Druidheacheachd, which the Anglo-Normans called magic, was the

business of certain members of the druidic class of the Celtic peoples of

ancient Britain. Druidism was a system of religion, philosophy and
instruction taught by the the draudh, or druids, It is not certain whether
druidism was an invention of the Celts or a pre-Celtic religion adopted
from the aboriginal inhabitants but these arts have generally been
considered British in origin.

The Celts came to the western islands from the Near East. The
meaning of their name is not certainly known but one sassenach writer
associates it with the Welsh "celt", a covert or hiding place. The Gaelic
scholar Alexander Macbain suggests they were less reclusive, tracing the
name to fifth and fourth century B.C. accounts of the Greek historians
Herodotus and Xenophon. He says the proper source is the Greek "keltos",
"the lofty ones" corresponding with the Latin word "celsus" from which we
have the English "excel". The root word may have been the Greek "gel", "to
rise up in anger, to slay", suggesting a war-like people.

The original homeland of the Celts is not precisely known but they
were horsemen who spilled out of the rich grasslands north of Greece and
followed the Danube River west, contesting the failing Roman Empire and
settling most of central Europe. They may once have belonged to a single
tribe, but their assimilation of others left them with little in common
except a vocabulary. Physically. they became very diverse, thus the
Celtic-speakers who the Romans encountered in Gaul, or France, were
described as "tall, blond and large bodied." Those they met in what is now
Bavarian Germany were seen to be "a short round headed race with brown
or black hair and gray or brown eyes."

The Celtic language is a branch of the Indo-European, or Aryan

family of speech, which embraces most of the modern languages of
present-day Europe. Wordsmiths tell us that the Arian, Slavonic,
Teutonic, Italic, Celtic and Iranian tongues resemble one another in
vocabulary and grammar to such an extent that they have to be considered
descendant from a single parent tongue. Macbain thinks that this proto-
language was spoken in ancient Sarmatia (southern Russia) about five
thousand years ago. These Aryans appear to have have a great wanderlust,
and parting from their old homes, moved up the Danube to settle the Rhine
and migrated south from there to populate the Gulf of Venice. Other men
went other ways, some eastward across the steppes to settle India and
Iran. The Teutons finally installed themselves in the extreme
northwestern corner of Europe and the Hellenes in the southeast.

The Celts moved out of the east at least two thousand years after
the others and now comprises five living languages situated in the places
where they finally settled. In the eighteenth century there were six
existing variants, but the Cornish tongue has since succumbed. Those that
are known to us are grouped as belonging to the Brittonic or the Gadelic
divisions of the Celtic language. The main difference between these two
branches is one of pronounciation: The Gadels follow the guttural pattern
of the parent Aryan tongue having a sound in their language conventionally
identified by the English letter "q". This sound is seen in the Scto-Irish
word for "son" which is written as "mac", but is pronounced somewhat like
"maq". The Brittonic tribesmen tended to flatten the "q" by adding a "w"
to it, finally subverting it into a simple "p" sound. The Gaedelic "mac" was
thus reinterpreted in Crymric language of Wales as "map". Similarly, the
Gaelic form for the word "five" is "coig" (pronounced with a "q" inflexion
on the "c"), while the Welsh equivalent is "pump".

This distinction into P and Q sound groups existed before the

Christain era, the Gaul's of Caesar's Gallic Wars belonging to the P-group.
The Gallish form for the number "four" was "petor", the Welsh form being
"pedwar" and the Gaedelic or Gaelic "ceithir". In general the P-groups
were continental European versions of the Celtic tongue, the most
prominent form being Gaulish, which was spoken in France and Spain until
it disappeared in the fifth century of our era. Gallo-British or Brittonic
was spoken in England after conquering Gaulish tribsmen went there. The
Breton language of France returned to the continent from England. The
Cymric languages of Wales and Cornwall, like that of Brittany, represent
variants of the Brittonic, or Brythonic, tongue. The Pictish language is
sometimes considered part of the Britonnic or P-group. It was once
spoken in Scotland and perhaps northern England, but like the language of
Cornwall and that of the English Britons, is now extinct. The Q-group or
Gadelic was first spoken in Ireland and from there passed to the Isle of
Man and the West Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

The Gaelic languages -Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic-

have more connections with one another than with any of the Brittonic
tongues. Until the Reformation, and for a century thereafter, the Irish and
Scots Gaels shared a common literary language, although their spoken
tongues had diverged so that they could scarcely comprehend one another.
Part of the problem stemmed from deliberate Protestant revisionism but
Scottish Gaelic always had a far more cosmoplitan vocabulary than the
Irish form, borrowing words from other languages as the need arose. That
need came when they collided with Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse invaders,
and their loan-words are thus largely English or Norse.

The Q and P-speakers and their druid priests would have remained in
the Near East except for changes in the world's climate and the
development of farming and herding to the exclusion of hunting and
foraging. Ian W. Cornwall, a lecturer in archaerology at London University
has noted that "the culture and equipment of man are very closely
conncted with climate." He has noted that the homeland of the human
species, in either Asia or Africa, must have been favoured with a tropical
climate: "Outside this zone, clothing, shelter, and the use of fire became
necessary for warmth, if not survival...Only within the tropics does nature
provide vegetable foodstuffs and fruits for the gathering at all seasons,
so that elsewhere primitive man has had to be...a hunter...The poleward
range of the farmer depends very much on the hardiness of his staple
crops and the length of the growing seasons they may require. Wheat and
bareley are sub-tropical in origin and prehistoric strains did not flourish
much north of latitude 50 degrees. Oats and rye are quicker to mature and
so permit a more northern range in the shorter summmers. Maize (Indian
corn) is not frost tolerant. 1

While it is true that men have occupied parts of Britain for hundreds
of thousands of years they have been kept from possessing all of it by the
fact of ice on the land. Whatever the cause, the world has experienced at
least nine periods of foul weather and subsequent continental glaciation.
The first glacial age began 2.5 million years ago, when man's early
antecedents prowled Africa's plains. The most recent advance of ice
reached a peak a mere 18,000 years ago when Cro-Magnon artists were
busy painting cave walls in southern France.

At that time there was three times as much ice on the face of our
planet as now exists at the two poles. This gave present temperate lands
on both continents an arctic, or at least a sub-arctic character. In Europe
an ice sheet covered the whole of Scandinavia, almost all of the British
Isles, except extreme southern England, and most of the lowland countries
north of France. In those cold days the Alpine glaciers were much larger
than is presently the case. In Africa tthe climate in the extreme north and
south was temperate by comparison with the present. There was no
widespread glaciation although the Atlas Mountains were encased in ice
and local ice-centres overlaid the great equatorial volcanoes of Kenya,
Elgon and Kilimanjaro. The southward shift of climatic zones created
humid rainforests on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea and there was
more vegetation and less sand in the northern Sahara.

The glacial advances have generally taken an average of 100,000

years, while the interglacial warmth has rarely lasted more than 10.000.
The most recent advance of ice is termed the Wisconsin glaciation in
North America and the Wuurm in Europe. At its height 18,000 years ago,
the mass heated and the ice withdrew in two distinct stages of melting
and flooding, the first 13,000 years before the present, the second 10,000
years ago. Interestingly, thaqt first date almost corresponds with the
loss of the island kindom of Atlantis to sudden and unexpected flooding.

While the balance between land and water has not changed much in
the last few thousand years, this was not always the case. In the longer
geological record it is clear that many continental islands were once tied
to the land. Certainly the exposed portion of England was intimately
linked with France and Spain when the ice rode highest on the land.
Although the weight of ice had a tendancy to depress the crust of the
earth, the level of sea-water is estimated to have been lower by as much
as 100 meters (330 feet) because of the extra water then held as ice. The
deepest present-day soundings of the English Channel are a little over
thirty fathoms (180 feet) making it evident that this sea-bed was once
exposed. At the time of the Wuurm glaciation men could have travelled
with dry feet from Paris to the cliffs of Dover over a broad front, taking
only minor detours around shallow lakes. Ireland was largely under ice,
but in any event would have been unapproachable except by boat because of
the deepness of the Irish Sea. This is consistent with the findings of
archaeology: Remains of Lower Paleolithic colonies have been found in
southern England but nothing of comparable age has been located in
Ireland. Ireland probably had very narrow land-bridges to England at the
extreme of glaciation, but it is guessed that conditions were too severe
for any humans to contemplate passage to this outer island.

In this situation a few hardy stone-armed men hunted the southern

edge of the ice subsisting on the game animals, birds and fish of that hard
land. As a rule, south-western Europe had few resources and could only
support loosely allied small social groups which were little more than
extended families. The energies of individuals were probably not entirely
committed to making a living, but famine and inconsitent weather served
as checks on the population. As the game moved, these small communities
trailed. Because they were nomadic, these hunter-gathers had little
chance to develop complex social structures and a division of labours.

The situation might have remained such except for the withdrawl of
the ice. By 6,000 B.C. the world had reached a Climatic Optimum or
Thermal Maximum and passed through a time when temperatures were, on
average, higher than at any time since the last interglacial period some
125,000 years ago. This swept away all but the polar ice, completely
drowning former lowlands, making distinct islands of the lands later
known as Britain. The unexpected warmth thrust the northern line of the
temperate zone into Scandinavia creating opportunities for
agriculturalists and problems of adaptation for the hunter-fisher folk
whose food resources were threatened by this alien climate.

It is thought that Emmer wheat and barley, the two cereals that
dominated early farming, were transplanted from Mesopotamia to the
uplands of Palestine, Irag, Iran and Turkey at about this time. The
increase in world temperatures was, of course, felt nearer the equator and
ultimately much of this land became desert. Fortunately for the budding
civilizations around the Nile valley there was a temporary return to
wetter conditions in the neighbourhood of the Mediterranean. There were
bitter retreats to ice and cold in the first century before Christ and
another depression of temperatures about the year 1200 A.D. This Little
Ice Age continued until the mid-1800s with glaciers again on the rise in
the Alps and Alaska and the Old Norse colonists frozen out of Alsaka.
Since the middle years of the 1800s the world's climate has has turned
warm again, temperatures being nudged up by the carbon dioxide screen
formed by industrial pollutants and from a loss of the screening effect of
the earth's ozone layer.

The general move towards warmer temperatures gradually reduced

the productivity of the oldest farming regions and forced men to seek
tillage in the new temperate zones. This was not an easy matter since all
cultivated cereals had to be introduced into environments different from
those in which they had been originally domesticated. There were no
massive rivers with flood plains like those of Nile and Mesopotamian
valleys in the north lands. Crop rotation was, as yet, an undiscovered
innovation and there were no annual floods in the uplands of Turkey to
restore the productivity of the land. As a result, the first farmers of Asia
Minor and southern Europe were pushed into a relentless quest for land.

Historians have been as pushy in their disdain for the hunter-

gatherers in our human line. Grahame Clarke, a one-time teacher at
Cambridge University, said that only the pioneers of farming were able to
emerge from the Stone Age: "It was only through the control of breeding
animals and plants that early man was able to ensure himself a reliable
and readily expandable source of food and thereby establish a secure basis
for cultural advance. The invention of farming was indeed revolutionary in
the sense that it alone made possible the rise of literate civilizations." 2

Clark did say that agriculture was "inherently expansive" but he

failed to notice the effects of the twelve mile per year march out of the
east into western lands. One of the early movers and shakers of the Celts
was Hu Gardarn:

"Many will exclaim who was Hu Gardarn? Hu Gardarn in the Gwlad yr

Haf, or summer country, a certain region of the east, perhaps the Crimea,
taught the Cumry (Welsh) the arts of civilized life, to build comfortable
houses, to sow grain and reap, to tame the buffalo and the bison...to cut
down forests cultivate the vine, make mead and wine...fuse metals into
various instruments and weapons and to move in masses (of men in
military formations) against their enemies...(He came to Wales) when the
summer country was over populated leading an immense multitude of men
across many lands to Britain." Hu was an early land developer who had no
patience for "the few savage Gauls" who had the misfortune to occupy the
land when he arrived. He quickly "subdued" them and made the land "a
smiling region, forests thinned, bears and wolves hunted down, efync
(crocodiles) annihilated...corn planted, and pleasant cottages erected.
After his death he was worshipped as the god of agriculture and war by
both the Cumry and the Gauls."3

It is obvious that Hu allowed no place for dangerous predators,

human or otherwise, and that those "few savage Gauls" were in no position
to oppose this new "god". These earlier inhabitants probably lived by
hunting and had learned effective techniques for killing animals, and had
the sense to adapt them to the business of killing men where it was
required. Usually violence against individuals was not needed since
hunters roamed a vast territory in which they had little contact with
other similar bands of people. We can guess that these early British
communities probably contained no more than a dozen related families,
the individuals recognizing no leader of any sort, all occupying temporary
villages in which there was no specialization in work beyond the fact that
men hunted and women gathered plant food and tended the children. Each
family was a law unto itself although it seems probable that a few
cousins and friends might co-operate in building traps to take animals.

Individual bands probably had territorial instincts and reacted

strongly when strange people crossed their boundaries. Since they
undoubtedly spoke dialectic forms of some similar language it is doubtful
if they could immediately distinguish between threats and peaceful
gestures. In this situation, there was always some violence, but the
various woodland bands of Britain were rarely capable of the imagination
and coordination needed to conquer another group and occupy its territory,
if there had been any point in such an act. Other bands might have a few
debatably useful material possessions, but slaves were not of much use,
and additional territory would hardly add to the standard of living of
hunter-gathers unless they were driven by famine.

Notwithstanding, it has been noted that, in examining hundreds of

Stone Age societies, our European ancestors found "scarcely one example
of a tribe locked in a death struggle with its neighbours because of
population pressure and economic scarcity. They were almost
continuously involved in low-level warfare against their neighbours in
their spare time, but nobody thought winning was sufficiently important
to put much thought into organizing warfare efficiently..." 4

This statement can probablty be extended to Hu's "savage Gauls".

Gwynne Dyer thinks that "precivilized" warfare was "predominantly a
rough male sport for underemployed hunters, with the kinds of damage
limiting rules that all competitive sports have...war tends to bulk larger
and get more destructive among the more sophisticated aboriginal peoples
(those) who have moved on to primitive agriculture or herding (where) the
warriors (have developed into a class)...have even more free time and are
beginning to acquire more material interests to defend." 5
 The fist legendary peoples to occupy Ireland for any long period of
time were the pre-Celtic Fomorians who fought to a stand-still against
the another stone-age race, known as the Firbolgs. Both races were
opposed by the bronze-age Tuatha daoine, but even they had a sense for
ethics in warfare: When the two armies stood opposite one another on the
Mayo-Galway border, the obviously over-matched Firbolgs announced that
they would not do battle until they were given several days to sharpen
their weapons. When they had done this, they insisted on more time to
perfect their shields and brighten their helmets. On another occasion they
noticed that the Tuathans had a superior light spear and successfully sued
for a long interval in which to have similar weapons made. This was not
the end of this fretful manoeuvering, and in all, the Firbolgs were able to
talk their enemy into one hundred and five days of delay. At the last hour,
the Tuathans, noting that the Firbolgs outnumbered them, got in a point of
their own, demanding that the armies be matched man for man. This was
agreed to in recognition of the fact that it would leave the Firbolgs with a
back up force. At that, they suffered defeat after four days of battle and
reconferred, reducing potential losses of life by cutting the warring
forces to 300 men on each side. The Tuathans won this struggle, but
recognizing the valour of the Firbolgs,granted them possession of the
province now called Connaught.

