituted the heroic character as distinguished from\nthe saintly. The Danish conquest, with its profound modification of\nIrish society, and consequent disruption of old habits and conditions\nof life, did not dissipate it; nor the more dangerous conquest of the\nNormans, with their own innate nobility of character, chivalrous daring,\nand continental grace and civilisation; nor the Elizabethan convulsions\nand systematic repression and destruction of all native phases of\nthought and feeling. Through all these storms, which successively\nassailed the heroic literature of ancient Ireland, it still held itself\nundestroyed. There were still found generous minds to shelter and shield\nthe old tales and ballads, to feel the nobleness of that life of which\nthey were the outcome, and to resolve that the soil of Ireland should\nnot, so far as they had the power to prevent it, be denuded of its\nraiment of history and historic romance, or reduced again to primeval\nnakedness. The fruit of this persistency and unquenched love of country\nand its ancient traditions, is left to be enjoyed by us. There is not\nthrough the length and breadth of the country a conspicuous rath or\nbarrow of which we cannot find the traditional history preserved in\nthis ancient literature. The mounds of Tara, the great barrows along\nthe shores of the Boyne, the raths of Slieve Mish, and Rathcrogan, and\nTeltown, the stone caiseals of Aran and Innishowen, and those that alone\nor in smaller groups stud the country over, are all, or nearly all,\nmentioned in this ancient literature, with the names and traditional\nhistories of those over whom they were raised.\n\nThere is one thing to be learned from all this, which is, that we, at\nleast, should not suffer these ancient monuments to be destroyed, whose\nhistory has been thus so astonishingly preserved. The English farmer may\ntear down the barrow which is unfortunate enough to be situated within\nhis bounds. Neither he nor his neighbours know or can tell anything\nabout its ancient history; the removed earth will help to make his\ncattle fatter and improve his crops, the stones will be useful to pave\nhis roads and build his fences, and the savant can enjoy the rest; but\nthe Irish farmer and landlord should not do or suffer this.\n\nThe instinctive reverence of the peasantry has hitherto been a great\npreservative; but the spread of education has to a considerable extent\nimpaired this kindly sentiment, and the progress of scientific farming,\nand the anxiety of the Royal Irish Academy to collect antiquarian\ntrifles, have already led to the reckless destruction of too many. I\nthink that no one who reads the first two volumes of this history would\ngreatly care to bear a hand in the destruction of that tomb at Tara,\nin which long since his people laid the bones of Cuculain; and I think,\ntoo, that they would not like to destroy any other monument of the same\nage, when they know that the history of its occupant and its own name\nare preserved in the ancient literature, and that they may one day learn\nall that is to be known concerning it. I am sure that if the case were\nput fairly to the Irish landlords and country gentlemen, they would\nneither inflict nor permit this outrage upon the antiquities of their\ncountry. The Irish country gentleman prides himself on his love of\ntrees, and entertains a very wholesome contempt for the mercantile boor\nwho, on purchasing an old place, chops down the best timber for the\nmarket. And yet a tree, though cut down, may be replaced. One elm tree\nis as good as another, and the thinned wood, by proper treatment, will\nbe as dense as ever; but the ancient mound, once carted away, can never\nbe replaced any more. When the study of the Irish literary records is\nrevived, as it certainly will be revived, the old history of each of\nthese raths and cromlechs will be brought again into the light, and\none new interest of a beautiful and edifying nature attached to the\nlandscape, and affecting wholly for good the minds of our people.\n\nIrishmen are often taunted with the fact that their history is yet\nunwritten, but that the Irish, as a nation, have been careless of their\npast is refuted by the facts which I have mentioned. A people who alone\nin Europe preserved, not in dry chronicles alone, but illuminated and\nadorned with all that fancy could suggest in ballad, and tale, and rude\nepic, the history of the mound-raising period, are not justly liable\nto this taunt. Until very modern times, history was the one absorbing\npursuit of the Irish secular intellect, the delight of the noble, and\nthe solace of the vile.\n\nAt present, indeed, the apathy on this subject is, I believe, without\nparallel in the world. It would seem as if the Irish, extreme in all\nthings, at one time thought of nothing but their history, and, at\nanother, thought of everything but it. Unlike those who write on\nother subjects, the author of a work on Irish history has to labour\nsimultaneously at a two-fold task--he has to create the interest to\nwhich he intends to address himself.\n\nThe pre-Christian period of Irish history presents difficulties from\nwhich the corresponding period in the histories of other countries is\nfree. The surrounding nations escape the difficulty by having nothing to\nrecord. The Irish historian is immersed in perplexity on account of the\nmass of material ready to his hand. The English have lost utterly all\nrecord of those centuries before which the Irish historian stands with\ndismay and hesitation, not through deficiency of materials, but through\ntheir excess. Had nought but the chronicles been preserved the task\nwould have been simple. We would then have had merely to determine\napproximately the date of the introduction of letters, and allowing a\nmargin on account of the bardic system and the commission of family and\nnational history to the keeping of rhymed and alliterated verse, fix\nupon some reasonable point, and set down in order, the old successions\nof kings and the battles and other remarkable events. But in Irish\nhistory there remains, demanding treatment, that other immense mass of\nliterature of an imaginative nature, illuminating with anecdote and tale\nthe events and personages mentioned simply and without comment by\nthe chronicler. It is this poetic literature which constitutes the\nstumbling-block, as it constitutes also the glory, of early Irish\nhistory, for it cannot be rejected and it cannot be retained. It cannot\nbe rejected, because it contains historical matter which is consonant\nwith and illuminates the dry lists of the chronologist, and it cannot\nbe retained, for popular poetry is not history; and the task of\ndistinguishing In such literature the fact from the fiction--where there\nis certainly fact and certainly fiction--is one of the most difficult to\nwhich the intellect can apply itself. That this difficulty has not been\nhitherto surmounted by Irish writers is no just reproach. For the last\ncentury, intellects of the highest attainments, trained and educated\nto the last degree, have been vainly endeavouring to solve a similar\nquestion in the far less copious and less varied heroic literature of\nGreece. Yet the labours of Wolfe, Grote, Mahaffy, Geddes, and Gladstone,\nhave not been sufficient to set at rest the small question, whether it\nwas one man or two or many who composed the Iliad and Odyssey, while the\nreality of the achievements of Achilles and even his existence might be\ndenied or asserted by a scholar without general reproach. When this is\nthe case with regard to the great heroes of the Iliad, I fancy it will\nbe some time before the same problem will have been solved for the minor\ncharacters, and as it affects Thersites, or that eminent artist who\ndwelt at home in Hyla, being by far the most excellent of leather\ncutters. When, therefore, Greek still meets Greek in an interminable and\napparently bloodless contest over the disputed body of the Iliad, and\nstill no end appears, surely it would be madness for any one to sit down\nand gaily distinguish true from false in the immense and complex mass\nof the Irish bardic literature, having in his ears this century-lasting\nstruggle over a single Greek poem and a single small phase of the\npre-historic life of Hellas.\n\nIn the Irish heroic literature, the presence or absence of the\nmarvellous supplies _no test whatsoever_ as to the general truth or\nfalsehood of the tale in which they appear. The marvellous is supplied\nwith greater abundance in the account of the battle of Clontarf, and\nthe wars of the O'Briens with the Normans, than in the tale in which\nis described the foundation of Emain Macha by Kimbay. Exact-thinking,\nscientific France has not hesitated to paint the battles of Louis XIV.\nwith similar hues; and England, though by no means fertile in angelic\ninterpositions, delights to adorn the barren tracts of her more popular\nhistories with apocryphal anecdotes.\n\nHow then should this heroic literature of Ireland be treated in\nconnection with the history of the country? The true method would\ncertainly be to print it exactly as it is without excision or\ncondensation. Immense it is, and immense it must remain. No men living,\nand no men to live, will ever so exhaust the meaning of any single tale\nas to render its publication unnecessary for the study of others. The\norder adopted should be that which the bards themselves deter mined, any\nother would be premature, and I think no other will ever take its place.\nAt the commencement should stand the passage from the Book of Invasions,\ndescribing the occupation of the isle by Queen Keasair and her\ncompanions, and along with it every discoverable tale or poem dealing\nwith this event and those characters. After that, all that remains of\nthe cycle of which Partholan was the protagonist. Thirdly, all\nthat relates to Nemeth and his sons, their wars with curt Kical the\nbow-legged, and all that relates to the Fomoroh of the Nemedian epoch,\nthen first moving dimly in the forefront of our history. After that, the\ngreat Fir-bolgic cycle, a cycle janus-faced, looking on one side to the\nmythological period and the wars of the gods, and on the other, to the\nheroic, and more particularly to the Ultonian cycle. In the next place,\nthe immense mass of bardic literature which treats of the Irish gods\nwho, having conquered the Fir-bolgs, like the Greek gods of the age of\ngold dwelt visibly in the island until the coming of the Clan Milith,\nout of Spain. In the sixth, the Milesian invasion, and every accessible\nstatement concerning the sons and kindred of Milesius. In the seventh,\nthe disconnected tales dealing with those local heroes whose history\nis not connected with the great cycles, but who in the _fasti_ fill\nthe spaces between the divine period and the heroic. In the eighth, the\nheroic cycles, the Ultonian, the Temairian, and the Fenian, and after\nthese the historic tales that, without forming cycles, accompany the\ncourse of history down to the extinction of Irish independence, and\nthe transference to aliens of all the great sources of authority in the\nisland.\n\nThis great work when completed will be of that kind of which no other\nEuropean nation can supply an example. Every public library in the world\nwill find it necessary to procure a copy. The chronicles will then\ncease to be so closely and exclusively studied. Every history of ancient\nIreland will consist of more or less intelligent comments upon and\ntheories formed in connection with this great series--theories which, in\ngeneral, will only be formed in order to be destroyed. What the present\nage demands upon the subject of antique Irish history--an exact\nand scientific treatment of the facts supplied by our native\nauthorities--will be demanded for ever. It will never be supplied. The\nhistory of Ireland will be contained in this huge publication. In it the\npoet will find endless themes of song, the philosopher strange workings\nof the human mind, the archeologist a mass of information, marvellous in\namount and quality, with regard to primitive ideas and habits of life,\nand the rationalist materials for framing a scientific history of\nIreland, which will be acceptable in proportion to the readableness\nof his style, and the mode in which his views may harmonize with the\nprevailing humour and complexion of his contemporaries.\n\nSuch a work it is evident could not be effected by a single individual.\nIt must be a public and national undertaking, carried out under the\nsupervision of the Royal Irish Academy, at the expense of the country.\n\nThe publication of the Irish bardic remains in the way that I have\nmentioned, is the only true and valuable method of presenting the\nhistory of Ireland to the notice of the world. The mode which I have\nmyself adopted, that other being out of the question, is open to many\nobvious objections; but in the existing state of the Irish mind on the\nsubject, no other is possible to an individual writer. I desire to\nmake this heroic period once again a portion of the imagination of the\ncountry, and its chief characters as familiar in the minds of our people\nas they once were. As mere history, and treated in the method in which\nhistory is generally written at the present day, a work dealing with\nthe early Irish kings and heroes would certainly not secure an audience.\nThose who demand such a treatment forget that there is not in the\ncountry an interest on the subject to which to appeal. A work treating\nof early Irish kings, in the same way in which the historians of\nneighbouring countries treat of their own early kings, would be, to the\nIrish public generally, unreadable. It might enjoy the reputation\nof being well written, and as such receive an honourable place in\nhalf-a-dozen public libraries, but it would be otherwise left severely\nalone. It would never make its way through that frozen zone which, on\nthis subject, surrounds the Irish mind.