In the early "wars" men managed to get exercise but relatively few
people were killed. As Gywnn Dyer says this was a time when there were
"no leaders, no strategy, and no tactics", when only kinship groups were
usually involved "most often to revenge a killing or a ritual offense
committed by another group..." Warfare was, at its "best", "an important
ritual, an exciting and dangerous game, and perhaps an opportunity for self
expression, but it (was) not about power...and it most certainly (was) not
about wholesale slaughter." 6

Gwynne Dyer says that "the gulf between primitive and civilized
societies is as vast in warfare as it is in other respects. The essence of
the Neolithic revolution was not the discovery...that food could be obtained
more reliably and in greater abundance by planting and harvesting crops
and taming or breeding animals...It was the insight that human will and
organization could exercise control over the natural world - and over large
numbers of human beings."7 In other words, the development of
agriculture allowed the creation of a class-society whose most elevated
members began to see the possibilty of great personal gain in exercising
power.

Lewis Mumford has suggested that it was "the essence of

civilization" to exert power in all its forms. The roots of the first
civilizations, he claimed, are to be found in states that were so absolutist
and awesomely cruel they make Nazi Germany seem a moral commonplace.
Dyer thinks that the first experiments at weilding power went to the
heads of the earliest leaders of state causing them to build practical
irrigation canals on one hand, and to pursue vast personal memorials, such
as the pyramids, on the other. Between ends, powerful men waged wars of
extermination which were often little more than personal vendettas
waged with the complicity of newly "civilized" men.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF POWER

In the days when there were no permanent leaders of men power

was recognized as a temporary attribute. Among the primitives any man
who could raise a following became the chief of a war party. In some
tribes he might maintain absolute control of those who followed for the
duration of the expedition. This elevated state lasted as long as the
band's interest in war-like play.

Before physics became a science, primitive men understood that

physical force was any push or pull resulting in motion, and formulated
the idea that work was force acting through a height or distance. Power
was understood as the work done in a unit of time. This idea was extended
to psychic concepts and the most powerful men and animals were seen to
act, mentally or physically, with greater force or speed than others of
their kind.

At that, the greatest power was seen to reside in the natural world,
where it periodically acted against men in violent movements of fire,
earth, wind and water. Considering this, the early hunter-gatherers
probably supposed that ultimate control must lay with a creator-god
whose will was channelled through lightning, vulcanism, earthquakes,
hurricanes and whirlpools. The creator god was often left unnamed, it
being thought presumptuous and dangerous to draw his attention by
referring to him directly. Early on, it was noticed that the god behind
nature was quixotic, a dangerous easily aroused enemy and an unreliable
ally.
 Some men may have privately thanked this creator for their
existence and the world within which they found themselves, but the
father of all things was rarely credited with much continuing interest in
his universe. He was thought to stand outside of time when he started the
celestial mechanics of the sun, moon and stars. It was further suggested
that he provided the life force inherent in plants and animals, but the
mortal gods were often credited with actually creating life.

Some pagan philosophers suggested that the supreme god suffered

from boredom and, on a celestial whim, divided his "cumhacd", or power,
among three elemental gods of fire, wind and water. In doing so, the one
god appears to have shielded his creations from the fact that they were
divisions of a single force destined to reunion at the end of time. The
vital spark given these gods was known to the Gaels as "rong"; the Anglo-
Saxons called it ghost; the Anglo-Normans, spirit. Thus the elemental
gods used to be referred to as god-spirits or god-ghosts. Like the
creator-god, these three god-spirits, or elemental gods, were generated
out of primal chaos. The Norse scalds, or poets, declared that before the
world existed there was nothing where our earth now stands but the
Ginnungagap (Beginning Gap) , "whose depths no eye could fathom, as it
was enveloped in perpetual twilight. Yet in the beginning, when there was
no earth, nor sea, nor air, when darkness ruled over all, there existed in
this place, a powerful being called Allfather, dimly conceived, uncreated,
unseen. (Moreover) whatever he willed came to pass." 8

The Gaelic counterpart of the Allfather was referred to obliquely for

fear of drawing his unwanted attention. Some called him An Tigherarna
(The Lord). Others identified him as An Olathir (The Father of Drink). More
often he was simply An Athir (The Father of All) or Ard Athir (The High
Father). From this last we have the English name Arthur. Be-al was
another name given the creator-god. Thomas Bulfinch says the name is
Druidic in origin and has translated it as "the life of everything," or "the
source of all being." Bulfinch though it likely that Be-al, sometimes
given as Be-ul or Be-ol or Ba-il, had affinities with the Phoenician Baal:
"Druids as well as Phoenicians identified this (god), their supreme deity,
with the Sun. Fire was regarded as a symbol of the divinity..." 9

In Gaelic. the word continues in several forms, notably "beul" mouth,

derived from the Old Irish "bel", which has the sense of the chief speaker
for a multitude of men; the "mouth" of the tribe; the leader. Certainly it is
related to "balgum", a mouthfull, and "bailceach", a strong man, the chief
of a "baile", or township. Also note: "bealltuinn", or balefire, the fires of
Be-al and the time when they were lit, i.e. May Day. The wordsmith,
Alexander Macbain adds that the word confers with the Anglo-Saxon "bael"
white (like intense fire) and with the Gaullish god-names Belenos and
Belisama.

"Baal" was never a word which was the sole property of the
Phoenicians, being rather "any of a multitude of local deities of the
Semetic races, each distinguished by the name of his own place or of
some distinctive character or attribute. Thus the Hebrews used the name
in the sense of "lord", and we see Biblical references to the Baal of Tyre,
of Sidon, of Lebanon, and of Tarus. Of particular note was Baal-ze-bub,
liteerally the Lord of Flies, sometimes confounded with Satan or the Devil.
Baal became a compound in many eastern place names and in the names of
people, some examples being: Hannibaal (in favour with Baal); Hasdrubaal
(the helper of Baal); Baal-hermon (place of the Baal named Hermon); and
Baal-peor (place of the Baal named Peter). Something very similar is
found in Gaelic places such as Baile-nan-cailleach (place of the old woman
goddess); Baile-an-luig (place of the god Lugh); and Bail'uaine (place of the
green-coloured lord). Thus the Olaithir is represented in those who have
particulary large portions of his spirit.

Some of these nature gods are the elemental gods, those whose
existence was independent of time and who shared in the indestructibilty
and immortality of the Oolaithir. Among all the northern tribes the will
of the Allfather was seen as the impetus for the creation but the
elementals were credited with performing the physical tasks that led to
the rise of the worlds and life forms from darkling swirls of dust.

The immortal god had no restrictions on his power, except those he

willingly placed on himself when he created the elementals. Sir James
George Fraser noticed that these spirits of nature are distinguished from
the creator god and mortal gods by the fact that their magic is confined to
a single department of nature. He has also noted: "Their names are
generic, not proper." This means that the names they are given are
synonyms for fire, air and water. Wherever they were found, the three
prime nature spirits were members of a class, having no marked
individuality, no agreed upon origins, and (in general) a threadbare history.
 Men agreed that the elementals were a surly lot, liable to bring
storms of fire, wind and water upon men without warning or care for their
needs or desires. Forest fires, tornados and dangerous eddies of water
were seen as embodied powers that ravaged in spite of sacrifice, prayer
and praise. Propitiation moved neither the creator-god nor his god-spirits
although occasional attempts were made to influence the latter through
sympathetic magic: When the earth was dry individuals sometimes
sprinkled droplets of water on it hoping to get the attention of the water
god, who might respond by creating showers on a larger scale. Where the
sun was wanting hunters sometimes fired flaming arrows into the clouds
hoping to catch the "eye" of the sun god on the other side of the overcast.
If a little wind was needed to propel a sailing ship, a cloth might be
flapped in the air with the intention of arousing the legarthic wind-god.
These rites of the elder world could be performed by any individual, at any
time or place as the ocassion demanded. No temples were built to honour
the triad of elementals and no special class of individual was needed to
act as priests to the tribe.

Among the Old Norse the elemental gods were known as Loki (fire),
Hler (water) and Kari (wind). The first can be shown to correpond exactly
with the Gaelic god known as Lugh (pronounced Lookah), the second with
Ler and the third (less certainly) with the god Myrrdyn (whose name is a
Cymric form of Merlin). In Norse mythology it is said that the elemental
gods played unintentional parts in creating the world of men and life
itself. North of the Beginning Gap there developed the world of
Nifhelheim, later given to the control of Hel, goddess of death. From the
first it was a land of the water-god, the home of an inexhaustible spring
named Hvergelmir, literally the seething cauldron. Its water spilled over
to create the twelve great rivers of the northlands, collectively called the
Elivagar. These waters ran to the edge of the Gap and fell into it, freezing
into ice as they fell through the kingdom of the air-god, who blasted them
with his cold breath. Aroused by sounds of collecting and colliding glacial
ice, the fire god approached from Muspellheim in the south brandishing his
flashing sword. From it sparks flaked off into the chasm, falling upon the
ice mass giving rise to steam. From the steam arose Ymir, or Orgelmir,
the frost giant, the first mortal. To provide for him the Allfather willed
the co-creation of a giant cow, which licked the form of the first mortal
god from an ice block. The proto- giant and the first god reproduced
themselves asexually and soon fell into warfare over possession of the
secrets of brewing. In that war between the gods and the giants Ymir, or
Hymer, was killed. The cause of the first god Buri might never have been
won except that his son Borr impregnated the giantess Bestla giving rise
to the mortal gods who had an innate grasp of magic. These latter day
"gods" tumbled Ymir's body into the Beginning Gap and salvaged the body
parts to create the world of men. In some of the sagas it was said that
the "elder gods" willed the existence of the elfen folk and men. In other
accounts the honour is given to the mortal gods, Odin and his brothers Vili
and Ve, but they were constantly usurping the priveleges and character of
earlier dieties.

Whatever the case, the triumvirate of gods walked the shores of

Middle Earth at an early date and there found two logs of driftwood which
abstracted human form. Gazing on them they perceived the will behind
their will and animated them; the elm as Embla, the first woman and the
ash as Ask, the first man. To these the wind god imparted the ability of
motion. The water god gave them souls which allowed them the powers of
speech and thouight, while Loki, sometimes called Lodur, gifted them with
"blood and blooming complexions."

H.A. Guerber says that, "In the beginning Loki was merely the
personification of the hearth fire and of the spirit of life." He was also an
abstraction of "wildfire", field or forest fires, and of lightning, his name
being related to the Old Norse verb "lokker", to twist or bend. Long ago he
was given charge of the desultory southern winds of summer. In the most
distant times he may have been considered the god of the sun, but with the
arrival of the mortal gods in the northlands, this honour was given to
Odin's son, Baldur.

Loki was entitled "Lokki loojemand", or Loki play-fellow. in the

Anglo-Saxon tongue. His red hair, beautiful appearance, and convivial
character were attractive to Odin and his Aesir, who welcomed him to
their fellowship in spite of the fact that he belonged to the old order of
deities. In the confusion of making early records some authorities said
that Loki was the brother of Odin, but others were sure that he was
merely a blood-brother, one who had undergone a ceremony of affiliation
common in the northlands.

In the new situation, the lightning god took up with Thor, the god of
thunder, who became a nearly inseparable companion. Guerber thinks that
Thor was the god of industry and hard work while Loki represented
indolence and the playboy attitude: "Thor was ever busy and ever in
earnest, but Loki makes fun of everything, until at last his love of
mischief leads him entirely astray, and he loses all love for goodness and
becomes utterly selfish and malevolent." 10

While Loki provided men with the blood of their being it contained
the fire of passion and mischief which had the capacity to ignite and
detroy them, as it did Loki. In the latter days, Loki puirloined Thor's
hammer to Ymir's people, stole Freya's necklace, chemically removed Sif's
hair and betrayed Idun into the power of Thiassi, one of race of giants. He
mated first with the goddess called Glut, but later bedded the giantess
named Angurboda who bore him Hel, goddess of death, the fearsome Mid-
Earth snake Ioormungandr and the Fenris wolf. These three god-giants
gave the Aesir great trouble until Odin banished Hel to Nifhelheim, threw
the water snake into the deepest waters of the ocean and chained the wolf
in the netherworld. All this was overlooked by the patient gods, but his
unceasing hatred for Baldur caused him to plot his death. Baldur had been
made invincible by the fact that all of earth's plants and animals were
pledged not to harm him from birth. Knowing of this "geis", the gods used
to amuse themselves by throwing spears and knives made of various
materials at Baldur watching as they turned away at the last minutye.
Loki discovered that the mistletoe had been overlooked in the promising
and fashioned a dart of this wood. He then guided the hand of ther blind
god Hodur, the brother of Odin, in throwing this missile. The mistletoe
proved fatal to Baldur, who was lost to the land of Hel since he was not a
victim of death in battle. The gods later arranged for the sun gods half
yearly repatriation to earth during the summer season, but before that
they pursued and bound Loki within the deepest caverns of Nifhelheim.
Being an immortal god he remains there awaiting liberation at the end of
time, when it has been promised that his fires will detroy the physical
creations of Odin's mortal gods. It is hear noted that the day now called
Saturday was formerly called Laugardag, or Loki's day, his promised day of
return, that "lokk" corresponds with the English word "lock", and that Loki
was laterally thought of as the the god of locked. bound, or underground
fire.

"As Loki was the embodiment of evil in the minds if the Northern
races, they entertained nothing but fear of him, built no temples to his
honour, offered no sacrifices to him, and designated the most noxious
weeds by his name. The quivewring, overheated atmosphere od summer
was supposed to betoken his presence, for the people were often wont to
remark that Loki was sowing his wild oats, and when the sun appeared to
be drawing water they said Loki was drinking." 11

This former god of the sun was not restricted to Scandinavia. In

Germany he was Luchre, Laugar, Lothar or Lubber, "to whom the bones of
animals used to be offered in Mansefield." Thomas Keightley thought the
lubber-fiend might have some connexion with the French fay-creature
known as the Lubin or Lutin, a mischievous little man who braided the
manes of men's horses while they slept. The Anglo-Saxons brought
memory of Loki to Britain in their lug, lob, loby, lubbard, lubber, or
lubberkin, a similar invisible creature with tendancies toward sloth on
one hand and practical jokes on the other. The English lob of the spirits
was recalled in the writing of Shakespeare and Milton and the phrase
"being in, or getting in Lob's pound" is still understood in some places as
being "between a rock and a hard place."

The travels of Loki have been extensive. Keightley notes, almost

sadly that the Leprachaun, "peculiar to Ireland, seems indebted to England
for his name. In Irish...he is called Lobaircin, and it would not be easy to
write the English Lubberkin more accurately with Irish letters and sounds.
Leprachaun is evidently a corruption of that word." 12

Keightley further notes that the Ulster name for the southern Irish
lubarkin is, in Gaelic, lugharman, sometimes represented as logheryman.
He says "we should be tempted to derive it from the Anglo-Saxon "lacan,
loecan, to play." (Remember that) Loki Loojemand, Loki Playman, is a name
of the Eddaic deity Loki."

The diminutive lugharman, or leprachaun, is surely the very antique

Gaelic god Lugh "the sun god, par excellence of all Celtica." In An
Etymological Dictionary Of The Gaelic Language Alexander Macbain notes
that the word "lunasd" is the equivalent of the English holiday named
Lammas, which still takes place on the first day of August. He says the
Gaelic word is derived from the early Irish "lugnasad", "the festival of
Lug...the sun god of the Gael, whose name Stokes connects with the German
"locken", allure, the Norse "lokka", to do and also Loki (?)..."

In the Norse myth of the creation of life, the fire-giant named Svrtr
(The Dark One) approached the abysss and sheds sparks from his firey
sword upon the ice thus creating the first humanoid. Svrtr is a guise for
Loki, for like him, he is promised the leading role in bringing an end to the
worlds of men and the gods. Lugh is a similar swordsman at the dawn of
time, his entitlements being Lugh Sab Ildanach, Lugh The Supreme
Craftsman, and Lugh Lamfada, Lugh of the Long Arm. The latter does not
imply that the god was overbalanced, but refers to the fact that he carried
the spear called Fragarach, the Answerer. This weapon was invincible in
battle and had the ability to cut through protective leathern armour. Lugh
has his Cymric counterpart in Llew Law Gyffes, Lew of the Long Hand. His
"arm" of power had an important role in Celtic cosmology.