\n\nOn the other hand, Irishmen are as ready as others to feel an interest\nin a human character, having themselves the ordinary instincts,\npassions, and curiosities of human nature. If I can awake an interest\nin the career of even a single ancient Irish king, I shall establish a\ntrain of thoughts, which will advance easily from thence to the state\nof society in which he lived, and the kings and heroes who surrounded,\npreceded, or followed him. Attention and interest once fully aroused,\nconcerning even one feature of this landscape of ancient history, could\nbe easily widened and extended in its scope.\n\nNow, if nothing remained of early Irish history save the dry _fasti_ of\nthe chronicles and the Brehon laws, this would, I think, be a perfectly\nlegitimate object of ambition, and would be consonant with my ideal\nof what the perfect flower of historical literature should be, to\nilluminate a tale embodying the former by hues derived from the Senchus\nMor.\n\nBut in Irish literature there has been preserved, along with the _fasti_\nand the laws, this immense mass of ancient ballad, tale, and epic, whose\norigin is lost in the mists of extreme antiquity, and in which have been\npreserved the characters, relationships, adventures, and achievements of\nthe vast majority of the personages whose names, in a gaunt nakedness,\nfill the books of the chroniclers. Around each of the greater heroes\nthere groups itself a mass of bardic literature, varying in tone\nand statement, but preserving a substantial unity as to the general\ncharacter and the more important achievements of the hero, and also,\na fact upon which their general historical accuracy may be based with\nconfidence, exhibiting a knowledge of that same prior and subsequent\nhistory recorded in the _fasti_. The literature which groups\nitself around a hero exhibits not only an unity with itself, but an\nacquaintance with the general course of the history of the country, and\nwith preceding and succeeding kings.\n\nThe students of Irish literature do not require to be told this; for\nthose who are not, I would give a single instance as an illustration.\n\nIn the battle of Gabra, fought in the third century, and in which Oscar,\nperhaps the greatest of all the Irish heroes heading the Fianna Eireen,\ncontended against Cairbry of the Liffey, King of Ireland, and his\ntroops, Cairbry on his side announces to his warriors that he would\nrather perish in this battle than suffer one of the Fianna to survive;\nbut while he spoke--\n\n             \"Barran suddenly exclaimed--\n             'Remember Mall Mucreema, remember Art.\n\n            \"'Our ancestors fell there\n              By force of the treachery of the Fians;\n              Remember the hard tributes,\n              Remember the extraordinary pride.'\"\n\nHere the poet, singing only of the events of the battle of Gabra, shows\nthat he was well-acquainted with all the relations subsisting for a long\ntime between the Fians and the Royal family. The battle of Mucreema\nwas fought by Cairbry's grandfather, Art, against Lewy Mac Conn and the\nFianna Eireen.\n\nAgain, in the tale of the battle of Moy Leana, in which Conn of\nthe Hundred Battles, the father of this same Art, is the principal\ncharacter, the author of the tale mentions many times circumstances\nrelating to his father, Felimy Rectmar, and his grandfather, Tuhall\nTectmar. Such is the whole of the Irish literature, not vague, nebulous,\nand shifting, but following the course of the _fasti_, and regulated and\ndetermined by them. This argument has been used by Mr. Gladstone\nwith great confidence, in order to show the substantial historical\ntruthfulness of the Iliad, and that it is in fact a portion of a\ncontinuous historic sequence.\n\nNow this being admitted, that the course of Irish history, as laid down\nby the chroniclers, was familiar to the authors of the tales and heroic\nballads, one of two things must be admitted, either that the events and\nkings did succeed one another in the order mentioned by the chroniclers,\nor that what the chroniclers laid down was then taken as the theme of\nsong by the bards, and illuminated and adorned according to their wont.\n\nThe second of these suppositions is one which I think few will adopt.\nCan we believe it possible that the bards, who actually supported\nthemselves by the amount of pleasure which they gave their audiences,\nwould have forsaken those subjects which were already popular, and those\nkings and heroes whose splendour and achievements must have affected,\nprofoundly, the popular imagination, in order to invent stories to\nilluminate fabricated names. The thing is quite impossible. A practice\nwhich we can trace to the edge of that period whose historical character\nmay be proved to demonstration, we may conclude to have extended on\ninto the period immediately preceding that. When bards illuminated with\nstories and marvellous circumstances the battle of Clontarf and the\nbattle of Moyrath, we may believe their predecessors to have done the\nsame for the earlier centuries. The absence of an imaginative literature\nother than historical shows also that the literature must have followed,\nregularly, the course of the history, and was not an archaeological\nattempt to create an interest in names and events which were found\nin the chronicles. It is, therefore, a reasonable conclusion that the\nbardic literature, where it reveals a clear sequence in the order of\nevents, and where there is no antecedent improbability, supplies a\ntrustworthy guide to the general course of our history.\n\nSo far as the clear light of history reaches, so far may these tales be\nproved to be historical. It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that\nthe same consonance between them and the actual course of events which\nsubsisted during the period which lies in clear light, marked also that\nother preceding period of which the light is no longer dry.\n\nThe earliest manuscript of these tales is the Leabhar [Note: Leabar na\nHeera.] na Huidhre, a work of the eleventh century, so that we may\nfeel sure that we have them in a condition unimpaired by the revival of\nlearning, or any archaeological restoration or improvement. Now, of some\nof these there have been preserved copies in other later MSS., which\ndiffer very little from the copies preserved in the Leabhar na Huidhre,\nfrom which we may conclude that these tales had arrived at a fixed\nstate, and a point at which it was considered wrong to interfere with\nthe text.\n\nThe feast of Bricrind is one of the tales preserved in this manuscript.\nThe author of the tale in its present form, whenever he lived, composed\nit, having before him original books which he collated, using his\njudgment at times upon the materials to his hand. At one stage he\nobserves that the books are at variance on a certain point, namely, that\nat which Cuculain, Conal the Victorious, and Laery Buada go to the lake\nof Uath in order to be judged by him. Some of the books, according\nto the author, stated that on this occasion the two latter behaved\nunfairly, but he agreed with those books which did not state this.\n\nWe have, therefore, a tale penned in the eleventh century, composed at\nsome time prior to this, and itself collected, not from oral tradition,\nbut from books. These considerations would, therefore, render it\nextremely probable that the tales of the Ultonian period, with which the\nLeabhar na Huidhre is principally concerned, were committed to writing\nat a very early period.\n\nTo strengthen still further the general historic credibility of these\ntales, and to show how close to the events and heroes described must\nhave been the bards who originally composed them, I would urge the\nfollowing considerations.\n\nWith the advent of Christianity the mound-raising period passed away.\nThe Irish heroic tales have their source in, and draw their interest\nfrom, the mounds and those laid in them. It would, therefore, be\nextremely improbable that the bards of the Christian period, when the\ndays of rath and cairn had departed, would modify, to any considerable\nextent, the literature produced in conditions of society which had\npassed away.\n\nAgain, with the advent of Christianity, and the hold which the new faith\ntook upon the finest and boldest minds in the country, it is plain that\nthe golden age of bardic composition ended. The loss to the bards was\ndirect, by the withdrawal of so much intellect from their ranks, and\nindirect, by the general substitution of other ideas for those whose\nministers they themselves were. It is, therefore, probable that the age\nof production and creation, with regard to the ethnic history, ceased\nabout the fifth and sixth centuries, and that, about that time, men\nbegan to gather up into a collected form the floating literature\nconnected with the pagan period. The general current of mediaeval\nopinion attributes the collection of tales and ballads now known as the\nTan-Bo-Cooalney to St. Ciaran, the great founder of the monastery of\nClonmacnoise.\n\nBut if this be the case, we are enabled to take another step in the\nhistory of this most valuable literature. The tales of the Leabhar na\nHuidhre are in prose, but prose whose source and original is poetry. The\nauthor, from time to time, as if quoting an authority, breaks out with\nverse; and I think there is no Irish tale in existence without these\nrudimentary traces of a prior metrical cycle. The style and language\nare quite different, and indicate two distinct epochs. The prose tale is\nfounded upon a metrical original, and composed in the meretricious style\nthen in fashion, while the old metrical excerpts are pure and simple.\nThis is sufficient, in a country like Ireland in those primitive times,\nto necessitate a considerable step into the past, if we desire to get at\nthe originals upon which the prose tales were founded.\n\nFor in ancient Ireland the conservatism of the people was very great. It\nis the case in all primitive societies. Individual, initiative,\npersonal enterprise are content to work within a very small sphere. In\nagriculture, laws, customs, and modes of literary composition, primitive\nand simple societies are very adverse to change.\n\nWhen we see how closely the Christian compilers followed the early\nauthorities, we can well believe that in the ethnic times no mind would\nhave been sufficiently daring or sacrilegious to alter or pervert those\nepics which were in their eyes at the same time true and sacred.\n\nIn the perusal of the Irish literature, we see that the strength of\nthis conservative instinct has been of the greatest service in the\npreservation of the early monuments in their purity. So much is this the\ncase, that in many tales the most flagrant contradictions appear, the\nauthor or scribe being unwilling to depart at all from that which he\nfound handed down. For instance, in the \"Great Breach of Murthemney,\"\nwe find Laeg at one moment killed, and in the next riding black\nShanglan off the field. From this conservatism and careful following of\nauthority, and the _littera scripta_, or word once spoken, I conclude\nthat the distance in time between the prose tale and the metrical\noriginals was very great, and, unless under such exceptional\ncircumstances as the revolution caused by the introduction of\nChristianity, could not have been brought about within hundreds of\nyears. Moreover, this same conservatism would have caused the tales\nconcerning heroes to grow very slowly once they were actually formed.\nAll the noteworthy events of the hero's life and his characteristics\nmust have formed the original of the tales concerning him, which would\nhave been composed during his life, or not long after his death.\n\nI have not met a single tale, whether in verse or prose, in which it is\nnot clearly seen that the author was not following authorities before\nhim. Such traces of invention or decoration as may be met with are not\nsuffered to interfere with the conduct of the tale and the statement of\nfacts. They fill empty niches and adorn vacant places. For instance,\nif a king is represented as crossing the sea, we find that the causes\nleading to this, the place whence he set out, his companions, &c., are\nderived from the authorities, but the bard, at the same time, permits\nhimself to give what seems to him to be an eloquent or beautiful\ndescription of the sea, and the appearance presented by the many-oared\ngalleys. And yet the last transcription or recension of the majority of\nthe tales was effected in Christian times, and in an age characterised\nby considerable classical attainments--a time when the imagination might\nhave been expected to shake itself loose from old restraints, and freely\ninvent. _A fortiori_, the more ancient bards, those of the ruder ethnic\ntimes, would have clung still closer to authority, deriving all their\nimaginative representations from preceding minstrels. There was no\nconscious invention at any time. Each cycle and tale grew from historic\nroots, and was developed from actual fact. So much may indeed be said\nfor the more ancient tales, but the Ultonian cycle deals with events\nwell within the historic period.