In the beginning there was only the creator-god and An Domhan, the
Deep, which the Welsh called Annwn from their word "dwfn"", a deep place.
Gaelic tales say little of this beginning gap, but it alternately called Magh
Mell, the Great Plain of the Sea, and is described in the Barddas as a sea-
gidled revolving fortress. In the space about An Domhan there existed the
energies of chaos and those promoting order, Annwn being the first
rendering of order out of disorder. According to the Welsh version, life
commenced when the god released his great power by pronouncing his true
name aloud. At this first naming of names "manred", the primal substance
of the universe, came into being. This material was conceived as
consisting of minute unseeable particles, each a microcosm of units above
and below it in size, each being at once a part of the ghost of god as well a
representation of him in the whole.

The Dagda Mor may have been one of the Olathir's earliest attempts
to organize primal matter. The first mortal god, he seems to parallel the
frost giant Ymir, "mor" indicating anything of great size. It was said that
his spoon was of sufficient size to bed a normal-sized man and woman, In
the more northernly myths, after the death of Ymir, the survivors of the
giant kind were either banished to Jotunnheim, the Land of the Big-Eaters,
or to Nifhelheim, and it is patent that An Domhain is the equivalent of
both Nifhelheim and the British Hades.

The Dagda was associated with the goddess Danu, or Anu in the
creation of a tribe known as the Tuatha daoine, i.e. "the northern people of
the god whose mother in Danu." Their daughter was Bridd, or Brigit, and
their sons: Lugh, Nuada, Ogma and Midir. Several authors have noted that
the name Dagda confers with Good and Rolleston thought it might be the
equivalent of Doctus, which has the meaning of wise. Katherine Scherman
questions this interpretation of Dagda noting that he was entitled "the
Good" not because he was morally upright but because he was "good" at
performing a wide variety of physical feats including sexual marathons
with a wide
variety of women. It is noteworthy that "dag" is a Gaelic word is for a
sharp-pointed tool, in particular a dagger (and currently a pistol). While
Lugh carried an irresistable sword much is made of the fact that his
father had "an invincible club so heavy that eight men had to carry it and
its track made
the boundary-ditch for a province." His main talent was surely
procreation!

Lugh and Nuada seem to have been more reflective gods than theeir
“father” The Dagda, or at least they were individuals of slower passions.
Gray Hugh , a senachie of the Hebrides, said that Lugh Longarm meditated
for a thousand years before noticing the presence of his twin brother
Nuada (pronounced Noo-dah), The Horseman of the Heavens. The two
remind us of Loki and Thor, thunder and lightning, individuals so close in
being that one often spoke the thoughts of the other. After an additional
thousand years of mutual consideration the two used their magic to create
"something not seen until then...fire." Easily bemused they fell into
contemplation of this novelty for another thousand year span. At the end
of that time they noticed that the fire periodically ebbed and increased in
intensity. When the fire was up sparks were seen to come together burst
into powerful streamers of light and then fade as their energies were lost.

Speaking as one mind with two voices the gods decided to end the
arbitrary length of day and night and to create time and space. It was
said that, "They made the Creation round." After that they put limits on
the boundaries of chaos so that it might not affect their new-born
universe. Having divided light and darkness evenly, Lugh approached the
primal fire with a spear in hand. Like the sword of Svrtr it was burst into
a living flame filled with the spirit of creation. See this fire held aloft,
Nuada struck at it with the sword "that needed only one blow to put a
finsih on a thing." Thus the stars were scattered to the far corners of the
Creation. The stars driven from its point, Lugh lowered his spear with no
more than a glow continuing at its point. He gave the spear a shake and
that particle of light fell into space creating the sun for the planet now
called earth. One little glow remained and Lugh shook this way to create
the moon.

As they stood admiring their work they were approached by Dag, the
daughter of Lugh. Asked for her opinion of their work the girl noted that
any creatures living in the new world be confined to places of perpetual
darkness or constant light since only half the planet was illuminated in
their static universe. Agreeing that this was so, the co-workers seized
the sphere in their hands and began to rock it and jerk it until a motion
was imparted to all of the stars, moons and planets. When they were done,
Dag had to agree that the orbiting earth now received equal light on all its
surface as it orbited the sun.

The creators now decided to supply the earth with things that grow.
Dag was given charge of the greening of the earth. Its first gardener, she
selected green as the colour for foilage noting that it was a perfect
background colour. She then assigned colours to the various crops, and
classified the various animal creations as they were brought to life by the
gods. It was Dag who created the cauldron of the deep, "a large pot in
which there was every kind of food and provision for all existence and
life." 13

Two headed sculptures of Celtic origin have been described as

illustrating "the reciprocal relationship between the human hero and his
divine archetype", but they may simply represent the twin gods
Lugh/Nuada, who spoke with one voice and were the co-creators of the
world of men. Nuada's name is similar to the Gaelic "nuadh" which is
exactly represented in the English word new. We have said that Lugh is
represented by a character named Llew in Welsh myth, and Nuada has a
similar counterpart in the deity named Nudd or Lludd. Nudd is pictured on
a bronze plaque which was discovered by the Severn River in England. He
is show encircled by a halo and accompanied by spirits of the air and
water. We are reminded that this god was one of three elementals, the
others being Ler and Myrddyn. While they belonged to th elemental triad,
Lugh and Nuada were a dynamic duo, Lugh carrying the spear which fought
by itself and Nuada the sword which slew its victim at first touch.

Duality is a constant theme in the old Gaelic tales, it being easily

observed that many things come in pairs: day and night, male and female,
wet and dry, chaos and order, and of course, good and evil. Even the all
powerful Aithir or Allfather was seen as having a split personality, his
destructive side being named Nathir, the one who is not the father. His
name persists in Gaelic in the word "nathair", a snake or serpent, and
anciently, a sea serpent. Lugh and Nuada may represent similar aspects of
the creator-god, the former representing power rising and the latter
power falling.

After the creation of the essential life stuff and the arousal of the
three elementals, the Aithir, Ardhir, or Arthur appears to have retired to
his home beyond the north star, from which he, perhaps, observes the
vagarities of life on earth. The Dagda Mor may be thought of as his
generative body which gave rise to his sons and daughters. While the
Aithir was immortal all of his offspring were mortal but reincarnate
deities. This means that they might occasionally be embodied in human, or
animal, or inanimate form, for periods of time, returning to their
elemental states for periods of rest and reflection.

Lugh, following the act of world and life creation was incarnated ,
at the will of the Aithir, as the hero of a race of "warrior-gods" known as
the Tuatha daoine (pronounced Tootha dannan). His earthling father was
Kian of Contje and his mother Elthinn of another race known as the Fomor.
Elthinn was the daughter of an uncanny character, a pirate chieftain called
Balor of the Evil Eye.

The name Fomor combine the Gaelic "fo", their word for under with
"mor", which translates as great. The latter word confers with the
English mere and with the Gaelic "muir" meaning the open sea, specifically
the Atlantic Ocean. It was this race of sea-giants who were first raised
by the gods to take posession of the sea-fortesss known as An Domhain.
The Tuatha daoine claimed that the Fomors were humanoid shape-
changers, sea demons, powers of darkness and ill. They were usually
represented of being huge and deformed in shape, many having the haeds or
other parts of animals, gifted with size-changing magic and malignant and
blighting potencies.

It has to be remembered that these were the assesments of a rabid

enemy and later historians sometimes declared that these people were no
more than African sea-pirates. Attempts to locate their homeland would
suggest they actually came from a western island or islands, variously
entitled Magh Mor, Magh Mell, the Plain of Bleasure; Tir Tairnigri, the Land
of Promise; O-Breasil; Hy Breasil or I-Brazil, the Isle of Breas, sometimes
referred to as the Isle of the Blessed; or Tir nan Og, the Land of Perpetual
Youth. Some have said that this ancient land, due west of Connaught
province in Ireland, was "a land wherein there is not save truth, and where
is neither age nor decay, sorrow nor gladness, nor envy nor jealousy,
hatred nor haughtiness." Obviously, this was not a human habitation! Pre-
colonial Newfoundland and Nova Scotia have been lands suggested as
harbouring the Fomors. Loke them An Domhain was an illusive place,
cloaked in fog and difficult to re-discover after the initial landfall.

Many of the noted heroes of the pagan past were born away to this
place before or after death Oisin and his comrade-at-arms were taken
there just before the Fionn were wiped out in their final battle. Conla,
son of Conn was seduced to that land by a sidh-princess who transported
him there in her crystal boat. Bran and his companions sought the strange
lands in the western ocean. He supposedly found "the happy isles" and
sailed amongst them for hundreds of years. Coming home to carry, the
bow-man on his ship lepaed ashore and was instantly aged to a heap of
dust. Legaire of Connaught and fifty of his men disappeared into the west
as did Fiachna. Saint Brendan made a landfall and returned to recount his
tale of a visit to the Land of Promise.

Even with the advent of Christianity An Domhain, the First Land,

continued as a goal of mariners. In 1664 a boat out of Olwes on the coast
of Ireland was blown west by night and the next day at noon spied land so
close that men saw sheep grazing on shore. The captain dared not land
remembering tales that O'Brazil was unstable and at to vanish into the
netherland or sink suddenly below the sea. They turned about and in spite
of a favourable wind required two days of sailing for the return voyage.

Twenty years later a scholar named O'Flatherty reported that "There

is now living Morragh O'Ley, who imagines he was himsaelf personally in
O'Brazil - he went there from Aran - and came back to Galway 6 or 8 years
later and began to practise both chirurgery and phisick, and so continues
ever since, tho' he never studied or practised either before in all his life
time before. Hardiman says the story is thatthe Book of O'Brazil was
given him there - but he was not to open it (upon his homecoming) for
seven years."14
About this same time the Leslie family of Glasslough, County
Monhagan, actually secured a grant to the entire island known as I-Breasil,
pending its recovery or disenchatment from the spells of the Fomors and
the Daoine sidh. In his book Irish Minstreley, Hardiman reprints a letter
from Mr. W. Hamilton of Derry, dated 1674, and addressed to a friend in
London. He advised that the western isles had been discovered, and
reclaimed, a few weeks earlier by the captain of a Killybegs schooner.
Hamilton advised his friend to inform "young Leslie" of the good news,
suggesting he might now make some use of his father's patent on these
properties. Unfortunmately this curious tale has no resolution and as far
as we are aware Tir nan Og still remains at a distance: receding from
searchers into a fogbank, or backing below the horizon's rim, or sinking
beneath the sea when men approach too closely. It has made substantial
appearcnces on clear summer nights upon the Atlantic but vain and
adventurous men have usually sought it with dire results.

Although An Domhain was the creation of the Olaithir acting through

the the fire elemental named Lugh, this land was given to the descendants
of the immortal sea god named Ler or Llyr. At the time of the first human
occupation of Britain, the sunken lands nearest Europe were controlled by
the Fomorian giant named Conan and later by Manan Mac Lir (the Son of
Lir).

The Coire Mor correponds with the Old Norse Hvergelmir, both are,
literally, the Seething Kettle, or Great Brewing Vat. In Anglo-Saxon
mythology the waters of the sea were seen to rage and hiss, and the ocean
itself was often referred to as Aegir's, or Eagor's brewing vat. In the
English tales it was said that Aegir frequently visited the gods of the land
and that he sometimes hosted them at great banquets held in his undersea
kingdom. On one occasion Aegir invited the gods to the harvest feast but
said that he lacked a vat in which to create mead.

The gods Thor and Tyr volunteered to steal one from the giant named
Hymir. Fortunately, they arrived at his keep when the giant was not at
home and were met instead by his ugly grandmother and an beautiful
giantess who said she was his mother. The lady explained that Hymir had
a baleful, or killing eye, that often slew quests with an unintentional
side-glance. She concealed the visitors before her son came home. At
that, mention that there were strangers on the premises caused a
wrathful look that split the rafter carrying the pots which fell to the
floor where all but the largest was split. Fortunately the large vat was
exactly what was required being a mile deep and proportionately wide.
 Thor underwent tests of strength against Hymir which finally caused
the giant to make a gift of the kettle. Tyr tried in vain to lift the kettle
from the floor and Thor could only manage the task after he had drawn his
belt of strength to the very last notch. In parting, the gods did great
damage to the giant's house in wrestling the cauldron out of the kitchen.
See this after the fact Hymir summoned a group of frost giants who
pursued the southerners forcing Thor to kill them. Thor and Tyr then
resumed their journey, the former wearing the kettle like a cap over his
head. Finally they presented the kettle to Aegir who was then able to
brew ale for the harvest feast.

In the earliest days men did not possess the knowledge to brew the
alcoholic honey mead which was an important part of such festival days.
When Odin's Aesir came into the northern lands they found them partly
occupied by sea-giants who were termed the Vana. They fought
inconclusively with them for several decades, finally sealing a peace
treaty by ritually spitting into a common spitton. From the saliva, the
gods magically raised Kvasir, a being noted for his wisdom and goodness.
For a time Kvasir travelled the world answering questions, thus benefiting
mankind. The Svrtr alfalr or black drawfs coveting this beings vast
wisdom slew him and drained all of his blood into three vessels. Mixing
his blood with honey they transformed it into mead, a fluid so inspiring
that anyone who tasted it immediately became a poet and singer.

Before the dwarfs could taste their concotion they were pursued and
cornered by Suttung, a giant out for vengeance because of the killing of
members of his family. To buy him off, the dwarfs gave Suttung their
precious compound which he placed in the hands of his daughter Gunlod. To
keep it from the taste buds of men and the gods, Gunlod carried the
ingredients into a hollow mountain. Unknown to this giantess Odin's
ravens, Hugin and Munin had spied out the location of this fabulous drink.

Odin having mastered runic lore and tasted the waters of Mimir's
fountain was already the wisest of gods, but coveted the formula of this
new liquid. After many adventures he penetrated the hollow hill in the
form of a snake. Within he seduced Gunlod and persuaded her to let him
try a small drink of the mead. Given permission he completely drained
the available supply, fled from the cave in snake form and took on his
eagle shape to fly home to Asgard. Suttung followed as a second eagle and
was only stopped when the gods saw the pursuit and built fires on their
ramparts, Odin barely made ground before he disgorged the mead in such
breathless haste that drops fell into the world of men. Suttung, following
close behind, had his wings scorched by the flame and fell to earth where
he burned to death. The first mead was used to generate additional drink
and where drops fell in the world of men, they were also used as the
portions of rhymesters and poetasters.

Gunlod's role appears to correspond with that of the Gaelic goddess

Dag, the daughter of Lugh. It will be recalled that she created the Coire
nan Dagda Mor and its contents. Her name is similar to the Anglo-Saxon
"daeg" which is akin to the Old Saxon and Scandinavian "dag", their words
for day. There is a similarly named deity in Norse mythology, except that
he is described as male rather than female: "The giantess of night had
thrice married...and by her third (husband) the god Dellinger was born
another (son) of radiant beauty, and he was given the name Dag (day). (The
gods) provided for him a chariot drawn by the resplendent white steed
Skin-fax (Shining-mane), from whose mane bright beams of light shone
forth in every direction, illuminating the world..." 15

The first half of the day was termed "morgen" among the Anglo-
Saxons; the Gaels called it "madainn". Both words can be shown to relate
to the English word maiden, and in the Medieval Romances (which revolve
about Celtic characters) Morgan le Fay is identified as the person
entrusted with the care of the Cauldron of the Deep.