\n\nThe era of Concobar Mac Nessa and the Red Branch knights of Ulster was\nlong subsequent to the floruerunt of the Irish gods and their Titan-like\nopponents of this latter period, the names alone can be fairly held to\nbe historic. What swells out the Irish chronicles to such portentous\ndimensions is the history of the gods and giants rationalised by\nmediaeval historians. Unable to ignore or excide what filled so much of\nthe imagination of the country, and unable, as Christians, to believe\nin the divinity of the Tuatha De Danan and their predecessors, they\nrationalised all the pre-Milesian record. But the disappearance of the\ngods does not yet bring us within the penumbra of history. After the\ndeath of the sons of Milesius we find a long roll of kings. These were\nall topical heroes, founders of nations, and believed, by the tribes and\ntribal confederacies which they founded, to have been in their day\nthe chief kings of Ireland. The point fixed upon by the accurate and\nsceptical Tiherna as the starting-point of trustworthy Irish history,\nwas one long subsequent to the floruerunt of the gods; and the age of\nConcobar Mac Nessa and his knights was more than two centuries later\nthan that of Kimbay and the foundation of Emain Macha. The floruit of\nCuculain, therefore, falls completely within the historical penumbra,\nand the more carefully the enormous, and in the main mutually consistent\nand self-supporting, historical remains dealing with this period are\nstudied, the more will this be believed. The minuteness, accuracy,\nextent, and verisimilitude of the literature, chronicles, pedigrees,\n&c., relating to this period, will cause the student to wonder more and\nmore as he examines and collates, seeing the marvellous self-consistency\nand consentaneity of such a mass of varied recorded matter. The age,\nindeed, breathes sublimity, and abounds with the marvellous, the\nromantic, and the grotesque. But as I have already stated, the presence\nor absence of these qualities has no crucial significance. Love and\nreverence and the poetic imagination always effect such changes in\nthe object of their passion. They are the essential condition of the\ntransference of the real into the world of art. AEval, of Carriglea, the\nfairy queen of Munster, is one of the most important characters in the\nhistory of the battle of Clontarf, the character of which, and of the\nevents that preceded and followed its occurrence, and the chieftains and\nwarriors who fought on one side and the other, are identical, whether\ndescribed by the bard singing, or by the monkish chronicler jotting down\nin plain prose the fasti for the year. The reader of these volumes can\nmake such deductions as he pleases, on this account, from the bardic\nhistory of the Red Branch, and clip the wings of the tale, so that it\nmay with him travel pedestrian. I know there are others, like myself,\nwho will not hesitate for once to let the fancy roam and luxuriate in\nthe larger spaces and freer airs of ancient song, nor fear that their\nsanity will be imperilled by the shouting of semi-divine heroes, and the\nsight of Cuculain entering battles with the Tuatha De Danan around him.\n\nI hope on some future occasion to examine more minutely the character\nand place in literature of the Irish bardic remains, and put forward\nhere these general considerations, from which the reader may presume\nthat the Ultonian cycle, dealing as it does with Cuculain and his\ncontemporaries, is in the main true to the facts of the time, and that\nhis history, and that of the other heroes who figure in these volumes,\nis, on the whole, and omitting the marvellous, sufficiently reliable.\nI would ask the reader, who may be inclined to think that the principal\ncharacter is too chivalrous and refined for the age, to peruse for\nhimself the tale named the \"Great Breach of Murthemney.\" He will there,\nand in many other tales and poems besides, see that the noble and\npathetic interest which attaches to his character is substantially the\nsame as I have represented in these volumes. But unless the student\nhas read the whole of the Ultonian cycle, he should be cautious in\ncondemning a departure in my work from any particular version of an\nevent which he may have himself met. Of many minor events there are more\nthan one version, and many scenes and assertions which he may think\nof importance would yet, by being related, cause inconsistency and\ncontradiction. Of the nature of the work in which all should be\nintroduced I have already given my opinion.\n\nFor the rest, I have related one or two great events in the life of\nCuculain in such a way as to give a description as clear and correct as\npossible of his own character and history as related by the bards, of\nthose celebrated men and women who were his contemporaries and of his\nrelations with them, of the gods and supernatural powers in whom the\npeople then believed, and of the state of civilisation which then\nprevailed. If I have done my task well, the reader will have been\nsupplied, without any intensity of application on his part--a condition\nof the public mind upon which no historian of this country should\ncount--with some knowledge of ancient Irish history, and with an\ninterest in the subject which may lead him to peruse for himself that\nancient literature, and to read works of a more strictly scientific\nnature upon the subject than those which I have yet written. But until\nsuch an interest is aroused, it is useless to swell the mass of valuable\ncritical matter, which everyone at present is very well content to leave\nunread.\n\nIn the first volume, however, I have committed this error, that I did\nnot permit it to be seen with sufficient clearness that the characters\nand chief events of the tale are absolutely historic; and that much\nof the colouring, inasmuch as its source must have been the centuries\nimmediately succeeding the floruerunt of those characters, is also\nreliable as history, while the remainder is true to the times and the\nstate of society which then obtained. The story seems to progress too\nmuch in the air, too little in time and space, and seems to be more\nof the nature of legend and romance than of actual historic fact seen\nthrough an imaginative medium. Such is the history of Concobar Mac Nessa\nand his knights--historic fact seen through the eyes of a loving wonder.\n\nIndeed, I must confess that the blaze of bardic light which illuminates\nthose centuries at first so dazzled the eye and disturbed the judgment,\nthat I saw only the literature, only the epic and dramatic interest, and\ndid not see as I should the distinctly historical character of the age\naround which that literature revolves, wrongly deeming that a literature\nso noble, and dealing with events so remote, must have originated\nmainly or altogether in the imagination. All the borders of the epic\nrepresentation at which, in the first volume, I have aimed, seem to\nmelt, and wander away vaguely on every side into space and time. I have\nnow taken care to remedy that defect, supplying to the unset picture the\nclear historical frame to which it is entitled. I will also request the\nreader, when the two volumes may diverge in tone or statement, to\nattach greater importance to the second, as the result of wider and more\ncareful reading and more matured reflection.\n\nA great English poet, himself a severe student, pronounced the early\nhistory of his own country to be a mere scuffling of kites and crows, as\nindeed are all wars which lack the sacred bard, and the sacred bard is\nabsent where the kites and crows pick out his eyes. That the Irish kings\nand heroes should succeed one another, surrounded by a blaze of bardic\nlight, in which both themselves and all those who were contemporaneous\nwith them are seen clearly and distinctly, was natural in a country\nwhere in each little realm or sub-kingdom the ard-ollav was equal in\ndignity to the king, which is proved by the equivalence of their cries.\nThe dawn of English history is in the seventh century--a late dawn, dark\nand sombre, without a ray of cheerful sunshine; that of Ireland dates\nreliably from a point before the commencement of the Christian era\nluminous with that light which never was on sea or land--thronged\nwith heroic forms of men and women--terrible with the presence of the\nsupernatural and its over-arching power.\n\nEducated Irishmen are ignorant of, and indifferent to, their history;\nyet from the hold of that history they cannot shake themselves free. It\nstill haunts the imagination, like Mordecai at Haman's gate, a cause\nof continual annoyance and vexation. An Irishman can no more release\nhimself from his history than he can absolve himself from social and\ndomestic duties. He may outrage it, but he cannot placidly ignore.\nHence the uneasy, impatient feeling with which the subject is generally\nregarded.\n\nI think that I do not exaggerate when I say that the majority of\neducated Irishmen would feel grateful to the man who informed them that\nthe history of their country was valueless and unworthy of study, that\nthe pre-Christian history was a myth, the post-Christian mere annals,\nthe mediaeval a scuffling of kites and crows, and the modern alone\ndeserving of some slight consideration. That writer will be in Ireland\nmost praised who sets latest the commencement of our history. Without\nstudy he will be pronounced sober and rational before the critic opens\nthe book. So anxious is the Irish mind to see that effaced which it is\nconscious of having neglected.\n\nThere are two compositions which affect an interest comparable to that\nwhich Ireland claims for her bardic literature, One is the Ossian of\nMacPherson, the other the Nibelungen Lied.\n\nIf we are to suppose Macpherson faithfully to have written down,\nprinted, and published the floating disconnected poems which he found\nlingering in the Scotch highlands, how small, comparatively, would be\ntheir value as indications of antique thought and feeling, reduced then\nfor the first time to writing, sixteen hundred years after the time of\nOssian and his heroes, in a country not the home of those heroes, and\ndestitute of the regular bardic organisation. The Ossianic tales and\npoems still told and sung by the Irish peasantry at the present day in\nthe country of Ossian and Oscar, would be, if collected even now, quite\nas valuable, if not more so. Truer to the antique these latter are,\nfor in them the cycles are not blended. The Red Branch heroes are not\nconfused with Ossian's Fianna.\n\nBut MacPherson's Ossian is not a translation. In the publications of the\nIrish Ossianic poetry we see what that poetry really was--rude, homely,\nplain-spoken, leagues removed from the nebulous sublimity of MacPherson.\n\nWith regard to the other, the Germans, who naturally desire to refer\nits composition to as remote a date as possible, and who arguing from\nno scientific data, but only style, ascribe the authorship of the\nNibelungen to a poet living in the latter part of the twelfth century.\nBe it remembered, that the poem does not purport to be a collection of\nthe scattered fragments of a cycle, but an original composition, then\nactually imagined and written. It does not even purport to deal with the\nethnic times. _Its heroes are Christian heroes. They attend Mass._ The\npoem is not true, even to the leading features of the late period of\nhistory in which it is placed, if it have any habitat in the world of\nhistory at all. Attila, who died A.D. 450, and Theodoric, who did not\ndie until the succeeding century, meet as coevals.\n\nTurn we now from the sole boast of Germany to one out of a hundred in\nthe Irish bardic literature. The Tan-bo-Cooalney was transcribed into\nthe Leabhar na Huidhre in the eleventh century a manuscript whose date\nhas been established by the consentaneity of Irish, French, and German\nscholarship. Mark, it was transcribed, not composed. The scribe records\nthe fact:--\n\n  \"Ego qui scripsi hanc historian aut vero fabulam, quibusdam fidem\n  in hac historia aut fabula non commodo.\"\n\nThe Tan-bo-Cooalney was therefore _transcribed_ by an ancient penman to\nthe parchment of a still existing manuscript, in the century before\nthat in which the German epic is presumed, from style only, and in the\nopinion of Germans, to have been _composed_.\n\nThe same scribe adds this comment with regard to its contents:--\n\n  \"Qaedam autem poetica figmenta, quaedam ad delectationem\n  stultorum.\"\n\nSuch scorn could not have been felt by one living in an age of bardic\nproduction. That independence and originality of thought, which caused\nMilton to despise the poets of the Restoration, are impossible in\nthe simple stages of civilisation. The scribe who appended this very\ninteresting comment to the subject of his own handiwork must have been\nremoved by centuries from the date of its compilation. That the tale\nwas, in his time, an ancient one, is therefore rendered extremely\nprobable, the scribe himself indicating how completely out of sympathy\nhe is with this form of literature, its antiquity and peculiar\narchaeological interest being, doubtless, the cause of the\ntranscription.\n\nAgain, a close study of its contents, as of the contents of all the\nIrish historic tales, proves that in its present form, whenever\nthat form was superadded, it is but a representation in prose of a\npre-existing metrical original. Under this head I have already made some\nremarks, which, I shall request the reader to re-peruse [Note: Pages 23\nto 27]\n\nOnce more, it deals with a particular event in Irish history, and with\ndistinct and definite kings, heroes, and bards, who flourished in\nthe epoch of which it treats. In the synchronisms of Tiherna, in the\nmetrical chronology of Flann, in all the various historical compositions\nproduced in various parts of the country, the main features and leading\ncharacters of the Tan-bo-Cooalney suffer no material change, while the\nminor divergencies show that the chronology of the annals and annalistic\npoems were not drawn from the tale, but owe their origin to other\nsources. Moreover, this epic is but a portion of the great Ultonian or\nRed Branch cycle, all the parts of which pre-suppose and support one\nanother; and that cycle is itself a portion of the history of Ireland,\nand pre-supposes other preceding and succeeding cyles, preceding and\nsucceeding kings. The event of which this epic treats occurred at the\ntime of the Incarnation, and its characters are the leading Irish kings\nand warriors of that date. Such is the Tan-bo-Cooalney.\n\nThis being so, how have the English literary classes recognised, or\nhow treated, our claim to the possession of an antique literature of\npeculiar historical interest, and by reason of that antiquity, a matter\nof concern to all Aryan nations? The conquest has not more constituted\nthe English Parliament guardian and trustee of Ireland, for purposes of\nlegislation and government, than it has vested the welfare and fame\nof our literature and antiquities in the hands of English scholarship.\nLondon is the headquarters of the intellectualism and of the literary\nand historical culture of the Empire. It is the sole dispenser of fame.\nIt alone influences the mind of the country and guides thought and\nsentiment. It can make and mar reputations. What it scorns or ignores,\nthe world, too, ignores and scorns. How then has the native literature\nof Ireland been treated by the representatives of English scholarship\nand literary culture? Mr. Carlyle is the first man of letters of the\nday, his the highest name as a critic upon, and historian of, the\npast life of Europe. Let us hear him upon this subject, admittedly of\nEuropean importance.\n\nMiscellaneous Essays, Vol. III., page 136. \"Not only as the oldest\nTradition of Modern Europe does it--the Nibelungen--possess a high\nantiquarian interest, but farther, and even in the shape we now see\nit under, unless the epics of the son of Fingal had some sort of\nauthenticity, it is our oldest poem also.\"\n\nPoor Ireland, with her hundred ancient epics, standing at the door of\nthe temple of fame, or, indeed, quite behind the vestibule out of the\nway! To see the Swabian enter in, crowned, to a flourish of somewhat\nbarbarous music, was indeed bad enough, but Mr. MacPherson!\n\nThey manage these things rather better in France, _vide passim_ \"La\nRevue Celtique.\"\n\nOf the literary value of the bardic literature I fear to write at all,\nlest I should not know how to make an end. Rude indeed it is, but\ngreat. Like the central chamber of that huge tumulus [Note: New Grange\nanciently Cnobgha, and now also Knowth.] on the Boyne, overarched with\nmassive unhewn rocks, its very ruggedness strikes an awe which the\norderly arrangement of smaller and more reasonable thoughts, cut smooth\nby instruments inherited from classic times, fails so often to inspire.\nThe labour of the Attic chisel may be seen since its invention in every\nother literary workshop of Europe, and seen in every other laboratory of\nthought the transmitted divine fire of the Hebrew. The bardic literature\nof Erin stands alone, as distinctively and genuinely Irish as the race\nitself, or the natural aspects of the island. Rude indeed it is, but\nlike the hills which its authors tenanted with gods, holding dells\n[Note: Those sacred hills will generally be found to have this\ncharacter.] of the most perfect beauty, springs of the most touching\npathos. On page 33, Vol. I., will be seen a poem [Note: Publications\nof Ossianic Society, page 303, Vol. IV.] by Fionn upon the spring-time,\nmade, as the old unknown historian says, to prove his poetic powers--a\npoem whose antique language relegates it to a period long prior to the\ntales of the Leabhar na Huidhre, one which, if we were to meet side\nby side with the \"Ode to Night,\" by Alcman, in the Greek anthology, we\nwould not be surprised; or those lines on page 203, Vol. I., the song of\nCuculain, forsaken by his people, watching the frontier of his country--\n\n      \"Alone in defence of the Ultonians,\n       Solitary keeping ward over the province\"\n\nor the death [Note: Publications of Ossianic Society, Vol. I.] of Oscar,\non pages 34 and 35, Vol. I., an excerpt condensed from the Battle of\nGabra. Innumerable such tender and thrilling passages.\n\nTo all great nations their history presents itself under the aspect\nof poetry; a drama exciting pity and terror; an epic with unbroken\ncontinuity, and a wide range of thought, when the intellect is satisfied\nwith coherence and unity, and the imagination by extent and diversity.\nSuch is the bardic history of Ireland, but with this literary defect. A\nperfect epic is only possible when the critical spirit begins to be\nin the ascendant, for with the critical spirit comes that distrust and\napathy towards the spontaneous literature of early times, which permit\nsome great poet so to shape and alter the old materials as to construct\na harmonious and internally consistent tale, observing throughout a\nsense of proportion and a due relation of the parts. Such a clipping\nand alteration of the authorities would have seemed sacrilege to earlier\nbards. In mediaeval Ireland there was, indeed, a subtle spirit of\ncriticism; but under its influence, being as it was of scholastic\norigin, no great singing men appeared, re-fashioning the old rude epics;\nand yet, the very shortcomings of the Irish tales, from a literary point\nof view, increase their importance from a historical. Of poetry, as\ndistinguised from metrical composition, these ancient bards knew little.\nThe bardic literature, profoundly poetic though it be, in the eyes of\nour ancestors was history, and never was anything else. As history it\nwas originally composed, and as history bound in the chains of metre,\nthat it might not be lost or dissipated passing through the minds\nof men, and as history it was translated into prose and committed\nto parchment. Accordingly, no tale is without its defects as poetry,\npossessing therefore necessarily, a corresponding value as history.\nBut that there was in the country, in very early times, a high and rare\npoetic culture of the lyric kind, native in its character, ethnic in\norigin, unaffected by scholastic culture which, as we know, took a\ndifferent direction; that one exquisite poem, in which the father\nof Ossian praises the beauty of the springtime in anapaestic [Note:\nCettemain | cain ree! | ro sair | an cuct | \"He, Fionn MacCool, learned\nthe three compositions which distinguish the poets, the TEINM LAEGHA,\nthe IMUS OF OSNA, and the DICEDUE DICCENAIB, and it was then Fionn\ncomposed this poem to prove his poetry.\" In which of these three forms\nof metre the Ode to the spring-time is written I know not. Its form\nthroughout is distinctly anapaestic.--S. O'G.] verse, would, even though\nit stood alone, both by the fact of its composition and the fact of its\npreservation, fully prove.\n\nMuch and careful study, indeed, it requires, if we would compel these\nancient epics to yield up their greatness or their beauty, or even their\nlogical coherence and imaginative unity--broken, scattered portions as\nthey all are of that one enormous epic, the bardic history of Ireland.\nAt the best we read without the key. The magic of the names is gone,\nor can only be partially recovered by the most tender and sympathetic\nstudy. Indeed, without reading all or many, we will not understand\nthe superficial meaning of even one. For instance, in one of the many\nhistories of Cuculain's many battles, we read this--\n\n\"It was said that Lu Mac AEthleen was assisting him.\"\n\nThis at first seems meaningless, the bard seeing no necessity for\nthrowing further light on the subject; but, as we wander through the\nbardic literature, gradually the conception of this Lu grows upon the\nmind--the destroyer of the sons of Turann--the implacably filial--the\nexpulsor of the Fomoroh--the source of all the sciences--the god of the\nTuatha De Danan--the protector and guardian of Cuculain--Lu Lamfada,\nson of Cian, son of Diancect, son of Esric, son of Dela, son of Ned the\nwar-god, whose tomb or temple, Aula Neid, may still be seen beside the\nFoyle. This enormous and seemingly chaotic mass of literature is found\nat all times to possess an inner harmony, a consistency and logical\nunity, to be apprehended only by careful study.\n\nSo read, the sublimity strikes through the rude representation.\nAstonished at himself, the student, who at first thinks that he has\nchanced upon a crowd of barbarians, ere long finds himself in the august\npresence of demi-gods and heroes.\n\nA noble moral tone pervades the whole. Courage, affection, and truth are\nnative to all who live in this world. Under the dramatic image of\nOssian wrangling with the Talkend, [Note: St. Patrick, on account of\nthe tonsured crown.] the bards, themselves vainly fighting against the\nChristian life, a hundred times repeat through the lips of Ossian like a\nrefrain--\n\n      \"We, the Fianna of Erin, never uttered falsehood,\n       Lying was never attributed to us;\n       By courage and the strength of our hands\n       We used to come out of every difficulty.\"\n\nAgain: Fergus, the bard, inciting Oscar to his last battle--in that poem\ncalled the Rosc Catha of Oscar:--\n\n      \"Place thy hand on thy gentle forehead\n       Oscar, who never lied.\"\n[Note: Publications of Ossianic Society, p. 159; vol. i.]\n\nAnd again, elsewhere in the Ossianic poetry:--\n\n      \"Oscar, who never wronged bard or woman.\"\n\nStrange to say, too, they inculcated chastity (see p. 257; vol. i.), an\nallusion taken from the \"youthful adventures of Cuculain,\" Leabhar na\nHuidhre.\n\nThe following ancient rann contains the four qualifications of a bard:--\n\n      \"Purity of hand, bright, without wounding,\n       Purity of mouth, without poisonous satire,\n       Purity of learning, without reproach,\n       Purity, as a husband, in wedlock.\"\n\nMoreover, through all this literature sounds a high clear note of\nchivalry, in this contrasting favourably with the Iliad, where no man\nforegoes an advantage. Cuculain having slain the sons of Neara, \"thought\nit unworthy of him to take possession of their chariot and horses.\"\n[Note: P. 155; vol. i.] Goll Mac Morna, in the Fenian or Ossianic cycle,\ndeclares to Conn Cedcathah [Note: Conn of the hundred battles.] that\nfrom his youth up he never attacked an enemy by night or under any\ndisadvantage, and many times we read of heroes preferring to die rather\nthan outrage their geisa. [Note: Certain vows taken with their arms on\nbeing knighted.]\n\nA noble literature indeed it is, having too this strange interest,\nthat though mainly characterised by a great plainness and simplicity of\nthought, and, in the earlier stages, of expression, we feel, oftentimes,\na sudden weirdness, a strange glamour shoots across the poem when the\ntale seems to open for a moment into mysterious depths, druidic secrets\nveiled by time, unsunned caves of thought, indicating a still deeper\nrange of feeling, a still lower and wider reach of imagination. A youth\ncame once to the Fianna Eireen encamped at Locha Lein [Note: The Lakes\nof Killarney.], leading a hound dazzling white, like snow. It was the\nsame, the bard simply states, that was once a yew tree, flourishing\nfifty summers in the woods of Ioroway. Elsewhere, he is said to have\nbeen more terrible than the sun upon his flaming wheels. What meant this\nyew tree and the hound? Stray allusions I have met, but no history.\nThe spirit of Coelte, visiting one far removed in time from the great\ncaptain of the Fianna, with a different name and different history,\ncries:--\n\n      \"I was with thee, with Finn\"--\n\ngiving no explanation.\n\nTo MacPherson, however, I will do this justice, that he had the merit\nto perceive, even in the debased and floating ballads of the highlands,\ntraces of some past greatness and sublimity of thought, and to\nunderstand, he, for the first time, how much more they meant than what\nmet the ear. But he saw, too, that the historical origin of the ballads,\nand the position in time and place of the heroes whom they praised, had\nbeen lost in that colony removed since the time of St. Columba from its\nold connection with the mother country. Thus released from the curb of\nhistory, he gave free rein to the imagination, and in the conventional\nliterary language of sublimity, gave full expression to the feelings\nthat arose within him, as to him, pondering over those ballads, their\ngigantesque element developed into a greatness and solemnity, and their\nvagueness and indeterminateness into that misty immensity and weird\nobscurity which, as constituent factors in a poem, not as back-ground,\nform one of the elements of the false sublime. Either not seeing the\nliterary necessity of definiteness, or having no such abundant and\nordered literature as we possess, upon which to draw for details,\nand being too conscientious to invent facts, however he might invent\nlanguage, he published his epics of Ossian--false indeed to the\noriginal, but true to himself, and to the feelings excited by meditation\nupon them. This done, he had not sufficient courage to publish also\nthe rude, homely, and often vulgar ballads--a step which, in that hard\ncritical age, would have been to expose himself and his country to swift\ncontempt. The thought of the great lexicographer riding rough-shod\nover the poor mountain songs which he loved, and the fame which he had\nalready acquired, deterred and dissuaded him, if he had ever any such\nintention, until the opportunity was past.\n\nMacPherson feared English public opinion, and fearing lied. He declared\nthat to be a translation which was original work, thus relegating\nhimself for ever to a dubious renown, and depriving his country of\nthe honest fame of having preserved through centuries, by mere oral\ntransmission, a portion, at least, of the antique Irish literature. To\nthe magnanimity of his own heroes he could not attain:--\n\n      \"Oscar, Oscar, who feared not armies--\n       Oscar, who never lied.\"\n\nOf some such error as MacPherson's I have myself, with less excuse, been\nguilty, in chapters xi. and xii., Vol. I., where I attempt to give\nsome conception of the character of the Ossianic cycle. The age and the\nheroes around whom that cycle revolves have, in the history of Ireland,\na definite position in time; their battles, characters, several\nachievements, relationships, and pedigrees; their Duns, and\ntrysting-places, and tombs; their wives, musicians, and bards; their\ntributes, and sufferings, and triumphs; their internecine and other\nwars--are all fully and clearly described in the Ossianic cycle. They\nstill remain demanding adequate treatment, when we arrive at the age of\nConn [Note: See page 20.], Art, and Cormac, kings of Tara in the second\nand third centuries of the Christian era. All have been forgotten for\nthe sake of a vague representation of the more sublime aspects of the\ncycle, and the meretricious seductions of a form of composition easy to\nwrite and easy to read, and to which the unwary or unwise often award\npraise to which it has no claim.