The Cauldron was one of the treasures of the Tuatha daoine who
originally lived "in the northern isles of the world learning lore and magic
and druidism and wizardry and cunning, until they surpassed the sages of
the arts of heathendom. There were four cities in which they learned lore
and science and diabolical arts, to wit, Falias and Gorias, Murias and
Findias. Out of Findias was brought the stone of Fal, which was in Tara.
It used to roar under every (legitimate) king that would take the realm in
Tara. Out of Gorias was brought the spear that Lug had. No battle was
ever won against it or him who held it in his hand. Out of Findias was
brought the sword of Nuada. When it was drawn from its deadly sheath, no
one ever escaped it, and it was irresistable. Out of Murias was brought
Dagda's Cauldron. No comapany ever went from it unthankful (i.e. lacking
food and drink).16

It has been claimed that the "northern isles" referred to in the above
excerpt were the northern islands of Greece, but there is no certainty in
this, the idea being based on latter day tales that the Tuatha daoine
invaded Ireland out of the Mediterranean. An early Christian historian
named Nennius stated uneqivocally that all of the races of men invaded
Ireland from "Spain" but de Jubainville (Irish Mythological Cycle, p. 75)
has noted that that this early writer was not referring to the Basque
countryside but to Tir Nan Bas, the Land of Death, and this corresponds
with An Domhain.

T.W. Rolleston thinks that "Christian" historians have been

embarassed by the fact that Ireland was traditionally conquered, and held
by the overtly pagan Tuatha daoine. Katherine Scherman represents this
point of view: "Between the Fir Bolg and Milesian (invasions) some
historians have inserted the invasion of the wholly mythical Tuatha De
Danann, investing the old Celtic gods with human form and slotting them
neatly into synchronized (and presumably legitimate) history. Besides
their conquest of Ireland and the magic-ridden battles this gives rise to,
the De Danann participated in a series of romantic and heroic adventures
in which there was no dividing line between the supernatural and the
erathly, and in which unreality approaches the absurd." 17

Rolleston explains that such a race could not be considered as

progenitors of Christian Ireland: "They had to be got rid of, and a race of
less embarassing antecedents substituted for them. So the Milesians
were fetched (again) from "Spain" (our italics) and endowed with the main
characteristics, only more humanized, of the people of Dana." 18 The sons
of Miled were considered as "an entirely human race" yet their origin was
as problematical as that of the Tutha daoine. They were led by King Miled,
or Milus (confering with the Gaelic "milidh", a champion), who is
represented as a god in inscriptions from ancient Hungary. There he is
said to be the son of Bile (the Gaelic "bil" or "bile", the lips of the mouth, a
good politician) and Bile is identified as the god of Death. His counterpart
in Gaul (France) was Dis, corresponding with the Anglo-Saxon Teus, whose
name appears in Tuesday. The Romans identified Dis as Dispater (the
Father Dis) and Julius Caesar said this was the god from whom all Gauls
claimed descent. His name is embodied in a number of compound words
which suggest his character, viz. disturbance, disaster, disapproval,
dislike. In some respects Nuada may be considered a death god, with Lugh
representing the life force, But Balor, the Lord of the "ord", or hammer, is
more closely identified with chaos and the Land of the Dead.
 The Roman writers thought that "the Land of the Dead" was "in the
western extremnity" of Great Britain", separated from
the land of the living by an impassible wall. It was attainable by every
man after death, the way being made easy by a boat, which passed between
the land of the living and that of the dead with one stroke of the oar in one
hour of time ending at midnight: "Some mysterious law, indeed, brings
together in the night the great spaces which divide the domain of the
living from that of the dead...It was the same law that enabled Ith (a son
of Miled) one fine winter evening to perceive from the Tower of Bregon, in
the Land of the Dead, the shores of Ireland, or the land of the living. The
phenomenon took place in winter; for winter is a sort of night; winter like
night, lowers the barriers between the regions of Death and those of Life;
like night winter gives life the semblance of death, and suppresses, as it
were, the dread abyss that lies between the two." 19

The undersea kingdom was a land of perpetual youth but few men
who went there remained if they could return to the land of the living. It
was a state without strife but it was also a place without passion or
genuine happiness. An Domhain was, like Nifhelheim, a place of "negative
bliss." The Tuatha daoine may have fled from this grey realm, sailing
their ships to Ireland out of the western ocean. Those who occupied
Ireland when they landed had no forsightings of this unwanted landing, and
no sense of the direction the invaders had taken, but they were seen
burning their ships on the strands of Western Connaught. After that they
generated a dark magical cloud around their host which spread to the
entire countryside. When the fog cleared the Tuatha daoine were found to
be relocated in a fortified encampment at Moyrein.

Latter day sennachies, or historians, have tactfully stated that

"Dagda's Cauldron" "came out" of Murias, literally the Sea-Island of Fish.
Like the Norse Vat of Ymir, the Cauldron of the Deep was taken by force
from the sea-giants or Fomors, and this was at least part of the
contention that led to war between the land-gods and the sea-giants.

Cauldrons exist as actual cult objects of the Celtic people, a notable

example being the Gundestrup "cauldron" found in a Danish bog. This is
actually a golden facing for a less spectacular container and thought to
represent loot from a viking raid on Britain. This brings to mind the
golden cauldron discovered by Pryden in the epic Welsh story entitled
"Manwydan" and the cauldron of Diwrnach sought by the companions of
Olwen so that he may fulfill a marriage vow. The Dagda's Cauldron is
certainly the Cauldron of Tyrnoc mentioned in "The Thirteen Treasures of
the Island of Britain" and again pointed out in Taliessin's poem, "The
Spoils of Annwn" (An Domhain). In both cases the kettle was stolen from
the Irish Kings by the Cymric-speakers, dangerous expeditions to take it
being justified by its marvelous and useful characteristics. While this
kettle boiled the meat of heroes with great rapidity it refused to sustain
cowards. It was was also known to have the capacity to restore life to
the dead, ferrying them back through the cauldron from the undersea
kingdom.

Mircea Eliade guesses that the magic power of the cauldron lies in its
contents: "...cauldrons, kettles, chalices, are all receptacles of this magic
force which is often symolized by some divine liquor such as ambrosia or
"living water"... (Water has the capacity) to confer immortality or eternal
youth, or they change whoever owns them into a hero, god, etc."20 It is
tempting to suppose that "usquebaugh", or whisky, literally the "water of
life" might have been the alcoholic beverage which "stirred itself" within
the cauldron. Certainly, "The origin of Whisky is wrapped in
mystery...Usquebaugh was reserved for festive occasions, and even then
was used sparingly, for unlike the Saxons, the Celt was temperate in both
eating and drinking." 21 Certainly Irish or Scots whisky still contains
sufficient "spirit" of the Oolaithir, or brew-master, to revive severly
wounded men if not place the dead upon their feet.
The Cauldron of the Deep appears to have remained in Greater Britain
for a number of decades becoming at last the inheritance of Bran,
sometimes named King Bendigeid Vran, "the son of Llyr." According to
Welsh legend King Matholch of Ireland came to the larger island seeking
the hand of Bran's sister, Branwen. Following the marriage one of the
Welsh nobles who had not been consulted in the pre-nuptial period insulted
the Irish king by defacing his horses with a knife. In recompense Bran
was forced to compensate him with a staff of silver, a plate of gold and
horses equal in number to those that had been damaged. When this was
seen to be unequal to the insult, Bran offered"a caldron, the property of
which is, that if one of thy men be slain to-day, and be cast therin, to-
morrow he will be as well as ever he was at the best, excpt that he will
not regain his speech." Afterwards, the Cauldron went back to Ireland, but
Matholch abused Branwen creating a war of attrition that spared few Irish
or Welshmen.
 In that conflict it is recorded that, "the Irish kindled a fire under the
caldron of renovation and they cast the dead bodies into the caldron until
it was full; and the next day they came forth fighting men...Then when
Evnissyen saw the dead bodies of the men of the Island of the Mighty
(Wales) nowhere recucitated...he cast himself among the dead bodies of
the Irish; and two unshod Irishmen came to him, and taking him to be one
of the Irish, flung him into the caldron. And he stretched himself out in
the caldron, so that he rent the caldron in four pieces and burst his own
heart also. In consequence of this the Men of the Island of the Mighty
obtained what success as they had; but they were not victorious, for only
seven men of them all escaped and Bendigeld Vran himself was wounded in
the foot with a poisoned dart...the men who escaped were Pryderi.
Manawyddan, Tailesin and four others." 22

Seeing that death from blood-poisoning was immenent Bran

commanded that his head be cut from his body. At the same time he
arranged to have his soul transferred to a wooden cabinet. Remarkably,
the head remained uncorrupted and talkative for eighty-seven years until
an underling opened the door to the cabinet and allowed his soul to escape
to the underworld. After this the skull was installed at London in the
White Mount (where the Tower of London now stands). Facing Europe it
provided powerful psychic protection against invasion. Unfortunately the
Celtic King Arthur disinterred the head insisting that Britain needed no
more defense than his own strong arm. After that, Greater Britain fell to
the Anglo-Saxons and became known as Angland or England.

The gods who stole the Cauldron of the Deep may have carried it to
the British Isles out of the western ocean, but the first men to live within
the islands walked there from the east. By 11,000 B.C. the retreating ice
sheet revealled lands which could support little more than tundra. By the
year 10,000 wild horsea and giant deer had crossed land bridges between
Scotland and Ireland and around 8,000 B.C., the first post-glacial men
investigated what is now England. By 7.000 B.C. grasslands and forests
were well developed as the climate moderated and the first men found
there way as far west as Ireland. The rising waters of the Atlantic had
now covered the land bridge between Ireland and Scotland, but the water
level was still seventy-five feet lower than at present, so that the water
flowing between the two land masses was only a few miles wide. Across
this narrow channel ancient men paddled their dugout canoes and hide
boats without much personal danger. At this same time there was still
unbroken land connecting Britain with Scandinavia and some of the
mesolithic people may have come from this point of the compass.

No oral accounts survive of the earliest incursions into Britain but

the Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Invasions, purportedly takes up the story
at the point where flood waters overrode the continental shelf forming
the British Isles from former European peninsular lands. This book was an
academic production with the mission of legitamizing the dynastic
peoples of Ireland while linking Irish with world history. Nevertheless, it
is believed to contain "some genuinely traditional items".

According to this account the first arrivals in the far west were an
unnamed people lead by "Bith's venturesome daughter", the Lady Cassir,
sometimes given as Caesar. She was accompanied by fifty woen and three
men: her father Bith, Ladhra and a third nicknamed Tul-tunna, the Flood-
barrel, whose true name seems to have been Finntann. Ladhra had sixteen
wives so it is understandable that he died of "an excess of women", the
first to succumb in this manner within the boundaries of Ireland. He was
interred at the top of a mountain on the eastern coast. The remainder of
that race were caught in the water-wall of the "World Flood" with the
exception of the forsighted Finntann, the grandson of Bith. He anchored a
water-tight barrel to the summit of the mountain still known as Tul-
tunna and slept away the forty days and nights that intervenes before the
flood waters receded. He afterwards took up residence at Dun Tulcha in
southwestern Kerry.

It is a tenant of magical practise that those who escape their fate

are afterwards ignored by the pagan gods, who don't like being reminded of
their oversights. Finntann thus became an immortal by ommision. He
reappeared some thousands of years later during the reign of Diarmuid
MacCarroll to give testimonyconcerning the boundaries of the Royal
Demesne. He came to Tara heralded by nine companies of descendants, and
was followed by another nine families.

The people of Bith were the last to walk dryshod to Britain, the
Parthalons were the first to sail into its prehistory. This race may be
entirely mythical as some contend, but the name continues in several
languages aside from Gaelic: Sometimes written as Partholon, the name
is said to correspond with the Latin Partholomoeus or Bartholomoeus, "the
name of a personage represented as the first invader of Ireland 278 years
after the Flood." Alexander Macbain says that "The "p" makes the name
non-Gaelic and suggests that it may correpond with the legendary Spanish
character Bar Tolemon. In any event, the name continues in the Gaelic
Mhacphalain, which is to say Clan Macfarland or Macfarlane.

This race took its name from King Partholan who was accompanied
on the boat trip by Queen Dealgnald, twenty four males and and equal
number of females. Ward Rutherford says they landed "significantly
enough, on 1 May, the festival of Beltaine. They had come from some
western land exiled by invaders or natural disaster. Insofar as they may
have existed it has been suggested that they were possibly the Neolithic
megalith (standing-stone) builders." 23 T.W. Rolleston agreed that they
came out of the western ocean noting that the King said that his father
was "Sera", a name which he thought conferred with the English word
"west". Robert Graves, on the other hand, thought that this race came
from Greece by way of Spain. 24

In any case, Ireland was then described as a very different land,

consisting of a sinle peneplain, housing three lakes and nine rivers.
Others were supposedly added through the terraforming of the partholans
or by accidental interference with the post-glacial drainage patterns.
Lake Rury for example was entirely underground and is reputed to have
burst forth when a grave was being dug for Rury, one of the sons of the
KIng. In all the newcomers deliberately or accidentally created nine lakes.

Unfortunately, the Partholanians were not alone on the land and soon
encountered that inhuman race of creatures known as the Fomors. These
sea-giants were then ruled by Cenchos, the Footless, a particularly mean-
looking type who possessed a single eye, arm and leg. The Partholans had
to deal with these huge mishappen, violent sea-demons, who they managed
to repulse driving them north to the Scottish Hebrides and offshore
islands.

Having settled this they established a capitol near Dublin. Irish

history might have been different but the entire population of Partholans,
which finally number about 9,000 was stricken by a plague. Most of them
died within the period of a week being buried on the western slope of
Dublin Mountain within sight of the Dodder River. Katherine Scherman
says that a mass plague-burial took place, and one can see on the hills
around the village (of Tallaght) the ancient tumuli that supported the
myth." The few remaining settlers may have remained on the land but they
were never again a dominent people.

Next were the Nemedians who may have included members of the
older race who returned to the original homeland to recruit new settlers.
Nemed and his men may have been impelled by a need to escape disaster or
simple land hunger but they soon encountered a new reason for staying
near the British Isles: "There appeared to them in the ocean a golden
tower. Thus it was: when the sea was in ebb the tower appeared above the
sea, and when it flowed in the waters arose above the tower. Nemed and
his people went towards this tower out of greed for gold." This unworthy
desire brought them to heads with the Fomorians under their kings, Morc
and Conan. Nemed fought successfully against them in four great sea
battles but landed in Ireland he was subjected to a pestilence similar to
that experienced by the Partholans and in the end he was killed along with
2,000 of his people. While they were in a weakened state the Fomorians
landed and subjected them.

The Fomorians demanded that Nemedians sacrifice two thirds of

new-born children, took two-thirds of their crops and milk and enraged
them by rape and pillage. The stronghold of Fomrian power was then on
Tory Island, off the northwestern coast of Donegal. At last the Nemedians
rose in revolt against their masters and occupied Tory Island capturing
Conan's tower, killing the chief of the giants. However, Morc, at the last
minute, joined the battle with a fresh host, utterly routing the Nemedian
warriors. All but thirty were slain, so this race left Ireland in abject
despair, leaving no descendants.

The third invasion was comprised of Firbolgs, the people of the

lightning goddess Bolg, or Bolt. Some authorities have equated the
Firbolgs with the Bolgae or Belgae, the ancestors of today's Belgians.
Nennius said they came out of "Spain", which Rolleston insists was the
western sea. There seem to have been several waves of these settlers,
sometimes distinguished as the Firbolgs, Firgallions and Firdonnans. They
landed in Erris-Mayo but eventually established their capitol at Tara.
They divided the countryside into four political regions. A noted king of
the northeast was Eochaid mac Erc, who significantly took in marriage
Tailiu, or Talta, daughter of the King of "the Great Plain" (the Fomorian An
Domhain). Telta had her royal residence at Teltin, now called Telltown.
Some say she died there, but her name continued in a great annual fair held
in her honour each August.