\n\nOn the other hand, chapter xi. purports only to be a representation of\nthe feelings excited by this literature, and for every assertion there\nis authority in the cycle. Chapter xii., however, is a translation from\nthe original. Every idea which it contains, except one, has been taken\nfrom different parts of the Ossianic poems, and all together expressthe\ngraver attitude of the mind of Ossian towards the new faith. That idea,\noccurring in a separate paragraph in the middle of the page, though\nprevalent as a sentiment throughout all the conversations of Ossian with\nSt. Patrick, has been, as it stands, taken from a meditation on life by\nSt. Columbanus, one of the early Irish Saints--a meditation which,\nfor subtle thought, for musical resigned sadness, tender brooding\nreflection, and exquisite Latin, is one of the masterpieces of mediaeval\ncomposition.\n\nTo the casual reader of the bardic literature the preservation of an\nordered historical sequence, amidst that riotous wealth of imaginative\nenergy, may appear an impossibility. Can we believe that forestine\nluxuriance not to have overgrown all highways, that flood of\nsuperabundant song not have submerged all landmarks? Be the cause what\nit may, the fact remains that they did not. The landmarks of history\nstand clear and fixed, each in its own place unremoved; and through that\nforest-growth the highways of history run on beneath over-arching, not\ninterfering, boughs. The age of the predominance of Ulster does not\nclash with the age of the predominance of Tara; the Temairian kings are\nnot mixed with the contemporary Fians. The chaos of the Nibelungen is\nnot found here, nor the confusion of the Scotch ballads blending all the\nages into one.\n\nIt is not imaginative strength that produces confusion, but imaginative\nweakness. The strong imagination which perceives definitely and realises\nvividly will not tolerate that obscurity so dear to all those who\nworship the eidola of the cave. Of each of these ages, the primary\nimpressions were made in the bardic mind during the life-time of the\nheroes who gave to the epoch its character; and a strong impression made\nin such a mind could not have been easily dissipated or obscured. For it\nmust be remembered, that the bardic literature of Ireland was committed\nto the custody of guardians whose character we ought not to forget. The\nbards were not the people, but a class. They were not so much a class\nas an organisation and fraternity acknowledging the authority of one\nelected chief. They were not loose wanderers, but a power in the State,\nhaving duties and privileges. The ard-ollav ranked next to the king, and\nhis eric was kingly. Thus there was an educated body of public opinion\nentrusted with the preservation of the literature and history of the\ncountry, and capable of repressing the aberrations of individuals.\n\nBut the question arises, Did they so repress such perversions of history\nas their wandering undisciplined members might commit? Too much, of\ncourse, must not reasonably be expected. It was an age of creative\nthought, and such thought is difficult to control; but that one of the\nprime objects and prime works of the bards, as an organisation, was to\npreserve a record of a certain class of historical facts is certain. The\nsuccession of the kings and of the great princely families was one of\nthese. The tribal system, with the necessity of affinity as a ground of\ncitizenship, demanded such a preservation of pedigrees in every family,\nand particularly in the kingly houses. One of the chief objects of the\ntriennial feis of Tara was the revision of such records by the general\nassembly of the bards, under the presidency of the Ard-Ollav of Ireland.\nIn the more ancient times, such records were rhymed and alliterated, and\ncommitted to memory--a practice which, we may believe on the authority\nof Caesar, treating of the Gauls, continued long after the introduction\nof letters. Even at those local assemblies also, which corresponded to\ngreat central and national feis of Tara, the bards were accustomed to\nmeet for that purpose. In a poem [Note: O'Curry's Manners and Customs,\nVol. I., page 543.], descriptive of the fair [Note: On the full meaning\nof this word \"fair,\" see Chap. xiii., Vol. I.] of Garman, we see this--\n\n      \"Feasts with the great feasts of Temair,\n       Fairs with the fairs of Emania,\n       Annals there are verified.\"\n\nIn the existing literature we see two great divisions. On the one hand\nthe epical, a realm of the most riotous activity of thought; on the\nother, the annalistic and genealogical, bald and bare to the last\ndegree, a mere skeleton. They represent the two great hemispheres of\nthe bardic mind, the latter controlling the former. Hence the orderly\nsequence of the cyclic literature; hence the strong confining banks\nbetween which the torrent of song rolls down through those centuries in\nwhich the bardic imagination reached its height. The consentaneity\nof the annals and the literature furnishes a trustworthy guide to the\ngeneral course of history, until its guidance is barred by _a priori_\nconsiderations of a weightier nature, or by the statements of writers,\nhaving sources of information not open to us. For instance, the\nstream of Irish history must, for philosophical reasons, be no further\ntraceable than to that point at which it issues from the enchanted land\nof the Tuatha De Danan. At the limit at which the gods appear, men\nand history must disappear; while on the other hand, the statement of\nTiherna, that the foundation of Emain Alacha by Kimbay is the first\ncertain date in Irish history, renders it undesirable to attach more\nhistorical reality of characters, adorning the ages prior to B.C. 299,\nthan we could to such characters as Romulus in Roman, or Theseus in\nAthenian history.\n\nI desire here to record my complete and emphatic dissent from the\nopinions advanced by a writer in Hermathena on the subject of the Ogham\ninscriptions, and the introduction into this country of the art of\nwriting. A cypher, i.e., an alphabet derived from a pre-existing\nalphabet, the Ogham may or may not have been. I advance no opinion upon\nthat, but an invention of the Christian time it most assuredly was not.\nNo sympathetic and careful student of the Irish bardic literature can\npossibly come to such a conclusion. The bardic poems relating to\nthe heroes of the ethnic times are filled with allusions to Ogham\ninscriptions on stone, and contain some references to books of timber;\nbut in my own reading I have not met with a single passage in that\nliterature alluding to books of parchment and to rounded letters.\n\nIf the Ogham was derived from the Roman characters introduced by\nChristian missionaries, then these characters would be the more ancient,\nand Ogham the more modern; books and Roman characters would be the more\npoetical, and inscriptions on stone and timber in the Ogham characters\nthe more prosaic. The bards relating the lives and deeds of the ancient\nheroes, would have ascribed to their times parchment books and the Roman\ncharacters, not stone and wood, and the Ogham.\n\nIn these compositions, whenever they were reduced to the form in which\nwe find them to-day, the ethnic character of the times and the ethnic\ncharacter of the heroes are clearly and universally observed. The\nancient, the remote, the archaic clings to this literature. As Homer\ndoes not allude to writing, though all scholars agree that he lived in\na lettered age, so the old bards do not allude to parchment and\nRoman characters, though the Irish epics, as distinguished from their\ncomponent parts, reached their fixed state and their final development\nin times subsequent to the introduction of Christianity.\n\nWhen and how a knowledge of letters reached this island we know not.\nFrom the analogy of Gaul, we may conclude that they were known for some\ntime prior to their use by the bards. Caesar tells us that the Gaulish\nbards and druids did not employ letters for the preservation of their\nlore, but trusted to memory, assisted, doubtless, as in this country, by\nthe mechanical and musical aid of verse. Whether the Ogham was a native\nalphabet or a derivative from another, it was at first employed only to\na limited extent. Its chief use was to preserve the name of buried kings\nand heroes in the stone that was set above their tombs. It was, perhaps,\ninvented, and certainly became fashionable on this account, straight\nstrokes being more easily cut in stone than rounded or uncial\ncharacters. For the same reason it was generally employed by those who\ninscribed timber tablets, which formed the primitive book, ere they\ndiscovered or learned how to use pen, ink, and parchment. The use of\nOgham was partially practised in the Christian period for sepultural\npurposes, being venerable and sacred from time. Hence the discovery of\nOgham-inscribed stones in Christian cemeteries. On the other hand,\nthe fact that the majority of these stones are discovered in raths and\nforts, i.e., the tombs of our Pagan ancestors, corroborates the fact\nimplied in all the bardic literature, that the characters employed in\nthe ethnic times were Oghamic, and affords another proof of the close\nconservative spirit of the bards in their transcription, compilation, or\nreformation of the old epics.\n\nThe full force of the concurrent authority of the bardic literature to\nthe above effect can only be felt by one who has read that literature\nwith care. He will find in all the epics no trace of original invention,\nbut always a studied and conscientious following of authority. This\nbeing so, he will conclude that the universal ascription of Ogham, and\nOgham only, to the ethnic times, arises solely from the fact that such\nwas the alphabet then employed.\n\nIf letters were unknown in those times, the example of Homer shows how\nunlikely the later poets would have been to outrage so violently the\nwhole spirit of the heroic literature. If rounded letters were then\nused, why the universal ascription of the late invented Ogham which,\nas we know from the cemeteries and other sources, was unpopular in the\nChristian age.\n\nCryptic, too, it was not. The very passages quoted in Hermathena to\nsupport this opinion, so far from doing so prove actually the reverse.\nWhen Cuculain came down into Meath on his first [Note: Vol. I., page\n155.] foray, he found, on the lawn of the Dun of the sons of Nectan, a\npillar stone with this inscription in Ogham--\"Let no one pass without an\noffer of a challenge of single combat.\" The inscription was, of course,\nintended for all to read. Should there be any bardic passage in which\nOgham inscriptions are alluded to as if an obscure form of writing, the\nnatural explanation is, that this kind of writing was passing or had\npassed into desuetude at the time that particular passage was composed;\nbut I have never met with any such. The ancient bard, who, in the\nTan-bo-Cooalney, describes the slaughter of Cailitin and his sons by\nCuculain, states that there was an inscription to that effect, written\nin Ogham, upon the stone over their tomb, beginning thus--\"Take\nnotice\"--evidently intended for all to read. The tomb, by the way, was a\nrath--again showing the ethnic character of the alphabet.\n\nIn the Annals of the Four Masters, at the date 1499 B.C., we read these\nwords:--\n\n\"THE FLEET OF THE SONS OF MILITH CAME TO IRELAND TO TAKE IT FROM THE\nTUATHA DE DANAN,\" i.e., the gods of the ethnic Irish.\n\nWithout pausing to enquire into the reasonableness of the date, it will\nsuffice now to state that at this point the bardic history of Ireland\ncleaves asunder into two great divisions--the mythological or divine on\nthe one hand, and the historical or heroic-historical on the other.\nThe first is an enchanted land--the world of the Tuatha De Danan--the\ncountry of the gods. There we see Mananan with his mountain-sundering\nsword, the Fray-garta; there Lu Lamfada, the deliverer, pondering over\nhis mysteries; there Bove Derg and his fatal [Note: Every feast to which\nhe came ended in blood. He was present at the death of Conairey Mor,\nChap. xxxiii., Vol. I.] swine-herd, Lir and his ill-starred children,\nMac Manar and his harp shedding death from its stricken wires, Angus Og,\nthe beautiful, and he who was called the mighty father, Eochaidht [Note:\nAy-o-chee, written Yeoha in Vol. I.] Mac Elathan, a land populous with\nthose who had partaken of the feast of Goibneen, and whom, therefore,\nweapons could not slay, who had eaten [Note: In early Greek literature\nthe province of history has been already separated from that of poetry.\nThe ancient bardic lore and primaeval traditions were refined to suit\nthe new and sensitive poetic taste. No commentator has been able to\nexplain the nature of ambrosia. In the genuine bardic times, no such\nvague euphuism would have been tolerated as that of Homer on this\nsubject. The nature of Olympian ambrosia would have been told in\nlanguage as clear as that in which Homer describes the preparation of\nthat Pramnian bowl for which Nestor and Machaon waited while Hecamede\nwas grating over it the goat's milk cheese, or that in which the Irish\nbards described the ambrosia of the Tuatha De Danan, which, indeed, was\nno more poetic and awe-inspiring than plain bacon prepared by Mananan\nfrom his herd of enchanted pigs, living invisible like himself in the\nplains of Tir-na-n-Og, the land of the ever-young. On the other hand,\nthere is a vagueness about the Feed Fia which would seem to indicate the\ngrowth of a more awe-stricken mood in describing things supernatural.