If the Firbolgs were not actually related to the Fomorians they had
less trouble with them than earlier invaders, possibly because the giants
had suffered a pyrrhic victory over the Nemedians.

The Firbolgs were probably not a Celtic people and little of them has
survived in the Gaelic world beyond the word "fir", meaning men (the
singular form is "fear", a man). In the Gaelic system of numbering this
noun is frequently tied to one of the cardinal numbers, thus: aon fhear (one
man); da fhear (two men) and tri fir (three men). Unlike most earlier
races the Firbolgs survived partial serfdom and in the reign of the
Milesian king named Crimmthann returned from banishment in the Western
Isles of Alba (Scotland). At that time, a colony of them led by Angus Mac
Umor took refuge in Ireland from the persecution of hostile Picts. ASt
first they were given refuge in the north and were grantedlands in Meath.
Unfortunately the King of those lands proved equally oppressive and at
night they fled across the River Shannon into the Province of Connaught,
long a residence of some of their kin. Here they allied themselves with
Queen Maeve and her husband Ailill, who gave them lands and a permanent
place in southern Ireland.

We now come to the fourth invasion and the mystic warrior-

magicians who have troubled Katherine Scherman and other conservative
historians. The Irish historian Eugene O'Curry had no quarrel with their
reality, saying: "The De Dannann (phonetic spelling) were a people
remarkable for their knowledge of the domestic (i.e. the crafts), if not the
higher, arts of civilized life." His contemporary Seumas MacManus
described them similarly as: "...a cultured, highly civilized people, so
skilled in the crafts...that the Firbolgs named them necromancers (actually
magicians)..."25 Even the staid international edition of Webster's
Dictionary granted their reality in the earlier days of this century, when
it had some interest in mythology: "(Irish tribe or folk of the goddess
Danu.) In Irish legend the divine race, which invaded Ireland, overthrew
the Firbolgs and the Fomors, and were finally conquered by the Milesians,
by whom, however, they were worshipped as gods."

The Firbolgs said that the Tuatha daoine came to Ireland "out of
heaven", wafted into the land on a magic cloud. Those who held this
opinion were not present to see the newcomers burn their ships on the
beach as the Milesians did at a later date. Seeing crowds in a fortified
encampment at Moyrein, the Firbolgs sent a warrior named Sreng to
interview them and determine their purpose. An ambassador from the
Tuathans came out to parlay and strongly suggested that the two races
shopuld divide the island kingdom, and defend it jointly against future
intruders. The two then exchanged weapons and returned to their own
camp.

Noting their numerical superiority over the Daoine, the Firbolgs felt
they might refuse the offer but they were perturbed when they compared
the invaders bronze spear with their own rude equivalent. When the
opposing armies were drawn up ready for contest, the Firbolgs called a
temporary truce noting that they required additional time to sharpen their
spears and swords, brighten their helmets and make peace with their gods.
Surprisingly, the Tuatha daoine were acquainted with this peculiar latter
day forms of ethics in warfare and agreed to the request. At the next
meeting the Firbolgs cannily noted that their opponents possessed a
superior light sword and sued for time to equip themselves. At a third
assembly they magnanimously pointed out the fact that the Tuathans
lacked their "craisechs", heavy spears that were capable of great
destruction. They granted the newcomers time to arm themselvers, in
point of fact everything possible was done to stall the final meeting of
forces.

Finally after agreeing to a matched man-for-man conflict the

Firbolgs and Tuathans did fight for four solid days. At the end of this time
the older race could see that the sharper weapons of the enemy were
having their due. To save further loss on their own side they proposed
ending the struggle in a single contest which matched 300 heroes from the
two sides. The Daoine won this fray, but their losses were so severe they
were glad to leave the Firbolgs in possession of that quarter of the island
now known as Connaught.

The Firbolg's most noted warrior-king, Eochaid was one of those lost
in this last bloody contest against the Tuatha daoine. Another victim was
the reincarnate high-king of the daoine, the one called King Nuada, the
twin of Lugh of the Long Arm. Nuada was not killed but the warrior Sreng
maimed him by cutting off his hand. It was a matter of policy that the
Daoine could not be ruled by any individual with even a small physical
imperfection such as acne, or a visible boil, so this condition obviously
barred Nuada from the kingship.

Gathering at a mod, the host of the Daoine now selected a famous

warrior with a classic profile and build. This was Bres, the son of a
Tuathan woman named Eri. Bres, although handsome and well spoken had
no gift for dealing with people, and during his reign allowed the Fomorians
to renew their taxation and oppresion of outlying districts. This might
have been overlooked except that the new king gradually gained a
reputation as "the meanest of all men" during a day when patronage and
hospitality was considered the mark of a true king. Travellers noted that
"The knives of the people are not greased with his food. Those who come
to his table do not depart smelling of ale. None are fed in any way, neither
poets, nor satirists, harpers, nor pipers, trumpeters nor jugglers. None of
these are seen amusing those assembled at his court."

His final trouble came in the person of the poet named Caibre, who
was regarded as the greatest entertainer in the land. This ancient Elvis
Presley was not treated with respect, being housed in miserable dank
quarters, without fire or furniture. After a very long delay he was served
three old very dry cakes, and went away in anger. At his leaving he
composed a curse which he directed at Bres:

Withouit food quickly served,

Without a cow's milk, whereon a calf may grow,
Without a dwelling fit for a gloomy night
Without the means to entertain bardic guests,
May such soon be the condition of the nigardly Bres.

According to some accounts this Gaelic "glam" had the effect of

blighting Bres in a psychic manner since the poetry was taken up, and
repeated, across the countryside. In the meantime, Nuada had been fitted
out with an articulated artificial hand by the physician-silversmith
Diancecht. At a later day his cause was taken up by an even more skilled
biological techncian, Kian of Contje, the son of Diancecht. This individual
was able to create a new hand for the king, thus allowing him to be
reinstated as "ard-righ",or high king of the Tuathans.

The parentage of King Nuada, now sometimes sometimes entitled

Nuada of the Silver Hand, is not mentioned but it is probable that he was
the "befind" or home-shadow of Lugh of the Long Arm. These sometimes
disembodied spirits were provided to all creatures of human kind as help-
mates, assisting at the birth of great personalities and latter serving as
protectors of these individuals. If Lugh is conceived as a sun god Nuada,
his doppelganger, or double, is a god of the moon. Lugh's creative spear is
not described, but it was probably of the usual Tuathan construction:
"flesh seeking spears with ribs of gold and silver and red bronze in their
sides (symbolizing the sun); and with collars (or rings) of silver upon
their necks." This spear was considered more than equipment being
regarded as an extension of Lugh's arm which could be used to direct a
"gisreag" or blast of physical energy as the god directed. Nuada's silver
hand attachs him psychically to the moon, and his loss and recovery of a
hand reminds us of the phases of the moon. It is noteworthy that Nuada's
recovery of his hand and kingship was arranged through the good offices of
Kian, who is cited as the human parent of Lugh.

Bres retreated to the hold of his mother Eri asking her what action
he might take to regain power. For the first time this lady revealled that
the former king's father had been Elathu, a noted king of the Fomorians,
whose base was in the Hebrides of Scotland. Elathu provided his son with
an army and a fleet of Fomorian sailors and sent ambassadors to enlist the
help of Balor "of the Evil Eye", whose gaze blighted all objects which he
looked on in anger. At first this considerable host made guerilla-like
forays into Ireland and King Nuada could not counter the moves of
oppression of his enemies. Fortunately his cause was supported by the
sudden reincarnation of Lugh, son of Kian, the sun god to end all sun gods.

GLIOCAS

aoir , a curse, satire; Ir. aor , EIr, aer , OIr, a i r .

athair , athar, atharaichean,(m.), father; OIr, athir , cf. L, pater, Skr, pitdr.
An-t-Athair, the One Father, the Christain creator-god. Athair-neimh, Br.
aer-neimh, the father of poisons, an enemy god.

boabh (bhuv), a wicked woman, a hag, a nag, a scold, a witch of either sex;
Ir, badhbh , a hoodie or carrion-crow, one of the little folk, a gossip; EIr,
badb , a demon-crow, the evil war-goddess sometimes name Medb or
Maeve . W. Bodnod and bodnod , the bird commonly called the kite.
Similar to Norse, booth, war, AS, beadu, war (see below), and Skr, badhate,
oppress.

bas , death, Ir, OIr, from Celtic root baa , to hit or slay, hence the Gaul-
Lat, batuere , AS, beadu, war, and the Eng, battle.

bealltainn , Ir. bealtaine (f.) Bealtaine (vyoulhini), Beltane, the month

of May. Perhaps from Ir. bulid from the Eng. root bhel , to swell, hence
the growing time. Beall is associated with a shortened form of
tainneamh , thaw, the beginning season.

caileadair , star-gazer, philosopher; from Eng. calender , a medicant

dervish, from the Pers. galander.

caochail , change, die, caochladh , a change, Ir. caochluigim .

car , a twist, a turn, Ir. cor , OIr, curu , gyrate, W. cor-wynt , a curved
turbulence, L. curvus , curved.

cearr , wrong, in particular, left-handed, EIr, cerr , L. cerritus, crazed, Lit,

skersas, crooked.

cerrach , a gambler, Ir, cearrbhag , a gamestor, a dextrous, or left-handed

gambler; literally, a sinsister individual.

Ceitein , May (see belltainn), OIr, cetam , an abbreviation of cetsoman or

cetshaman , distinguished in Cor. as cet-sam-sin , the first weather of
Sam, or summer. The ending may be derived from tainneamh , the
beginning time or some combination of words indicating the half-year.
The other "beginning time" is
Samhainn, which see.

eidhis , a mask, luchd cidhis , masqueraders, from Sc. gyis, a mask, ME,
gisen, to dress in disguise, Eng. disguise. The lowland Scots word was
borrowed from the English in the Stuart period.

ciotach , left-handed, sinsiter, W. chwith . Lat. scaevas, left.

claidheag , the last handful of corn taken at the harvest, Sc. claaik-sheaf,
from claaik, the name given the festival of "harvest home". Also called
the maiden, the hag, the corn-baby etc.

clibeag , a trick, wile. See below, same source.

clichd , an iron hook, also a cunning trick, Sc. cleeky, ready to hang
another on a hook, ready to take unfair advantage, having an inclination to
cheat.

Coimhdhe , God, Ir, Coimhdhe , the Trinity of the Christain faith OIr,
comdiu , lord, a providor, G. meas , esteem, Latin, modus, one who
mediates.

col , sin, W. c w l , OBr, col , Lat culpa, faulted, but possibly the German
schuld, crime.

comas , comus , power, Ir, cumas , EIr, commus.

comhaire , a forewarning, EIr, comaircim , I ask (advice).

crannchur , casting lots, OIr, cranchur , from cran , oak + cuir . cast, put
aside, to "throw the runes"

cro , death, blood, EIr, cru , W, crau , Cor, crow , Skr, kravis , raw flesh,
blood. This word is the Scottish cro, and refers to the wereguild of all
individuals in the kingdom from the king down.

cuilionn , holly, EIr, cuilenn , W, celyn , Br. kelenn , Eng. holly , AS,
holegn .

DRUIDHEACHD

The magic of the Celts is "druidheachd", a compound word derived

from "druidh" and "eachd", literally the wonders of the druids. The
singular for druid was the Gaelic "draoi", a word which defined a religious
office that appeared to combine the functions of priest, historian, judge
and jurors, physician and wonder-worker in one individual.

The religion known as druidism is now considered a Gaelic invention,

but they said it was of earlier origin, the rites having been learned from
an aboriginal British race which they displaced. There are suspicions that
it was originally a worship of tree-spirits and some linguists have linked
"draoi" with the Greek "drus" and the Latin "dryas", words which specify
the oak-tree. "Amongst the Celts the oak-worship of the Druids is
familiar to every one, and their old word for sanctuary seems to be
identical in origin and meaning with the Latin "nemus", a grove or
woodland glade."26

Druidism, which was practised at least one thousand years before

the birth of Christ, was ultimately assimilated by Christianity so that the
name "druid" survives in Gaelic as a description for the English thrush or
starling, a black bird known for its talents as a nest robber and bully.
This noun is feminine, tallying with the Christian outlook on the nature of
evil. A collection of these black birds is referred to as "duidean". "Druidh"
continues as a verb meaning: to penetrate, ooze in, or to impress beliefs
through constant reinforcement. Finally, "druis" is the Gaelic word for
lust, which the Christians viewed as one of the worst mortal sins.

These unflattering characterizations of the druids started in pagan

times. When a Roman detatchment was turned against Anglesey, on the
main island of Britannia in 61 AD, Tacitus described a crosssing of the
Menai Straits in this manner: "In the early morning light, the legionnaires
were met on the far shore by a dense array of armed warriors, the women
in black dashing among the ranks, hair dishevelled, waving brands, while
the druids among them lifted their hands and called down dreadful curses
from heaven. It was a sight before which the bravest might quail, but this
day like many before, belonged to the Romans."27 In this case, the druids
were given to the sacrificial fires they had prepared for the Romans and
the ensuing days were spent axing the oaks in the sacred groves.

Sir James George Fraser says there is "unquestionable evidence" that

the Celtic druids torched human beings in a serious and systematic
manner. The Greek geographer Strabo noted that these magic-men, "used
to shoot people down with arrows, and impale them...or making a large
statue of straw and wood, threw into it cattle and all sorts of wild
animals along with human beings, and thus made their burnt-offering..."
The Greek historian Diordorus made similar accusations, but there is
little proof that either travelled beyond the boundaries of their country.
These men seem to have had a common source in the writings of a
countryman named Posidonius, a stoic philosopher, who actually had
travelled throughout Gaul (France) about fifty years before these men
began to write. He also preceeded Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul by
about the same interval of time. Caesar was in an excellent position to
observe the rituals of the Celtic religion first hand, but he also borrowed
from Posidonius.
Caesar said that the druids officiated at all general rites of
worship, and regulated both private and public approaches to the Celtic
gods. In addition, they acted as judges between tribes or individuals,
whether the matter was murder, a question of inheritance, a boundary
dispute or a simple disagreement concerning money. As ajudicators, they
prescribed the compensation which had to be paid by the guilty party; the
heaviest penalty being banishment from the realm. Men who were rejected
by the druids were also ostracized by their fellow citizens.

Unlike other citizens, the druids were exempted from military duty,
did not pay taxes and had the right of first-speech, being allowed their
views before that of the much admired warrior-knights. These advantages
were sufficient to draw large numbers to this priesthood, but an even
larger number were sent to these studies by parents or relatives. On the
other side of the ledger, Caesar noted that druid-initiates were required
to memorize epic verses, "so many that some spend twenty years at their
studies." Druid religious teachings were oral although they commonly
used the Greek alphabet for ordinary communications or accounting
purposes. The Roman commander guessed that this not only protected
secret rites but offered memory-training."...it is usually found that when
people have the help of texts, they are less diligent in learning by heart,
and let their memories rust."

Caesar had heard that the chief "secret" of druidism hinged on the
thory of the transmigration of spirits: "A lesson they take particular
pains to relay is that the human spirit never perishes but after death
passes from one
 A' BHAOBH 'S A' SGOIL-DUBH

In Celtic Britain there were no witches. The hagges and wights, the
ancestors of the witch, arrived with Anglo-Saxon sea-rovers, who did not
"trouble" the island kingdoms of Britannia and Hibernia until the middle of
the fifth century after Christ. It is a misnomer to speak of Celtic
witchcraft, and it is equally improper to speak of druids, witches and
bhaobhs as if they were both partners in the "sgoile-dubh", or black-arts.