\nThe Faed Fia of the Greek gods has been refined by Homer into \"much\ndarkness,\" which, from an artistic point of view, one can hardly help\nimagining that Homer nodded as he wrote.] at the the table of Mananan,\nand would never grow old, who had invented for themselves the Faed Fia,\nand might not be seen of the gross eyes of men; there steeds like Anvarr\ncrossing the wet sea like a firm plain; there ships whose rudder was the\nwill, and whose sails and oars the wish, of those they bore [Note: Cf.\nThe barks of the Phoenicians in the Odyssey.]; there hounds like that\none of Ioroway, and spears like fiery flying serpents. These are the\nTuatha De Danan [Note: A mystery still hangs over this three-formed\nname. The full expression, Tuatha De Danan, is that generally employed,\nless frequently Tuatha De, and sometimes, but not often, Tuatha. Tuatha\nalso means people. In mediaeval times the name lost its sublime meaning,\nand came to mean merely \"fairy,\" no greater significance, indeed,\nattaching to the invisible people of the island after Christianity had\ndestroyed their godhood.], fairy princes, Tuatha; gods, De; of Dana,\nDanan, otherwise Ana and the Moreega, or great queen; mater [Note:\nCormac's Glossary] deorum Hibernensium--\"well she used to cherish [Note:\nScholiast noting same Glossary.] the gods.\" Limitless, this divine\npopulation, dwelling in all the seas and estuaries, river and lakes,\nmountains and fairy dells, in that enchanted Erin which was theirs.\n\nBut they have not started into existence suddenly, like the gods of\nRome, nor is their genealogy confined to a single generation like those\nof Greece. Behind them extends a long line of ancestors, and a history\nreaching into the remotest depths of the past. As the Greek gods\ndethroned the Titans, so the Irish gods drove out or subjected the\ngiants of the Fir-bolgs; but in the Irish mythology, we find both gods\nand giants descended from other ancient races of deities, called the\nClanna Nemedh and the Fomoroh, and these a branch of a divine cycle; yet\nmore ancient the race of Partholan, while Partholan himself is not the\neldest.\n\nThe history of the Italian gods is completely lost. For all that the\nearly Roman literature tells us of their origin, they may have been\neither self-created or eternal. Rome was a seedling shaken from some\nold perished civilisation. The Romans created their own empire, but they\ninherited their gods. They supply no example of an Aryan nation evolving\nits own mythology and religion. Regal Rome, as we know from Niebuhr, was\nnot the root from which our Rome sprang, but an old imperial city, from\nwhose ashes sprang that Rome we all know so well. The mythology of the\nLatin writers came to them full-grown.\n\nThe gods of Greece were a creation of the Greek mind, indeed; but of\ntheir ancestry, i.e., of their development from more ancient divine\ntribes, we know little. Like Pallas, they all but start into existence\nsuddenly full-grown. Between the huge physical entities of the Greek\ntheogonists and the Olympian gods, there intervenes but a single\ngeneration. For this loss of the Grecian mythology, and this\nsubstitution of Nox and Chaos for the remote ancestors of the Olympians,\nwe have to thank the early Greek philosophers, and the general diffusion\nof a rude scientific knowledge, imparting a physical complexion to the\nmythological memory of the Greeks.\n\nIn the theogony of the ancient inhabitants of this country, we have an\nexample of a slowly-growing, slowly-changing mythology, such as no other\nnation in the world can supply. The ancestry of the Irish gods is not\nbounded by a single generation or by twenty. The Tuatha De Danan of the\nancient Irish are the final outcome and last development of a mythology\nwhich we can see advancing step by step, one divine tribe pushing out\nanother, one family of gods swallowing up another, or perishing under\nthe hands of time and change, to make room for another. From Angus\nOg, the god of youth and love and beauty, whose fit home was the woody\nslopes of the Boyne, where it winds around Rosnaree, we count fourteen\ngenerations to Nemedh and four to Partholan, and Partholan is not the\nearliest. As the bards recorded with a zeal and minuteness, so far as I\ncan see, without parallel, the histories of the families to which they\nwere adscript, so also they recorded with equal patience and care the\nfar-extending pedigrees of those other families--invisible indeed, but\nto them more real and more awe-inspiring--who dwelt by the sacred lakes\nand rivers, and in the folds of the fairy hills, and the great raths and\ncairns reared for them by pious hands.\n\nThe extent, diversity, and populousness of the Irish mythological\ncycles, the history of the Irish gods, and the gradual growth of that\nmythology of which the Tuatha De Danan, i.e., the gods of the historic\nperiod, were the final development, can only be rightly apprehended by\none who reads the bardic literature as it deals with this subject. That\nliterature, however, so far from having been printed and published, has\nnot even been translated, but still moulders in the public libraries of\nEurope, those who, like myself, are not professed Irish scholars, being\nobliged to collect their information piece-meal from quotations and\nallusions of those who have written upon the subject in the English or\nLatin language. For to read the originals aright needs many years\nof labour, the Irish tongue presenting at different epochs the\ncharacteristics of distinct languages, while the peculiarities of\nancient caligraphy, in the defaced and illegible manuscripts, form of\nthemselves quite a large department of study. Stated succinctly, the\nmythological record of the bards, with its chronological decorations,\nruns thus:--\n\nAGE OF KEASAIR.\n\n2379 B.C. the gods of the KEASAIRIAN cycle, Bith, Lara, and Fintann,\nand their wives, KEASAIR, Barran and Balba; their sacred places, Carn\nKeshra, Keasair's tomb or temple, on the banks of the Boyle, Ard Laran\non the Wexford Coast, Fert Fintann on the shores of Lough Derg.\n\nAbout the same time Lot Luaimenich, Lot of the Lower Shannon, an ancient\nsylvan deity.\n\nAGE OF PARTHOLAN AND THE EARLIEST FOMORIAN GODS.\n\n2057 B.C. a new spiritual dynasty, of which PARTHOLAN was father and\nking. Though their worship was extended over Ireland, which is shown by\nthe many different places connected with their history, yet the hill\nof Tallaght, ten miles from Dublin, was where they were chiefly adored.\nHere to the present day are the mounds and barrows raised in honour of\nthe deified heroes of this cycle, PARTHOLAN himself, his wife Delgna,\nhis sons, Rury, Slaney, and Laighlinni, and among others, the father of\nIrish hospitality, bearing the expressive name of Beer. Now first appear\nthe Fomoroh giant princes, under the leadership of curt Kical, son of\nNiul, son of Garf, son of U-Mor--a divine cycle intervening between\nKEASAIR and PARTHOLAN, but not of sufficient importance to secure a\nseparate chapter and distinct place in the annals. Battles now between\nthe Clan Partholan and the Fomoroh, on the plain of Ith, beside the\nriver Finn, Co. Donegal, so called from Ith [Note: See Vol. I, p. 60],\nson of Brogan, the most ancient of the heroes, slain here by the Tuatha\nDe Danan, but more anciently known by some lost Fomorian name; also at\nIorrus Domnan, now Erris, Co. Mayo, where Kical and his Fomorians first\nreached Ireland. These battles are a parable--objective representations\nof a fact in the mental history of the ancient Irish--typifying the\ninvisible war waged between Partholanian and Fomorian deities for the\nspiritual sovereignty of the Gael.\n\nAGE OF THE NEMEDIAN GODS AND SECOND CYCLE OF THE FOMORIANS.\n\n1700 B.C. age of the NEMEDIAN divinities, a later branch of the\nPARTHOLANIAN _vide post_ NEMEDIAN pedigree. NEMEDH, his wife Maca (first\nappearance of Macha, the war goddess, who gave her name to Armagh, i.e.,\nArd Macha, the Height of Macha), Iarbanel; Fergus, the Red-sided, and\nStarn, sons of Nemedh; Beothah, son of Iarbanel; Erglann, son of Beoan,\nson of Starn; Simeon Brac, son of Starn; Ibath, son of Beothach; Britan\nMael, son of Fergus. This must be remembered, that not one of the\nalmost countless names that figure in the Irish mythology is of fanciful\norigin. They all represent antique heroes and heroines, their names\nbeing preserved in connection with those monuments which were raised for\npurposes of sepulture or cult.\n\nWars now between the Clanna Nemedh and the second cycle of the Fomoroh,\nled this time by Faebar and More, sons of Dela, and Coning, son of\nFaebar; battles at Ros Freachan, now Rosreahan, barony of Murresk,\nCo. Mayo, at Slieve Blahma [Note: Slieve Blahma, now Slieve Bloom, a\nmountain range famous in our mythology; one of the peaks, Ard Erin,\nsacred to Eire, a goddess of the Tuatha De Danan, who has given her name\nto the island. The sites of all these mythological battles, where they\nare not placed in the haunted mountains, will be found to be a place\nof raths and cromlechs.] and Murbolg, in Dalaradia (Murbolg, i.e., the\nstronghold of the giants,) also at Tor Coning, now Tory Island.\n\nFIRBOLGS AND THIRD CYCLE OF THE FOMOROH.\n\n1525 B.C. Age of the FIRBOLGS and third cycle of the Fomorians, once\ngods, but expulsed from their sovereignty by the Tuatha De Danan, after\nwhich they loom through the heroic literature as giants of the elder\ntime, overthrown by the gods. From the FIRBOLGS were descended, or\nclaimed to have descended, the Connaught warriors who fought with Queen\nMeave against Cuculain, also the Clan Humor, appearing in the Second\nVolume, also the heroes of Ossian, the Fianna Eireen. Even in the time\nof Keating, Irish families traced thither their pedigrees. The great\nchiefs of the FIR-BOLGIC dynasty were the five sons of Dela, Gann,\nGenann, Sengann, Rury, and Slaney, with their wives Fuad, Edain, Anust,\nCnucha, and Libra; also their last and most potent king, EOCAIDH MAC\nERC, son of Ragnal, son of Genann, whose tomb or temple may be seen\nto-day at Ballysadare, Co. Sligo, on the edge of the sea.\n\nThe Fomorians of this age were ruled over by Baler Beimenna and his wife\nKethlenn. Their grandson was Lu Lamada, one of the noblest of the Irish\ngods.\n\nThe last of the mythological cycles is that of the Tuatha De Danan,\nwhose character, attributes, and history will, I hope, be rendered\ninteresting and intelligible in my account of Cuculain and the Red\nBranch of Ulster.\n\nIrish history has suffered from rationalism almost more than from\nneglect and ignorance. The conjectures of the present century are\nfounded upon mediaeval attempts to reduce to verisimilitude and\nhistorical probability what was by its nature quite incapable of such\ntreatment. The mythology of the Irish nation, being relieved of the\nmarvellous and sublime, was set down with circumstantial dates as a\nportion of the country's history by the literary men of the middle ages.\nUnable to excide from the national narrative those mythological beings\nwho filled so great a place in the imagination of the times, and unable,\nas Christians, to describe them in their true character as gods, or, as\npatriots, in the character which they believed them to possess, namely,\ndemons, they rationalized the whole of the mythological period with\nnames, dates, and ordered generations, putting men for gods, flesh and\nblood for that invisible might, till the page bristled with names and\ndates, thus formulating, as annals, what was really the theogony and\nmythology of their country. The error of the mediaeval historians is\nshared by the not wiser moderns. In the generations of the gods we seem\nto see prehistoric racial divisions and large branches of the Aryan\nfamily, an error which results from a neglect of the bardic literature,\nand a consequently misdirected study of the annals.\n\nAs history, the pre-Milesian record contains but a limited supply of\nobjective truths; but as theogony, and the history of the Irish gods,\nthese much abused chronicles are as true as the roll of the kings of\nEngland.\n\nThese divine nations, with their many successive generations and\ndynasties, constitute a single family; they are all inter-connected and\nspring from common sources, and where the literature permits us to see\nmore clearly, the earlier races exhibit a common character. Like a human\nclan, the elements of this divine family grew and died, and shed forth\nseedlings which, in time, over-grew and killed the parent stock. Great\nnames became obscure and passed away, and new ones grew and became\ngreat. Gods, worshipped by the whole nation, declined and became\ntopical, and minor deities expanding, became national. Gods lost their\nimmortality, and were remembered as giants of the old time--mighty men,\nwhich were of yore, men of renown.\n\n      \"The gods which were of old time rest in their tombs,\"\n\nsang the Egyptians, consciously ascribing mortality even to gods.\nSuch was Mac Ere, King of Fir-bolgs. His temple [Note: Strand near\nBallysadare, Co. Sligo], beside the sea at Iorrus Domnan [Note:\nKeating--evidently quoting a bardic historian], became his tomb. Daily\nthe salt tide embraces the feet of the great tumulus, regal amongst its\nsmaller comrades, where the last king of Fir-bolgs was worshipped by\nhis people. \"Good [Note: Temple--vide post.] were the years of the\nsovereignty of Mac Ere. There was no wet or tempestuous weather\nin Ireland, nor was there any unfruitful year.\" Such were all the\npredecessors of the children of Dana--gods which were of old times,\nthat rest in their tombs; and the days, too, of the Tuatha De Danan were\nnumbered. They, too, smitten by a more celestial light, vanished from\ntheir hills, like Ossian lamenting over his own heroes; those others\nstill mightier, might say:--\n\n     \"Once every step which we took might be heard throughout the\n   firmament. Now, all have gone, they have melted into the air.\"\n\nBut that divine tree, though it had its branches in fairy-land, had\nits roots in the soil of Erin. An unceasing translation of heroes\ninto Tir-na-n-og went on through time, the fairy-world of the bards,\nreceiving every century new inhabitants, whose humbler human origin\nbeing forgotten, were supplied there with both wives and children. The\napotheosis of great men went forward, tirelessly; the hero of one epoch\nbecoming the god of the next, until the formation of the Tuatha De\nDanan, who represent the gods of the historic ages. Had the advent of\nexact genealogy been delayed, and the creative imagination of the bards\nsuffered to work on for a couple of centuries longer, unchecked by the\nhistorical conscience, Cuculain's human origin would, perhaps, have been\nforgotten, and he would have been numbered amongst the Tuatha De Danan,\nprobably, as the son of Lu Lamfada and the Moreega, his patron deities.\nIt was, indeed, a favourite fancy of the bards that not Sualtam, but\nLu Lamfada himself, was his father; this, however, in a spiritual or\nsupernatural sense, for his age was far removed from that of the Tuatha\nDe Danan, and falling well within the scope of the historic period.\nEven as late as the time of Alexander, the Greeks could believe a great\ncontemporary warrior to be of divine origin, and the son of Zeus.\n\nWhen the Irish bards began to elaborate a general history of their\ncountry, they naturally commenced with the enumeration of the elder\ngods. I at one time suspected that the long pedigrees running between\nthose several divisions of the mythological period were the invention of\nmediaeval historians, anxious to spin out the national record, that it\nmight reach to Shinar and the dispersion. Not only, however, was such\nfabrication completely foreign to the genius of the literature, but in\nthe fragments of those early divine cycles, we see that each of these\npersonages was at one time the centre of a literature, and holds a\ndefinite place as regards those who went before and came after.\nThese pedigrees, as I said before, have no historical meaning, being\npre-Milesian, and therefore absolutely prehistoric; but as the genealogy\nof the gods, and as representing the successive generations of that\ninvisible family, whose history not one or ten bards, but the whole\nbardic and druidic organisation of the island, delighted to record,\ncollate, and verify--those pedigrees are as reliable as that of any of\nthe regal clans. They represent accurately the mythological panorama, as\nit unrolled itself slowly through the centuries before the\nimagination and spirit of our ancestors accurately that divine\ndrama, millennium--lasting, with its exits and entrances of gods.\nMillennium-lasting, and more so, for it is plain that one divine\ngeneration represents on the average a much greater space of time than\na generation of mortal men. The former probably represents the period\nwhich would elapse before a hero would become so divine, that is, so\nconsecrated in the imagination of the country, as to be received into\nthe family of the gods. Cuculain died in the era of the Incarnation,\nthree hundred years, if not more, before the country even began to be\nChristianised, yet he is never spoken of as anything but a great hero,\nfrom which one of two things would follow, either that the apotheosis of\nheroes needed the lapse of centuries, or that, during the first,\nsecond, third, and fourth centuries, the historical conscience was so\nenlightened, and a positive definite knowledge of the past so universal,\nthat the translation of heroes into the divine clans could no longer\ntake place. The latter is indeed the more correct view; but the\nreader will, I think, agree with me that the divine generations, taken\ngenerally, represent more than the average space of man's life. To what\nremote unimagined distances of time those earlier cycles extend has been\nshown by an examination of the tombs of the lower Moy Tura. The ancient\nheroes there interred were those who, as Fir-bolgs, preceded the reign\nof the Tuath De Danan, coming long after the Clanna Nemedh in the divine\ncycle, who were themselves preceded by the children of Partholan, who\nwere subsequent to the Queen Keasair. Such then being the position in\nthe divine cycle of the Fir-bolgs, an examination of the Firbolgic\nraths on Moy Tura has revealed only implements of stone, proving\ndemonstratively that the early divine cycles originated before the\nbronze age in Ireland, whenever that commenced. Those heroes who, as\nFir-bolgs, received divine honours, lived in the age of stone. So far is\nit from being the case, that the mythological record has been extended\nand unduly stretched, to enable the monkish historians to connect the\nIrish pedigrees with those of the Mosaic record, that it has, I believe,\nbeen contracted for this purpose.\n\nThe reader will be now prepared to peruse with some interest and\nunderstanding one or two of the mythological pedigrees. To these I have\nat times appended the dates, as given in the chronicles, to show how the\nearly historians rationalised the pre-historic record.\n\nAngus Og, the Beautiful, represents the Greek Eros. He was surnamed\nOg, or young; Mac-an-Og, or the son of youth; Mac-an-Dagda, son of the\nDagda. He was represented with a harp, and attended by bright birds,\nhis own transformed kisses, at whose singing love arose in the hearts\nof youths and maidens. To him and to his father the great tumulus of New\nGrange, upon the Boyne, was sacred.\n\n      \"I visited the Royal Brugh that stands\n       By the dark-rolling waters of the Boyne,\n       Where Angus Og magnificently dwells.\"\n\nHe was the patron god of Diarmid, the Paris of Ossian's Fianna, and\nremoved him into Tir-na-n-Og, when he died, having been ripped by the\ntusks of the wild boar on the peaks of Slieve Gulban.\n\nLu Lamfada was the patron god of Cuculain. He was surnamed Ioldana, as\nthe source of the sciences, and represented the Greek Apollo. The latter\nwas argurgurotoxos [Transcriber's Note: Greek in the original], but Lu\nwas a sling bearing god. Of Fomorian descent on the mother's side,\nhe joined his father's people, the Tuatha De Danan, in the great war\nagainst the Fomoroh. He is principally celebrated for his oppression of\nthe sons of Turann, in vengeance for the murder of his father.\n\n ANGUS OG, (circa 1500 B.C.)           LU LAMFADA, (circa 1500 B.C.)\n    son of                                son of\n THE DAGDA, (Zeus)                     Cian,\n    son of                                son of\n Elathan,                              Diancect, (god the healer)\n    son of                                son of\n Dela,                                 Esric,\n    son of                                son of\n Ned,                                  Dela,\n    son of                                son of\n Indaei,                               Ned,\n    son of                                son of\n                                       Indaei,\n                                          son of ALLDAEI.\n\nAmongst other Irish gods was Bove Derg, who dwelt invisible in the\nGaltee mountains, and in the hills above Lough Derg. The transformed\nchildren alluded to in Vol. I. were his grand-children. It was his\ngoldsmith Len, who gave its ancient name to the Lakes of Killarney,\nLocha Lein. Here by the lake he worked, surrounded by rainbows and\nshowers of fiery dew.\n\nMananan was the god of the sea, of winds and storms, and most skilled\nin magic lore. He was friendly to Cuculain, and was invoked by seafaring\nmen. He was called the Far Shee of the promontories.\n\n   BOVE DERG (circa 1500 B.C.)           MANANAN (circa 1500 B.C.)\n      son of                                son of\n   Eocaidh Garf,                         Alloid,\n      son of                                son of\n   Duach Temen,                          Elathan,\n      son of                                son of\n   Bras,                                 Dela,\n      son of                                son of\n   Dela,                                 Ned,\n      son of                                son of\n   Ned,                                  Indaei,\n      son of                                son of\n   Indaei,\n      son of ALLDAEI.\n\nThe Tuatha De Danan maybe counted literally by the hundred, each with a\ndistinct history, and all descended from Alldaei.\n\nFrom Alldaei the pedigree runs back thus:--\n\n               Alldaei\n                 son of\n               Tath,\n                 son of\n               Tabarn,\n                 son of\n               Enna,\n                 son of\n               Baath,\n                 son of\n               Ebat,\n                 son of\n               Betah,\n                 son of\n               Iarbanel,\n                 son of\n        NEMEDH (circa 1700 B.C.)\n\nNemedh, as I have said, forms one of the great epochs in the\nmythological record. As will be seen, he and the earlier Partholan have\na common source:--\n\n   NEMEDH\n      son of\n   Sera,\n      son of\n   Pamp,\n      son of\n   Tath,                                 PARTHOLAN (2000 B.C.)\n      son of                                son of\n                      Sera,\n                        son of\n                      Sru,\n                        son of\n                      Esru,\n                        son of\n                      Pramant.\n\nThe connection between Keasair, the earliest of the Irish gods, and\nthe rest of the cycle, I have not discovered, but am confident of its\nexistence.\n\nHow this divine cycle can be expunged from the history of Ireland I am\nat a loss to see. The account which a nation renders of itself must, and\nalways does, stand at the head of every history.\n\nHow different is this from the history and genealogy of the Greek gods\nwhich runs thus:--\n\n         The Olympian gods,\n             Titans,\n         Physical entities, Nox, Chaos, &c.\n\nThe Greek gods, undoubtedly, had a long ancestry extending into the\ndepths of the past, but the sudden advent of civilisation broke up\nthe bardic system before the historians could become philosophical, or\nphilosophers interested in antiquities.\n\nBut the Irish history corrects our view with regard to other matters\nconnected with the gods of the Aryan nations of Europe also.\n\nAll the nations of Europe lived at one time under the bardic and druidic\nsystem, and under that system imagined their gods and elaborated their\nvarious theogonies, yet, in no country in Europe has a bardic literature\nbeen preserved except in Ireland, for no thinking man can believe Homer\nto have been a product of that rude type of civilisation of which he\nsings. This being the case, modern philosophy, accounting for the origin\nof the classical deities by guesses and _a priori_ reasonings, has\nalmost universally adopted that explanation which I have, elsewhere,\ncalled Wordsworthian, and which derives them directly from the\nimagination personifying the aspects of nature.\n\n     \"In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched\n      On the soft grass through half a summer's day,\n      With music lulled his indolent repose,\n      And in some fit of weariness if he,\n      When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear\n      A distant strain far sweeter than the sounds\n      Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched,\n      Even from the blazing chariot of the sun,\n      A beardless youth who touched a golden lute\n      And filled the illumined groves with ravishment--\n      ***\n              \"Sunbeams upon distant hills,\n      Gliding apace with shadows in their train,\n      Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed\n      Into fleet oreads, sporting visibly.\"\n\nThis is pretty, but untrue. In all the ancient Irish literature we find\nthe connection of the gods, both those who survived into the historic\ntimes, and those whom they had dethroned, with the raths and cairns\nperpetually and almost universally insisted upon. The scene of the\ndestruction of the Firbolgs will be found to be a place of tombs, the\nmetropolis of the Fomorians a place of tombs, and a place of tombs the\nsacred home of the Tuatha along the shores of the Boyne. Doubtless, they\nare represented also as dwelling in the hills, lakes, and rivers, but\nstill the connection between the great raths and cairns and the gods\nis never really forgotten. When the floruit of a god has expired, he\nis assigned a tomb in one of the great tumuli. No one can peruse this\nancient literature without seeing clearly the genesis of the Irish gods,\n_videlicet_ heroes, passing, through the imagination and through the\nregion of poetic representation, into the world of the supernatural.\nWhen a king died, his people raised his ferta, set up his stone, and\nengraved upon it, at least in later times, his name in ogham. They\ncelebrated his death with funeral lamentations and funeral games, and\nlistened to the bards chanting his prowess, his liberality, and his\nbeauty. In the case of great warriors, these games and lamentations\nbecame periodical. It is distinctly recorded in many places, for\ninstance in connection with Taylti, who gave her name to Taylteen and\nGarman, who gave her name to Loch Garman, now Wexford, and with Lu\nLamfada, whose annual worship gave its name to the Kalends of August.\nGradually, as his actual achievements became more remote, and the\nimagination of the bards, proportionately, more unrestrained, he would\npass into the world of the supernatural. Even in the case of a hero\nso surrounded with historic light as Cuculain we find a halo, as of\ngodhood, often settling around him. His gray warsteed had already passed\ninto the realm of mythical representation, as a second avatar of the\nLiath Macha, the grey war-horse of the war-goddess Macha. This could be\nbelieved, even in the days when the imagination was controlled by the\nannalists and tribal heralds.