The "sgoil-dubh" was anciently considered the business of the

"bhaobh", or "baobh". This word is retained in the Gaelic tongue to
describe "a hag, a male or female practitioner of magic, or a carrion
crow." It used to be thought that the baobhs were capable of assuming the
form of the crow and the word "druid" has, similarly, been preserved in
Gaelic to indicate another black bird commonly called the starling or
thrush. As a verb "druidh" now means "to penetrate. ooze in, or impress
unwanted attentions upon another," although it probably has had
pleasanter connotations in times past. When Englishmen found
themselves in an awkward situation, they spoke of being caught "between
the devil and the deep blue sea." A Gael with few options would say that
he stood, "eadar a'bhaobh 's a' bhuarach", which is, "between the magician
and the staked cow." The latter tended to get surly from standing in the
sun, and there was "a superstitious fancy" that men nudged by the horn of
a tethered cow would afterwards be childless. 1

These words belong to the vocabulary of the Gaels, a branch of the

Celtic peoples. The Celts were a language group, very different in
appearance, sharing similar words, spoken in various dialects. "Celt" was
not a name which these dwellers on the Danube River applied to
themselves. Noticed by the Greeks, they were identified as the "keltoi"
(woods-dwellers) and this name was afterwards adopted by the Romans.

1See Thomas M. Murchison, Prose Writings of Donald

Lamont, Edinburgh, 1960. Notes, #10, p. 172. He says: "Baobh is
applied to several female supernaturals of very evil omen."
The continental Celts, after they migrated westward, were referred to by
this race as the Gauls, but those who occupied ancient Britannia were of
the same linguistic stock. These Britons were distinguished from the
Cymric-speakers, who lived in Cornwall, Wales and Northumbria, and the
Gaels, whose lands included the islands of present-day Ireland and the Isle
of Man as well as Scotland.

It will be noticed that we have used two spellings for baobh, and
there are others. "The Gaelic," remarked Arland Ussher, "is a language of
prodigious diversity of sound and expressiveness of phrase...It has about
twice the number of sounds that other European languages can boast..." 2
Another Celt, agreed that Gaelic has spellings which are highly poetical,
but labels this diversity as "a learner's labyrinth". 3 The trouble comes
from the fact that the Gaels were a verbal rather than a literate people.
The magical binding of words to paper, from which they might be
reincarnated, was never a part of the ancient Gaelic crafts. When their
words were finally set to paper, they reflected many pronounciations, and
the Gaels had no writers of the status of Chaucer and Shakespeare, whose
work might serve as a standard. As a result, "English renderings of
ancient Irish names, naturally, vary considerably, and of course there is no
"official" or "correct" spelling of any of them." 4 One example: In ancient
Irish Gaelic what we refer to as the leprachaun was entitled the lubarkin.
In Ulster this sidh-man was the lucharman; in Cork, the claurican; in
Kerry, the luricaun; and in Tipperary, the lurigaudaun. In attempting to
treat this problem we quote the spellings preferred by individual writers,
attempting to relate those that are not easily recognized as synonyms.

It would appear that the badb, boadb, boabh, bhoabh, or bhuabh

belonged to a diverse group of characters, which the English might have
termed the boo-men, boo-baggers, boggers (not to be confused with
buggers), or bogeymen. "Bo" (plural "ba") was Gaelic for cow, and this was
often combined with with adjectives to produce compound words such

2Padraic Colum, A Treasury of Irish Folklore, preface, xiv.

3Mikael Madeg, "Celtic Spellings", For A Celtic Future, p.

114.

4Padraic Colum, A Treasury of Irish Folklore, p. 52.

as"bo-aire", literally the high cow, a person of importance; and "bo-dubh",
the black cow, which is to say, a witch or wizard. The English "boo" is
related to the Celtic "bo", both being interjections, presumably meant to
imitate the lowing sound of a cow. In earlier days, such sounds were used
in the field to signal friends, express contempt or aversion for enemies
and to startle or frighten them.

The Anglo-Saxons created an entire tribe of elfin-folk

to people the dangerous bog lands where their boo-people were forced to
live. A short list would include: boo, boogle, bogle, boggart, bugill, bug,
pug, bugbear, bugleboo, bull-beggar, bugaboo, puck, pouke, pawkey, puckle,
peregrine pickle, little pickle, poake, puck-hairy, pugsy, and pixie. This is
exclusive of the Irish phooka and the Welsh pwcca, which are obvious
relatives. It is impossible to characterize these legendary little people in
any complete way but they were, at least, troublesome spirits. Almost all
lived in out-of-the-way places, and delighted in leading travellers, by
means of distracting lights or uncanny noises, "into ditches, bogs, pools
and other such scrapes, and then sets up a loud laugh and leaves them
quite bewildered..."5 The various Celtic peoples were no better impressed
with "the seed of the Coiling Serpent," reserving their Anglo-Saxon
vocabulary for the Devil and dogs.

There are strong suspicions that the elfs, fairies and the sidh
represented actual races conquered and banished to the outback by more
powerful neighbours. When Leighton Houghton visited St. Ninian's Cave
near Whithorn, in southern Scotland, he found it locked and barred because
of the pilfering of artifacts by visitors. He knew, however, that relics of
the bronze age had been discovered there along with stone axes, spindle
whorls and hammer heads, showing it had been inhabited long before the
Anglo-Saxons came to Britain. This led him to comment that: "There are
still tales in Scotland of the pixie folk, who inhabit lonely caves in the
mountains, emerging to graze their tiny cattle or to steal a baby for a
slave. When the Gaels and the Britons seized our islands in the dim ages
of the past they drove the small dark Iberian natives into the distant
safety of the mountains and these ancient folk-stories may be dim

5Thomas Keightley, Gnnomes, Fairies, Elves and Other

Little People, p. 317.
memories of these primitive cave-dwellers. 6

This idea is reinforced by Gaelic legends which tell of the Tuatha

daoine, who battled against the Celtic Milesian invaders in Meath and
again at Taillte, Ireland. In both cases the residents were defeated, their
Queen Eire losing her life in the opening fray. In all three kings and three
queens of the danann, or daoine, were slain, and what was left of that race
fled into the remote hills. "Possibly the glimpses of some of these
fugitive hill-dwellers and cave-dwellers caught in twilight and
moonlight, by succeeding generations of Milesians, coupled with the
seemingly magical skill which they exercised (at avoiding the conquerors),
gave foundation for the later stories of enchanted folk, fairies, living
under the Irish hills." 7

The Tuatha daoine (pronounced tootha danann, or doonu)

had legitimate reasons for avoiding the Milesians, for The Book of Leinster
notes that after Taillte Amergin, the chief bard and druid of the
conquerors was given the job of dividing Ireland between the two races.
In a nice example of technical justice he awarded all the islands beyond
the western horizon as well as the underground to the Tuathans, deeding
the property above ground to his own people. What he could not know was
that Ireland was honeycombed with thousands of natural caverns and
bronze-age souterrains (artificial hollow-hills) which allowed the enemy
to take advantage of his offering. Before long, the Milesians observed that
the Tuathans possessed great wealth in gold and this was taxed away for
fear they might rearm. As they were prevented from working as
craftsmen or having any part in politics, and were bound by law not to
leave their residences, they became adept at travelling by night and
gaining a maegre living as bog-farmers. In Gaelic "tuathanach" is still a
synonym for a tenant-farmer, who holds no land in his own right.

Having lost their reigning kings, the Tuatha daoine assembled above
ground for one last time near the mouth of the River Boyne. Here they
pledged allegiance to the immortal sea- god named Mannanan, who

6Leighton Houghton, In The Steps of the Anglo-Saxons, p.

158.

7Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race, p. 10.

transported some of them to his undersea kingdom in the western ocean.
The rest he gifted with virtual immortality and caps and capes of
invisibility, moving them by magic to the hollow-hills. Before that was
done, the Tuatha daoine, afterwards termed the Daoine sidh (seed, or thin
people) elected their Ard-Righ, or High-King, a man named Bodb Derg (the
Red Wizard). He and his clan went to earth beneath Sliab-na-mban
(Mountain of White Clay) near Tara, while his chief lieutenant went to
reside under Cruachan, in Roscommon. Others of the Daoine sidh are as
certainly located at the defeat about the year 1000 B.C.

These folk are often confounded with English elf or fairy, but they
were never a true little-people, the word indicating sigh indicating a
seed-like, or enduring race. These aristocrats of the realm of faerie were
said to be beautiful to look at, and in the latter days were seen to be of
great age and potential power. It was noted that the sidh lived ordinary
lives if left undisturbed, caring for their animals, drinking whisky, and
raising children. If seriously molested they could react against "men"
with great violence. Their touch was seen to sicken or madden humans,
who were similarly afflicted by their breath and their "elf-arrows" which
caused paralysis that often led to death. It was guessed that the bog-
people kidnapped those who disappeared from Gaelic villages as slaves or
concubines. Any visit among them saw time pass in an attenuated way and
those who escaped from their underground quarters were invariably
morose, insane, afflicted with a sexual disease, aged, or possessed of
strange divining or healing arts.

When they were seen it was noted that they were thin, up to six feet
in height, handsome and young-looking in spite of their suspected great
age. Befitting an ephemeral race, their forms appeared shadowy, and it
used to be said that they could only materialize within view of a human.
Their skin was observed to be soft, their hair long and silky and their
essential clothing of sun-drenched white linen. Their speaking and singing
voices were seductive, but their way with the single pipe, bagpipes and
harp was unrivalled among men. They dressed well until the tax-men
came to call; thus the Tain Bo Cuailgne says: "They all wore green cloaks
with four crimson pendants to each; and silver cloak-brooches; and kilts
with red tartaned cloth, the borders or fringes being of gold thread. There
were pendants of white bronze threads upon their leggings and shoes, the
latter having clasps of red bronze. Their helmets were ornamented with
crystal and white bronze and each had a collar of radiant gold about his
neck, with a gem the worth of a new-calved cow set in it. Each wore a
twisted ring of gold about the waist, in all thirty ounces of this metal.
All carried white-faced sheilds bearing ornamentation in silver and red
bronze. There were ferrules of silver upon their spears and the had gold-
hilted swords carrying coiling serpent forms, gold and carbuncles. This
astonished all who saw their parade."

Bodb Derg has a counterpart in the "little man" known as the fear
derg (red man), a continuing resident of Gaelic countries. Folklorist
Crofton Crocker heard that he often came to remote farmstaeds at the
onset of thunderstorms. When he knocked, residents opened the door on
what appeared to be a feeble bodach, "about two and a half feet high, with
a red sugar-loaf hat and a long scarlet coat, reaching down nearly to the
ground, his hair long and grey, and his face yellow and wrinkled."
Typically this visitor went straight to the hearthfire where he twisted
the moisture from his clothing, and began smoking a pipe as his garmentys
dried out. Although fearful, the family ended by going to bed and in the
morning found that the little man had vanished. Unfortunately, the fear
derg formed attachments for particular households, and once seen was
likely to reappear, coming regularly at eleven c'clock. His arrival was
usually uncanny, as he thrust a hairy arm through the latch-string hole to
announce that he wanted admittance. When it was opened, he went to the
fire and the householders to bed, leaving him with the keep to himself. "If
they did not open the door, some accident was sure to happen next day to
themselves or their cattle. On the whole, however, his visits brought good
luck, and the family prospered..." 8

The red man appeared on the moors as a wandering light after the
fashion of the gopher light or will o' the wisp, and is mentioned as a death
omen among the Gaels of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia: "It seems that it was
like stars - as they say - a shooting star - except that it passed very low.
They would see the light going past and it would look as if there were
sparks or a tail of light following in its trail. The longer it was - the
more light there was behind it - that would be a teacher or that would be
a clergyman. It might be a priest or a teaching minister and since the
congregation would follow him to the funeral, that accounted for the
"dreag" of one of them being longer. It would be drawn out longer in the

8Croker,quoting Mr. M'Clise, the artist, from Thomas

Keightley, Gnomes Fairies Elves, p. 370.
firmament or the sky than that of a lay person. I never saw the "dreag" but
I heard it being described..."9

Nancy Arrowsmith suspected that the fear dreg were not true sidh,
but those born of unions between the sidh and humans. They were
generally stouter and darker than the sidh "and some," she said, "have
large pot-bellies. They dress in local peasant costumes of the eighteenth
century, preferring reds and plaids." She noted that they were mortal but
long-lived and were capable of shape-changing. 10

If the king of the sidh had descendants among men, he also had a
female counterpart, the notorious Badb, also known as Mebd, or most
commonly, Maeve. This legendary queen of the Tuatha daoine went to earth
in western Ireland, beneath Cruachin, and was supposedly the sidh-spirit
of sovereignty. In ancient times, the kings of Tara kept a house of virgins
who tended the sacred fires of Briid (the bride). One of these was
expected to yield her virginity to the Ard Righ, or High King, at each
festival of Samhainn (May 1). This pagan rite was expected to rejuvenate
the king, and the general fertility of the soil, men and cattle. No king
could rule the Gaelic countryside without lying first at the side of "Mebd".
It is suspected that the goddess that the king symbolically married was
arachaic, pre-dating the Milesians and perhaps the Tuatha daoine.

Katherine Scherman says that the Gaelic goddesses were mother-

fertility figures, but also "agents of death". She describes all of them as
"amorphous...of multiple personality...veiled in shadows", which is another
way of saying that their stories are inextricably tangled. Badb, Mebd, or
Maeve is closely linked with both Emain, Nemain, Emain Macha, or Macha,
and Mhorrigan, Morrigan, or Morgan. To put the situation concisely, these
are a trinity, often represented under the single name Morrigan, a virgin
goddess of youth. Her mature counterpart is Medb and her elder-form, the
Macha. Morrigan corresponds with the summer-goddess, who the Scots
called Samh, a lady who personifies the season they call samhradh, or

9Joe Neil MacNeil, Tales Until Dawn, translated by John

Shaw, p. 210.

10Nancy Arrowsmith, A Field Guide to the Little People, p.

83.
summer. This goddess-spirit ended her reign on the last day of November,
thus the festival called Samhainn (the fires on the hill of Samh). Her
alter-ego is the Cailleach Bheur, or Winter Hag, another name for the
Emain Macha, or Swift-moving One. She was also known as the Geamir,
the Gamer or Huntress, and hence her season, the geamhradh, or winter. It
is notable that "cailleach" currently describes a "frosted" or aged human
woman, as well as an inhuman house-spirit, the mate of the bodach, who
the English refer to as the brownie.

In folklore, the Cailleach Bheur is credited with constructing

Scotland, having carried the soil from Lochlann (Norway) across the water
in a creel (wicker-basket). Her slapdash building methods led to the
creation of the western isles as well as the north of Great Britain. She
was clearly an Odinesque woman, sharing his one-eyed condition with the
"king of the gods". Having constructed a home for her wild animals she
transported them there, inadvertently introducing the humans, who later
troubled her attempts at managing this new land. In travelling she often
took the form of a giant grey mare which was able to leap from one
mountaintop to the next. In harsh winters she was seen, until Christian
times, raking the Scottish beaches to obtain fodder for her animals. Until
a few hundred years ago, Scottish hunters considered all game the
property of the Cailleach Bheur and contributed to a pool of money, the
amount based on the number of animals killed. This was used for the
purchase of victims necessary to the twice-yearly fires of Samhainn and
Beltane; men, animals and plants killed, burned and reduced to "earth" as
representatives of the spirit of the goddess. The Cailleach was a
weather-witch as well as a huntress, and where she travelled, she carried
a huge staff which emitted snow as a protecting blanket for the ice-bound
earth. In February as her power waned, she sent her "winter-wolves"
against men, to remind them that she still ruled. Later her air-borne
"sharks" came before the "plover-winged" days. Finally on May Eve she
threw her hammer "beneath the mistletoe" and surrendered horney old age
for reincarnation as the Samh or Morrigan.

The Morrigan is very like the Scandinavian Norns, or Fates, all

symbols of the past, present and future as they affect men. The nubile
Morrigan was a perpetual virgin although she slept with all of the Celtic
heroes who requested her company. The Badb or Mebd appears as a fully-
developed warrior-goddess, less interested in sex than blood-letting. It
was claimed that her invisible spirit flew above places where men fought,
and that she sometimes appeared in the sky as a carrion-crow. She
invariably materialized to give her crow cry to those destined to die, and
sometimes shape-changed into wild animals which aided those she
preferred. The elderly Macha was sometimes sexually assaulted by those
who thought her powerless, but they usually ended with their spirits
magically bound to a tree. Like the other goddesses, Macha could shape-
change into any form and often appeared as a young, attractive woman.
She once married a young woodsman from Ulster County, Ireland, who
noticing her swift-footedness bet her abilities against those of the king's
stallions. As she was pregnant at the time, she asked that the date be set
after her delivery, but the men of Ulster would not consent. As a result,
she raced as asked, beating the competition by two-thirds of the course.
This forced a delivery, which took place at the end of the race. Holding
her newly-born twin boys before the multitude, Macha declared her
contempt for the men of Ulster: She first promised that their battle-
prowess would be damaged by monthly periods of "woman's weakness" and
that the north would suffer her curse of warfare for nine times nine
generations. After this, she fled to the south giving her allegiance to
Connaught County.

The mortal-gods and goddesses of Celtic Britain frequently

borrowed the names and reputations of earlier deities, thus reinforcing
their concept of reincarnation. One of these "borrowers" was Queen Medb
of Connaught, who lived at the place called Emain Macha about the time of
the birth of Christ. She was reputedly the daughter of Eochaid, High King
of Ireland. She first married Conor, king of Ulster but she could not
control him, and he took instead, her sister Ethne (Sweet Kernal of the
Nut) who lived up to her name. The Mebd, or Badb, quickly acquired the
kingdom of Connaught by remarriage to a more elderly husband. When he
died, she went on to King Ailill of Leinster, but did not stop there, taking
numerous others to her bed, including the great warrior Frediad.

In legend, it was claimed that this woman could outrun a horse, and
had shape-changed into a serpent, a wolf, and other animals to confound
her enemies. Any warrior who looked overlong at her lost two-thirds of
his strength, and often, his head. Her lover Ferdiad ate seven times as
much as his fellow-men, had the strength of seven hundred; a nose and
penis as seven massive fingers long, a scrotum as large as a flour sack
and appetites to match. When his mistress was in other parts he called
upon seven normal women to assuage his needs. For her part Medb was
cunning, imperious as well as sexually motivated. After she slept with
Ferdiad, King Ailill forgave his rival, noting: "I know all about queens and
women, I lay first fault straight at woman's own sweet swellings and
loving lust." The aspect of her character he found iompossible to
understand was her deviousness. She once suggested killing a group of
friendly people, because she could see potential hostility. This Ailill
condemned as "woman's thinking" and totally wicked. Again, she promised
to meet her chief opponent Cuchullain at a truce-parlay where she would
be "attended by unarmed women". She turned up with fourteen warriors,
which Cuchullain managed to overcome. Ironically Medb survived all the
battlefields to be killed while banqueting. The outspoken lady injured her
nephew with her words and he seized a compressed stone-hard cheese and
lobbed it at her with his slingshot; it caught her on the forehead, bringing
instant death.

Antonia Fraser, speaking of Mhoriigan, has noted that it is "tempting

to regard this chariot-driving Warrior-Queen as owing her authority to
deep memories of a matriarchal society...where (women) gave men the
orders..." For present day feminists the idea of ancient badb- women is
comforting to the oppressed, and suggests a future remedy, when time
might restore the old "natural" order of rule. Unfortunate for this theory,
is the fact that the law of Mebd's time was addressed to "the men of
Eirinn": "It is proper indeed, wrote a law-giver,"...to give superiority to
the noble sex, that is to the male, for the man is the head of the
woman..."11 She was never, as elsewhere in Europe, the chattel of her
husband, but Medb was not the head of a matriarchy. Fraser thinks such
systems of government remain "very dubious" even within the framework
of entirely legendary warrior-women.

11Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race, p. 152.

 AES DANA

What the boabh did for a living would later be termed craft by the
Anglo-Saxons, and magic in the tongue of the Normans. Among the Tuatha
daoine, these people were probably members of a priviledged class, which
the Milesians described as the "aes dana" (people of poetry). The phrase
actually embraced a much wider variety of skills, including musicians,
bards, singers, historians, jurists, physicians and those who worked with
metals. The skills of any of these might be "sgoil-dubh" (black art) or
"sgoil-bann" (white art) depending on whether they were used to damage
or aid the individual who perceived them. Any poorly developed craft was
labelled "sgoitechd", which is to say silliness or quackery. The basic
kinds of Gaelic "magic" involved divination, or sooth-saying, employing "an
da shealladh" (the two sights) and wonder-working, which carried ordinary
crafts to god-like heights.

It should be noted that the Gaels considered all men to be "born

above their station". This meant that no matter how poor or lowborn a
citizen was he might conceivably become king. It was considered that
men were no lower than the gods, sharing some of the creator-god's
"breath of life" with all higher beings. There were ways of acquiring
additional spirit, which evidenced itself as skills, thus men might aspire
to godhood.

Their view of the supernatural is different from that of the Anglo-

Normans, who tended to fear and disparage anything which they did not
understand. Among the Gaels, waiting for knowledge was coinsidered akin
to waiting for weather, every variety arriving in its own time. "It is ane
of their tenants that everything goeth in circles!" 12 In the course of
cycles of death and reincarnation, men suspected that veils would
eventually be lifted, and that fears of the "sidh" (adj. supernatural) were
unnecessary since one might become a "sidh".

It is noteworthy that radios were, and perhaps are, considered

wonder-works. When they appeared in Gaelic Scotland they were
immediately identified as "an labhran-sidh". "Labhar" is an adjective
given to anything which jabbers on, like flocks of birds in a tree ; thus
"talkative". It resembles "labhrach" or "noisy". As we've noted "sidh" may
distinguish one of the underground magicians; thus the supernatural in
general; hence, "a fairy bird". The wonderful, incomprehensible radio, or
wireless set, was thus seen as a mysterious, jabbering,

12Reginald Scot, speaking of witches, but certainly

applicable to the CEltic races.
enchanted bird.

These machines, and television, have partly preempted the an dara

sealladh of the Celtic boabh since they give glimpses of the past and
predictions of the future (notably the weather report). In addition they
have the "gift" of far-sight being able to view present day objects and
events through the "eyes", which we call telescopic lenses. Computers are
also in the business of examining the past, present and future for the sake
of divination.

Formerly, this was left to the boabh, or a gifted amateur sooth-

sayer. John Shaw has classified Celtic divination as "active" or "passive".
The former requires the use of props in omen-seeking, while the later is
divined on happenings outside of the control of the seer. An example of
active divination is suggested by Helen Creighton: "On Hallowe'en night go
down the cellar steps backwards and look in a mirror and you will see the
face of your future husband."13 Passive divination occured without
intention, the "frith", or augury, appearing as an unexpected vision or in
the seemingly chance arrangement of objects in space. Joe Neil MacNeil
notes that Cape Bretoners used to expect good news when chips of
firewood were accidentally crossed: "(Then) people would say, "Do you not
see the fine augury on the floor? It won't be long before you get a letter!"
And I believe when they saw it they would expect good news according to
how good the augury looked."14 The ability to read omens was never seen
as entirely dependent on supernatural help, being closely associated with
the faculty termed "beachd", or "the keen observation of everyday
matters." Anciently, those who divined the future were termed the "vates"

Before technology intruded, the highest of the "aes dana" were those
known as the "filid (poets). This class is reputed to have begun with
Amergin, the druid who "uttered against the wind raised by the Tuatha
daoine." According to tradition the Milesians, or sons of Mil, came to
Ireland out of Scythia (northern Greece) by way of Egypt, Crete and Spain.
The warrior-wizards were unhappy, but not unimpressed, when thirty
ship-loads of Milesians put in at Kenmare Bay about the year 1,000 B.C.

13Helen Creighton, Bluenose Magic, p. 131.

14Joe Neil MacNeil, Tales Told Until Dawn, p.209.

They were alarmed when a landing party demanded immediate surrender of
the population or battle. We don't know who represented the Tuathans, but
the cause of the invaders was argued by Amergin. Being an honest
negotiator, he suggested that his own people withdraw their ships "nine
waves distant from the shore" until matters were settled. Seeing this as
their opportunity the Tuatha daoine used the postponement of events to
raise "a druidic storm". This blew no higher than the masts of ths ships
but was sufficient to scatter and wreck the fleet, killing five of the nine
brothers who were the sons of Mil. The remaining four, one carrying
Amergin were blown to sea. In that dangerous place, Amergin raised "an
incantation of great cunning" which allowed the remaining forces to land
and take the countryside.

In later years each of Ulster's heroic warriors was forced to have

his day on Sliab Fuait to subdue all comers with poetry or their sword. If
this seems unlikely magic consider case of the Celtic god Ogma (the one
with the "young" maw). This "honey-mouthed" deity, of the Milesian
panoply, was one of the sons of Dagda, king of the gods. He was credited
with inventing the means of binding the spoken word to rock, wood and
metal, using characters now known as "ogham figures". This alphabet was
cumbersome, and thus restricted to creating landmarks and memorials. A
Greek satirist of the fourth century described Ogma as drawing "a willing
crowd of people to his ideas, by slender golden chains that passed through
his tongue." Apparently his word-charms were very like things heard on
the labhran-sidh for it was suggested that he also created a spoken form
of Ogham, "a pedantic puzzle speech", still favoured by politicians.

The Tuathans knew something of this magic for they had once been
subjects of the inhospitable King Breas. His deficiencies were overlooked
for seven years but until he met Cairbre, the poet, who was treated to
meagre quarters and a few dry cakes where he expected royal quarters and
a banquet. Reacting to this, the wordsmith composed an ironic poem,
which was quoted throughout the county. Aroused by this, his people arose
against the king and defeated him at the Battle of Sligo.

Poetry as an expression of entrapped emotion, did not exist among

the ancient Celts, whose filid class was subdivided into men who used
rhyme and pattern as a key to useful information stored in memory. The
filids, or bards, men of "poison in satire and splendor in praise" had no use
for abstract verse but composed satire, or invective, balancing it with
eulogy and praise where the price was right. They were not the only ones
who needed a store of information. The illiterate Gaelic "senachies", or
historians, had to depend on memory to keep alive
the deeds of the heroes and the genealogies of the nobility. Their
"brehons" or lawyers needed stored facts to expand and clarify the law
according to past tradition and precedents and "draoi", or druids, needed to
be able to call up information touching religious matters.

Forms of verse were many, convoluted and sophisticated, so that a

mature filid had to go through advanced training to receive the title of
"ollam" (professor). Having reached that stage they had charge of a
powerful metaphysical weapon, which we would now call satire. The
range of this verse went from simple insulting speech to "glam dicend"
(invective from the hilltops), the "high-speech", which was an elaborate
ritual of magic, supposedly generating a "gisreag", or jet of destroying
fire. The Anglo-Normans divided their "wordsmithery" into charms and
spells, the former chanted, the latter, less poetic and paper-bound. The
gisreag obviously corresponded with the charm but the English product
was less world-shaking. When the Tuatha daoine had been harassed by the
"sea-giants", all of their craftsmen had gathered to do war. The magicians
had promised to chant up a storm which would create landslides "rolling
the summits against the ground" and over their enemies. They also said
that they would raise "showers of fire to pour upon the Fomorian host" and
create charms that would "take out of their bodies two-thirds of their
strength."15 If the word-magic succeeded, its secrets are lost, and today
"giseagan" is preserved in Gaelic as the equivalent of "superstition".

The minor fire-charms have been preserved in folklore. Thus we find

in present-day Cape Breton, Nova Scotia the following Gaelic charm,
formerly used to bind the will of others:

I am putting you under spells and crosses,

And under nine constraints of the walking wandering
sidh-mothers.
That every lamb weaker and more misguided than
yourself,
May take from your head and your ear
And your livlihood.

15Katherine Scherman, The Flowering of Ireland, pp. 55-56.

 If you do not...
trans. John Shaw 16

In the last sentence, the service desired is inserted. This charm is

effective three times; after that the person who has been word-bound is
freed to employ the verses against his tormenter.

There have been traditional charms to win love, cause enmity

between lovers, set aside fever, sorrow and pains, ensure the rising of
bread and insure against witchcraft. In the Christian era, the word-magic
was retained, with the substitution of "more acceptable" god spirits; thus
we find the following charm, to be said on undertaking a journey:

Seven prayers, seven times over told,

Mary left to her son of old,
Bride left to her mantles length,
God left to his own great strength,
Between us and the fairie kind,
Us and the people of the wind,
Us and the water's drowning power,
Us and temptations evil hour,
Us and the world's all blighting breath,
Us and the bondsman's cruel death.17

The shortest forms of word-magic survive in the oath, the curse and
the blessing. The first invokes the help of a god or spirit in fulfilling a
promise and many are now degraded into mock-oaths. Hence some of
today's Irish swear "by the powdhers of delft" (the powers of death). When
my grandfather Mackay wished to affirm or negate a verbal contract he
often said "Yesiree bob (boabh)!" or "Nosiree bob!" without realizing that he
called upon the an uncanny witnesss. Padraic Colum has noted that those
who make promises under oath are "in general ignorant of their proper
origin" (and supposed power). "By the Holy Cross" promises a considerable
obligation, but the Gael knows how to empower it and subvert it. To make
it more impressive he will accompany the words by crossing the

16Joe Neil MacNeil, Tales Told Until Dawn, p. 28.

17Colum Padraic, A Treasury of Irish Folklore, p. 416.

forefingers of the two hands. If he wishes to lie he will multiply the
number of crosses; thus: "I promise by the five crosses!" If an Irishaman
or a Scot swears while crossing two sticks or two straws, he can be
believed but if he crosses his two hands, he fibs all haet and apprent
sincerity to the contrary.

My grandfather's favourite oath upon striking his finger with a

hammer was "By the Sam-hill," making reference to Samh, the Gaelic
summer moon-goddess, whose sacrificial fires were kindled on the
highest hills of Scotland. Gaelic imprecations like this are often difficult
to understand their origin being buried in a poetical metaphor or historic
event. In the latter category, we have: "May the crow's curse fall upon
you!" Here, one has to know that the reviled Norse invaders sailed under
the crow-banner. This is also basic to the phrase: "Die and give the crows
blood-pudding." There are simpler curses, for example, "Hell's cure to
you!" "May the Devil be your travelling companion!" and "May the grass
grow before your door!" Their are mock-imprecations just as there are
mock-oaths, thus: "The Devil gow it you and sixpence; then you'll never
want money or company!" On the other hand, being told: "May you melt
from the earth as snow into the ditch!" is to be subject to an honest and
dreadful malediction.

Blessings are the reverse of the curse, and example being: "May the
blessings of the five loaves and two fishes, which God divided among five
thousand men, be yours and ours; and may the King who made division put
luck in our food and each portion."

It was felt that care has to be exercised in setting loose a curse

since it would continue to circulate and remain potent until it had
produced an effect. Once voiced, the magic words were said to hover in
the air ready to fall upon the victim in a moment when his guardian-spirit
(who Christian's referred to as the "guardian-angel") was inattentive. If
this happened, it was claimed that the invading word-spirit would shoot
"like a meteor" to the head of that person, creating illness, accident or a
dangerous but irresistable temptation. William Carleton contended that a
curse "will rest for seven years in the air, ready to alight..." 18 The air-
spirit could never affect a blameless individual, since his guardian was
always vigilant and at hand. In addition, the curse of one individual might
be negated by the blessing of another; in which instance, the air-borne
nasty looked for a secondary host, and finding none, might return and fall
upon the boabh who generated it. When a seemly innocent person fell ill,
or was a victim of accident, it was suspected: "He has taken on some poor
body's curse!" On the other hand, those who were observed to have
exceptionally good luck, were assumed the recipients of "some poor body's
blessing!"