\n\nThe gods of the Irish were their deified ancestors. They were not the\noffspring of the poetic imagination, personifying the various aspects of\nnature. Traces, indeed, we find of their influence over the operations\nof nature, but they are, upon the whole, slight and unimportant.\nFrom nature they extract her secrets by their necromantic and magical\nlabours, but nature is as yet too great to be governed and impelled by\nthem. The Irish Apollo had not yet entered into the sun.\n\nLike every country upon which imperial Rome did not leave the impress\nof her genius, Ireland, in these ethnic times, attained only a\npartial unity. The chief king indeed presided at Tara, and enjoyed the\nreputation and emoluments flowing to him on that account, but, upon the\nwhole, no Irish king exercised more than a local sovereignty; they were\nall reguli, petty kings, and their direct authority was small. This\nbeing the case, it would appear to me that in the more ancient times\nthe death of a king would not be an event which would disturb a very\nextensive district, and that, though his tomb might be considerable, it\nwould not be gigantic.\n\nNow on the banks of the Boyne, opposite Rosnaree, there stands a\ntumulus, said to be the greatest in Europe. It covers acres of ground,\nbeing of proportionate height. The earth is confined by a compact stone\nwall about twelve feet high. The central chamber, made of huge irregular\npebbles, is about twenty feet from ground to roof, communicating with\nthe outer air by a flagged passage. Immense pebbles, drawn from the\nCounty of Antrim, stand around it, each of which, even to move at\nall, would require the labour of many men, assisted with mechanical\nappliances. It is, of course, impossible to make an accurate estimate of\nthe expenditure of labour necessary for the construction of such a work,\nbut it would seem to me to require thousands of men working for years.\nCan we imagine that a petty king of those times could, after his\ndeath, when probably his successor had enough to do to sustain his new\nauthority, command such labour merely to provide for himself a tomb. If\nthis tomb were raised to the hero whose name it bears immediately after\nhis death, and in his mundane character, he must have been such a king\nas never existed in Ireland, even in the late Christian times.\nEven Brian of the Tributes himself, could not have commanded such a\nsepulture, or anything like it, living though he did, probably, two\nthousand years later than that Eocaidh Mac Elathan, whenever he did\nlive. There is a _nodus_ here needing a god to solve it.\n\nReturning now to what would most likely take place after the interment\nof a hero, we may well imagine that the size of his tomb would be in\nproportion to the love which he inspired, where no accidental causes\nwould interfere with the gratification of that feeling. Of one of his\nheroes, Ossian, sings--\n\n    \"We made his cairn great and high\n     Like a king's.\"\n\nAfter that there would be periodical meetings in his honour, the\ncelebration of games, solemn recitations by bards, singing his aristeia\n[Transcriber's Note: Greek in the original]. Gradually the new wine\nwould burst the old bottles. The ever-active, eager-loving imagination\nwould behold the champion grown to heroic proportions, the favourite of\nthe gods, the performer of superhuman feats. The tomb, which was once\ncommensurate with the love and reverence which he inspired, would seem\nso now no longer. The tribal bards, wandering or attending the great\nfairs and assemblies, would disperse among strangers and neighbours a\nknowledge of his renown. In the same cemetery or neighbourhood their\nmight be other tombs of heroes now forgotten, while he, whose fame was\nin every bardic mouth in all that region, was honoured only with a tomb\nno greater than theirs. The mere king or champion, grown into a topical\nhero, would need a greater tomb.\n\nEre long again, owing to the bardic fraternity, who, though coming from\nInnishowen or Cape Clear, formed a single community, the topical hero\nwould, in some cases, where his character was such as would excite\ndeeper reverence and greater fame, grow into a national hero, and a\nstill nobler tomb be required, in order that the visible memorial might\nprove commensurate with the imaginative conception.\n\nNow all this time the periodic celebrations, the games, and\nlamentations, and songs would be assuming a more solemn character. Awe\nwould more and more mingle with the other feelings inspired by his name.\nCertain rites and a certain ritual would attend those annual games\nand lamentations, which would formerly not have been suitable, and\neventually, when the hero, slowly drawing nearer through generations,\nif not centuries, at last reached Tir-na-n-Og, and was received into\nthe family of the gods, a religious feeling of a different nature would\nmingle with the more secular celebration of his memory, and his rath or\ncairn would assume in their eyes a new character.\n\nTo an ardent imaginative people the complete extinction by death of a\nmuch-loved hero would even at first be hardly possible. That the tomb\nwhich held his ashes should be looked upon as the house of the hero must\nhave been, even shortly after his interment, a prevailing sentiment,\nwhether expressed or not. Also, the feeling must have been present,\nthat the hero in whose honour they performed the annual games, and\nperiodically chanted the remembrance of whose achievements, saw and\nheard those things that were done in his honour. But as the celebration\nbecame greater and more solemn, this feeling would become more strong,\nand as the tomb, from a small heap of stones or low mound, grew into an\nenormous and imposing rath, the belief that this was the hero's house,\nin which he invisibly dwelt, could not be avoided, even before they\nceased to regard him as a disembodied hero; and after the hero had\nmingled with the divine clans, and was numbered amongst the gods, the\nidea that the rath was a tomb could not logically be entertained. As\na god, was he not one of those who had eaten of the food provided by\nMananan, and therefore never died. The rath would then become his house\nor temple. As matter of fact, the bardic writings teem with this idea.\nFrom reason and probability, we would with some certainty conclude that\nthe great tumulus of New Grange was the temple of some Irish god; but\nthat it was so, we know as a fact. The father and king of the gods\nis alluded to as dwelling there, going out from thence, and returning\nagain, and there holding his invisible court.\n\n      \"Behold the _Sid_ before your eyes,\n       It is manifest to you that it is a king's mansion.\"\n[Note: O'Curry's Manuscript Materials of Irish History, page 505.]\n\n      \"Bove Derg went to visit the Dagda at the Brugh of Mac-An-Og.\"\n[Note: \"Dream of Angus,\" Revue Celtique, Vol. III., page 349.]\n\nHere also dwelt Angus Og, the son of the Dagda. In this, his spiritual\ncourt or temple, he is represented as having entertained Oscar and\nthe Ossianic heroes, and thither he conducted [Note: Publications of\nOssianic Society, Vol. III., page 201.] the spirit of Diarmid, that he\nmight have him for ever there.\n\nIn the etymology also we see the origin of the Irish gods. A grave in\nIrish is Sid, the disembodied spirit is Sidhe, and this latter word\nglosses Tuatha De Danan.\n\nThe fact that the grave of a hero developed slowly into the temple of\na god, explains certain obscurities in the annals and literature. As\na hero was exalted into a god, so in turn a god sank into a hero,\nor rather into the race of the giants. The elder gods, conquered and\ndestroyed by the younger, could no longer be regarded as really divine,\nfor were they not proved to be mortal? The development of the temple\nfrom the tomb was not forgotten, the whole country being filled with\nsuch tombs and incipient temples, from the great Brugh on the Boyne to\nthe smallest mound in any of the cemeteries. Thus, when the elder gods\nlost their spiritual sovereignty, and their destruction at the hands of\nthe younger took the form of great battles, then as the god was forced\nto become a giant, so his temple was remembered to be a tomb. Doubtless,\nin his own territory, divine honours were still paid him; but in the\nnational imagination and in the classical literature and received\nhistory, he was a giant of the olden time, slain by the gods, and\ninterred in the rath which bore his name. Such was the great Mac Erc,\nKing of Fir-bolgs.\n\nAgain, when the mediaeval Christians ceased to regard the Tuatha De\nDanan as devils, and proceeded to rationalise the divine record as the\nethnic bards had rationalised the history of the early gods; the Tuatha\nDe Danan, shorn of immortality, became ancient heroes who had lived\ntheir day and died, and the greater raths, no longer the houses of the\ngods, figure in that literature irrationally rational, as their tombs.\nThus we are gravely informed [Note: Annals of Four Masters.] that \"the\nDagda Mor, after the second battle of Moy Tura, retired to the Brugh on\nthe Boyne, where he died from the venom of the wounds inflicted on him\nby Kethlenn\"--the Fomorian amazon--\"and was there interred.\" Even in\nthis passage the writer seems to have been unable to dispossess his mind\nquite of the traditional belief that the Brugh was the Dagda's house.\n\nThe peculiarity of this mound, in addition to its size, is the\nspaciousness of the central chamber. This was that germ which, but for\nthe overthrow of the bardic religion, would have developed into a temple\nin the classic sense of the word. A two-fold motive would have impelled\nthe growing civilisation in this direction. A desire to make the house\nof the god as spacious within as it was great without, and a desire to\ntransfer his worship, or the more esoteric and solemn part of it, from\nwithout to within. Either the absence of architectural knowledge, or\nthe force of conservatism, or the advent of the Christian missionaries,\nchecked any further development on these lines.\n\nElsewhere the tomb, instead of developing as a tumulus or barrow,\nproduced the effect of greatness by huge circumvallations of earth, and\nmassive walls of stone. Such is the temple of Ned the war-god, called\nAula Neid, the court or palace of Ned, near the Foyle in the North. Had\nthe ethnic civilisation of Ireland been suffered to develop according to\nits own laws, it is probable that, as the roofed central chamber of the\ncairn would have grown until it filled the space occupied by the mound,\nso the open-walled temple would have developed into a covered building,\nby the elevation of the walls, and their gradual inclination to the\ncentre.\n\nThe bee-hive houses of the monks, the early churches, and the round\ntowers are a development of that architecture which constructed the\ncentral chambers of the raths. In this fact lies, too, the explanation\nof the cyclopean style of building which characterizes our most ancient\nbuildings. The cromlech alone, formed in very ancient times the central\nchamber of the cairn; it is found in the centre of the raths on Moy\nTura, belonging to the stone age and that of the Firbolgs. When the\ncromlech fell into disuse, the arched chamber above the ashes of the\nhero was constructed with enormous stones, as a substitute for the\nmajestic appearance presented by the massive slab and supporting pillars\nof the more ancient cromlech, and the early stone buildings preserved\nthe same characteristic to a certain extent.\n\nThe same sentiment which caused the mediaeval Christians to disinter and\nenshrine the bones of their saints, and subsequently to re-enshrine\nthem with greater art and more precious materials, caused the ethnic\nworshippers of heroes to erect nobler tombs over the inurned relics\nof those whom they revered, as the meanness of the tomb was seen to\nmisrepresent and humiliate the sublimity of the conception. But the\nChristians could never have imagined their saints to have been anything\nbut men--a fact which caused the retention and preservation of the\nrelics. When the Gentiles exalted their hero into a god, the charred\nbones were forgotten or ascribed to another. The hero then became\nimmortal in his own right; he had feasted with Mananan and eaten his\nlife-giving food, and would not know death.\n\nWhen the mortal character of the hero was forgotten, his house or temple\nmight be erected anywhere. The great Raths of the Boyne--a place grown\nsacred from causes which we may not now learn--represented, probably,\nheroes and heroines, who died and were interred in many different parts\nof the country.\n\nTo recapitulate, the Dagda Mor was a divine title given to a hero named\nEocaidh, who lived many centuries before the birth of Christ, and in the\ndepths of the pre-historic ages. He was the mortal scion or ward of\nan elder god, Elathan, and was interred in some unknown grave--marked,\nperhaps, by a plain pillar stone, or small insignificant cairn.\n\nThe great tumulus of New Grange was the temple of the divine or\nsupernatural period of his spiritual or imagined career after death, and\nwas a development by steps from that small unremembered grave where once\nhis warriors hid the inurned ashes of the hero.\n\nWhat is true of one branch of the Aryan family is true of all.\nSentiments of such universality and depth must have been common to all.\nIf this be so, the Olympian Zeus himself was once some rude chieftain\ndwelling in Thrace or Macedonia, and his sublime temple of Doric\narchitecture traceable to some insignificant cairn or flagged cist in\nGreece, or some earlier home of the Hellenic race, and his name not\nZeus, but another; and Kronos, that god whom he, as a living wight,\nadored, and under whose protection and favour he prospered.","title":"Early Bardic Literature, Ireland.","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":20278}