The physical effects of a curse are illustrated in the legend of Caier,

king of Connaught, whose wife fell in love with his foster-son Nede, who
happened to be a poet. After the couple were physically involved, the
woman suggested it would useful to eliminate Caier, since he would
inherit the throne. Nede would like to have obliged but knew that before
he could bring a charm to bear he must asked his victim a favour and be
refused; unfortunately Caier was a generous man. The disloyal wife
pointed out the fact that it was considered bad luck for one man to give
another a pointed object, and that he might refuse his knife. Nede asked
for the knife, was regretfully refused, thus allowing the creation of a
satirical poem. The next morning when Caier washed at the fountain he
found a white, a green and a red blister on his face. In the laws of the
time these constituted a blemish, and men with physical defects were not
permitted to rule in the Gaeldom. The king fled in great shame, and Ned
was made ruler. Later, repenting his dishonesty, Nede approached him
with conciliating words, but Caier's humiliation was so great he died of a
burst heart. He fell beside a spirited-stone, which sensing injustice blew
apart at the death, casting off a fragment which entered Nede's eye,
killing him.

The Gaelic language was as full of Ogma's "honey" as it was

invective. Men were criticized for feeding women "false music", from the
ancient word-craft. Awe of the sorcery of words was equalled by the
Celtic belief in the magic of music. The "puirt-a-beul" (mouth-music) is

18WilliamCarleton, Traits and Stories of the Irish

Peasantry, pp. 203-219. From "An Essay On Irish Swearing", a
very full account of oaths, curses and blessings.
obviously a survival of the art of the filid. "Beul" also appears in
"beultainne", or Beltane, the ancient name for their month of May and the
second great fire-festival of the year, which was held on the evening of
the last day of April. Beultainne translates as "mouth of fire", a night of
ritual sex, sacrifice, dancing, drinking and music, probably including the
puirt-a-beul. It may be suspected as the invention of Ogma since it
consists of repetitive sounds which have no more meaning in Gaelic than
English. The other instruments of music were the single pipe, or whistle,
the bag-pipe and the harp.

The chief of these was the harp, which was first played by Dagda
(Father of Day), the Celtic king of the gods. When the Dagda's wife Boann,
or Boyne, was pregnant the Dagda solaced her with the "harp of the north".
When she was in labour he imitated her cries of pain and then the joy of
her delivery, afterwards making "the sounds odf sleep" to bring her rest.
When she awoke she named her first-born Goltraighe (crying music), her
second Geantraighe (joyful music) and Suantraighe (sleep music). In later
days this harp was stolen by Fomorian giants, but regained from them by
Dagda's sons, Midir and Lugh. The big Lugh, or Lugg, fell heir to it, and was
later known as the god of poetry, music and free-love.

Facsimilies of this quadrangular, six-stringed instrument fell into

the hands of the associates of the gods and it was put to use by Labrai
Loingsiuch when he courted Moriath, daughter of Scoriath. The parents did
not approve of this musician and they called upon her father's harper to
help them. He played at the next feast moving through geantraighe to
suantrighe, so that the entire assembly nodded at the table. The young
couples absented themselves from the hall and became lovers. The adults
arose to find Moriath "respiring the breath of a plighted wife."

Something similar occured in the case of Deirdre, the daughter of

Dall, a rhymer to King Conor. She had been ill-omened, "a child of
disaster" according to Cathbad the Druid. As a result she was kept in
seclusion and bethrothed to Conor, but before the wedding, fell in love
with Naisi of Clan Usnach. Naisi was a superb harpist who, literally,
enchanted the men of Ulster so that he could flee to Scotland with Deirdre.
Unfortunately, this act opened a war which exterminated all of the Usnach
family.

The harper was a freeman in each place, not as high in rank as the
poet, but placed just below him at the king's banquets. The chief harper,
the "ollam" or "ard ollam" (high professor) of his craft was, however a man
among the gentry, entitled to four cows where his honour was totally
offended, as for example in the loss of a finger. Even the loss of a nail
demanded recompense for the old Gaelic harp was played by plucking.

Besides the harp there were wind and brass instruments in the
Celtic lands: horns to call men together for meetings or warfare and the
pipes, which were the magic of the peasantry. Performers on the latter
instrument were classed with jugglers and sleight-of-hand magicians, a
professional class who sat at the bottom of the king's table, in the
corners near the door, next to hired mercenaries, and those who were not
freemen.

The first Christian missionaries utilized the word and song-

smithery as often as the druids and the boadbs, but their successors
feared the roots of folklore. In 1567 Bishop Carswell complained of "the
vain, seductive, lying and worldly tales concerning the Tuatha daoine" as
well as "much else, which I will not enumerate". 19 The magical-poetry
was very hard to way-lay, since it had no external parts. There is a
Scottish dite that says:

An end will come to the world,

But music and love will endure.

Men at sea were not observed by priests, elders or ministers and

they continued to sing the "iorram" or boat songs, whose magic was
supposed to lift the burden of rowing. The milkmaid insisted on her
traditional occupational songs, without which cows refused their milk.
The housewife had her churning tunes and rest-music for the infants.
When people gathered to mill cloth they sang the "oran luaidh", or milling
song in spite of the fact that it had been declared sinful. Later in the
process "pairing songs", intended to bring together potential maidens and
young men were presented, and the cloth was completed with a neo-pagan

19R.L.Thomson ed., Foirm na n-Urrnuidheadh, London, 1970,

p. 11 for the Gaelic version which served asan introduction to
Carswell's Gaelic prayer book.
consecration song. 20

The poetry of the Gael is also seen to have played a part in medicine,
herbs and mare's milk, bark being no more important than the human voice
in managing cures for illness. Neil Macdonald of Albert Bridge Cape Breton
recommended the following "Eolas an t-Sniomh", or "Charm for A Sprain"
where a horse had been injured:

Christ came out;

He found the bones of a horse broken.
He placed blood to blood and flesh to flesh;
As he cured that, so cure this. 21

As the Gaelic was intoned Charles Dunn said that the "physician"
wrapped a string "in a special manner" around the horses damaged leg.
Hugh Mackinnon has said that the knot was not special, but had to be tied
using the thumbs and forefingers alone. 22 This charm worked as well with
humans as horses and cattle, and the same could be said for the "Eolas an
Deideidh" or "Charm for Toothache" and the "Eolas na Sul", "Charm for the
Eyes". For best results charms were recited by "gifted" or "lucky"
individuals.

Within the "Gaidhealtachd", or Gaeldom, there have always been

traditional restraints placed on poets. The longer more elaborate
histories and wonder-tales were regarded as the preserve of male
reciters. Although women occasionally recited the shorter "senachas"
they were considered the custodians of songs, musical traditions and
charms. In Cape Breton, Neil MacNeill said that he could not recall an
instance where a woman had recited the Fenian tales, although
connstraints were relaxed in Canada as compared with Scotland and
Ireland, and there were "a large number of good woman story-tellers."

20SeeCharles W. Dunn, Highland Settler, pp.37-41 for a

complete description of a Milling Frolic.

21CharlesW. Dunn, Highland Settler, p. 42. Recounted to the

author in 1943.

22Caplan, Down North, p.30.

 If word-magic was hard to supress, instrumental music was not, for
the harp, lyre, and bellow-pipes were easily confiscated by the elders of
the Church. In Scotland the men of God brought down everything but the
bagpipe, which belonged to the teanant farmers, who were the last to part
with their paganism. Fortunately, the clerics were slow in following
their flocks to the New World and in America the bagpipes, and the newly
created fiddle, flourished "although some settlers' descendants were
perplexed by their own conflicting allegiances to religion and to music,
(and may) still feel a little dubious about them." 23

This ambiguity was clearly locked into the pagan idea that music and
poetry were god-like. In its day, eloquence was valued as highly as
bravery in battle and could supposedly stay the arm of the most inspired
fighter. Diodorus Siculus a Greek historian of the first century B.C.,
observed that when "two armies are in the presence of one another, and
swords drawn and spears couched, the Celtic poets throw themselves into
the midst of the combatants and appease them as if charming wild beasts.
Thus even amongst the most savage barbarians anger submits to the rule
of wisdom..."24 It is clear that the Celts also used word-magic in less
studied form, for their irrational drumming and chanting unnerved the
Romans who guarded the boundaries of their domain. In addition to this,
they came to battle shaking their short spears, the blunt ends of which
carried brass rattles. This had magical intent, but also helped their cause
by making the enemy overestimate their strength.

Current day folklorists and historians have difficulty believing that

such magic existed. Gillian Tindall is representative in describing
magical chants as "a comitant of illiteracy...I cannot myself get very
interested in the study of "power words". To regard verbal formulas or a
garbled string of names as having some intrinsic magic quality seems to
me to negate the whole point of language, which lies in its communicable
meaning." 25

23Charles W. Dunn, Highland Settler, p. 55.

24Katherine Scherman, The Flowering of Ireland, p. 23.

25Gillian Tindall, A Handbook On Witchcraft, p. 120.

 What she misses is the fact that mouth-music and the Ogham were
considered pure magic, whose meaning (if any) was deliberately obscured.
A good proportion of such magic was out-and-out trickery, and the word-
makers would have been subject to disbelief if the common folk had
understood their methods. The boabhs often invoked spirits, and voices
were heard to answer from a hole in a rock wall, from animals, or from
empty space. This would have been considered potent magic in the days
before the principles of ventriloquism were understood. Additionally,
magic-workers were seen to capture the spirits of others by reciting
words which were repetitious, but of little apparent meaning. Today, the
craft of hypnotism is widely recognized although its operating principles
are no better understood than they were several thousand years in the
past.

In the case of King Caier some seeming deception might have been
practiced, his facial blemishes perhaps being produced by poisonous or
bacterial agents placed on him while he slept. In a fair number of cases,
magic words or music were intoned over potions which were then used as
an adjunct to get the desired physical results. A boabh might intone his,
or her, words above a vial of poison, afterwards adding the substance to
the victim's drink. In the days before chemistry, the practitioner of magic
may have been uncertain whether it was the words or the substance which
produced the effect. Tindall herself noted that human beings do not like to
believe that important processes can take place independent of human
decision, and that there seems to be a need to sanctify physical actions
with verbal rituals. This she says is, "readily transmuted into the idea
that words themselves do the trick." 26

The emotional and practical impact of sheer words, or music,

divorced from overt communication, remains an important part of
religious prayer, stage hypnotism and politics. Considering the use which
Adolph Hitler was able to make of words we should not doubt their
potential for harm. Nede's music may not have involved any deception,
considering the fact that half of all diseases are now known to be
psychosomatic, the symptoms resulting from the victim's own fear. In
Celtic lore it is emphasized that disbelievers were protected from the
force of the boabh by their disbelief. Conversely, those who believed they

26Gillian Tindall, A Handbook On Witchcraft, p. 119.

could be stricken by words or music were open to damage. Today, if a
doctor were to inform an individual that he had accidentally swallowed a
poisonous tablet this might not result in a fatality, on the other hand it
would certainly produce anxiety in the most iron-willed person. Those
who were a little less secure might suffer from dizziness, faintness,
violent stomach cramps, vomiting or death. It is, therefore, incorrect to
suppopse that the boabh was an impotent "poseur". If the wordsmith
though he was powerful and his victim concurred that he might be harmed
by indirect means, he was likely to succumb to the mere news that actions
had been taken against him.

STICKS AND STONES

Apart from the Aes dana were the "luchd-ceairde", or "craftsmen".

Workers in gold, bronze, iron, wood and stone were highly respected among
the old Gaels, but they were not an elite like the poets and historians,
having to work with their hands rather than their minds and tongues. They
were sometimes referred to as members of the "base professions" but the
products of their knives and forges were no less magical than the sounds
upon air.

Although almost all known Celtic art is inscribed or cut from stone,
or cast in metal, we know that they made extensive use of wood. Much of
Britain is now stripped of forests but three thousand years ago, when the
Milesians invaded Ireland, the land was entirely forested. The trees were
designated by law as chieftain, common or brambles, the first being
protected for their superior usefulness. "Chieftain" trees included the
oak, yew, ash, pine, holly, apple and hazel. The oak was a superior building
material whose acorns fed pigs, possessing a bark which was used to tan
leather. The hazel also yielded nuts and had flexible branches useful in
making the frameworks of the half-spherical boats and houses of the sons
of Mil. Yew was considered for manufacturing kitchen containers and fine
furniture. From the ash came shafts for spears, while pine went into
barrels and casks. Holly was almost iron-hard, yielding shafts for
chariots. The apple yielded fruit in addition to tanning chemicals. In the
"common" catergory were the alder, willow and hawthorn and the shrubs:
"the blackthorn, elder and arbutus. The "brambles" were the furze, bog
myrtle, broom and gooseberry.

The legendary home of Queen Maeve, the Rath Cruachain may have
been beneath a "hollow-hill" but "the house was composed of beautifully
carved red yew" arranged in seven concentric compartments, all faced
with bronze from foundation to roof-line. The outermost wall was of
pine, "with a covering of oak shingles,"and beyond this stood thirteen foot
walls of dry masonry, beyond which were five concentric ramparts.

1.Cornwall, Ian W., The World Of Ancientr Man, Tor., Ont., 1966, pp. 21-32.

2.Clark, Grahame, World Prehistory-An Outline, Cambridge, 1961, pp. 76-

77.

3.Borrow George, Wild Wales, Oxford Press, 1860, p. 526.

4.Dyer, Gwynne, War, London, 1986, p. 9.

5.Dyer, Gwynne, War, London, 1985, p. 10.

6.Dyer, Gwynne, War, London, 1985, p. 6.

7.Dyer, Gwynne3, War, London, 1985, p. 11.

8.Guerber, H.A., The Norsemen, (London), 1985, p. 2.

9.Bulfinch, Thomas, Bulfinch's Mythology (New York) 1913, p. 356.

10.Guerber, H.A. The Norsemen (London) 1985, pp. 116-117.

11.Guerber, H.A., The Norsemen (London) 1985, p. 218.

12.Guerber, H.A., The Norsemen (London) 1985, p. 372.

13.Ferguson, D.A. & Macdonald, A.J., The Hebridean Connection, (Halifax),
1984. See pp. 460 for the creation story.

14.MacManus, Seumas, The Story Of THe Irish Race, Old Greenwich, Conn.,
1983, quoting from Iar Connacht, footnote, pp. 100-101.

15.Guerber, H.A., The Norsemen, London, 1985, p. 8.

16.Peete, Tom, Ancient Irish Tales (New York) 1936, p. 28.

17.Scherman, Katherine, The Flowering Of Ireland (Boston) 1981, p. 235.

18.Rolleston, T.W., Celtic Myths and Legends (New York) 1990, p. 138.

19.Rollestone, T.W., CEltic Myths And Legends (London) 1990, p. 132.

20.Eliade, Mircea, Patterns In Comparative Religion (New York) 1958, p.

207.

21.McNeill, F. Marion, The Scots Kitchen (London) 1920, p. 234.

22.Bulofinch, Thomas, Bulfinch's Mythology (New York) 1913, pp. 596-597.

23.Rutherford, Ward, Celtic Mythology (New York) 1987, p. 53.

24.See his arguments in Rutherford, Ward, Celtic Mythology (New York)

1987, pp. 53-54.

25.Both quotes from MacManus, Seumas, The Story Of The Irish Race (Ol;d
Greenwich, Conn.) 1983, p. 2.

26.Fraser, Sir James George, The Golden Bough, p. 127

27.Tacitus, quoted by Rutherford, Ward, Celtic Mythology, p. 31.