🧚 Firbolgs and Third Cycle of the Fomoroh. · page 2

Lu Lamfada was the patron god of Cuculain.60 He was surnamed Ioldana, as the source of the sciences, and represented the Greek Apollo.61 The latter was argurgurotoxos [Transcriber's Note: Greek in the original], but Lu was a sling bearing god.62 Of Fomorian descent on the mother's side, he joined his father's people, the Tuatha De Danan, in the great war against the Fomoroh.63 He is principally celebrated for his oppression of the sons of Turann, in vengeance for the murder of his father.64

ANGUS OG, (circa 1500 B.C.)65 LU LAMFADA, (circa 1500 B.C.) son of son of THE DAGDA, (Zeus) Cian, son of son of Elathan, Diancect, (god the healer) son of son of Dela, Esric, son of son of Ned, Dela, son of son of Indaei, Ned, son of son of Indaei, son of ALLDAEI.66

Amongst other Irish gods was Bove Derg, who dwelt invisible in the Galtee mountains, and in the hills above Lough Derg.67 The transformed children alluded to in Vol. I. were his grand-children.68 It was his goldsmith Len, who gave its ancient name to the Lakes of Killarney, Locha Lein.69 Here by the lake he worked, surrounded by rainbows and showers of fiery dew.70

Mananan was the god of the sea, of winds and storms, and most skilled in magic lore.71 He was friendly to Cuculain, and was invoked by seafaring men.72 He was called the Far Shee of the promontories.73

BOVE DERG (circa 1500 B.C.)74 MANANAN (circa 1500 B.C.) son of son of Eocaidh Garf, Alloid, son of son of Duach Temen, Elathan, son of son of Bras, Dela, son of son of Dela, Ned, son of son of Ned, Indaei, son of son of Indaei, son of ALLDAEI.75

The Tuatha De Danan maybe counted literally by the hundred, each with a distinct history, and all descended from Alldaei.76

From Alldaei the pedigree runs back thus:--77

Alldaei son of Tath, son of Tabarn, son of Enna, son of Baath, son of Ebat, son of Betah, son of Iarbanel, son of NEMEDH (circa 1700 B.C.)78

Nemedh, as I have said, forms one of the great epochs in the mythological record.79 As will be seen, he and the earlier Partholan have a common source:--80

NEMEDH son of Sera, son of Pamp, son of Tath, PARTHOLAN (2000 B.C.) son of son of Sera, son of Sru, son of Esru, son of Pramant.81

The connection between Keasair, the earliest of the Irish gods, and the rest of the cycle, I have not discovered, but am confident of its existence.82

How this divine cycle can be expunged from the history of Ireland I am at a loss to see.83 The account which a nation renders of itself must, and always does, stand at the head of every history.84

How different is this from the history and genealogy of the Greek gods which runs thus:--85

The Olympian gods, Titans, Physical entities, Nox, Chaos, &c.86

The Greek gods, undoubtedly, had a long ancestry extending into the depths of the past, but the sudden advent of civilisation broke up the bardic system before the historians could become philosophical, or philosophers interested in antiquities.87

But the Irish history corrects our view with regard to other matters connected with the gods of the Aryan nations of Europe also.88

All the nations of Europe lived at one time under the bardic and druidic system, and under that system imagined their gods and elaborated their various theogonies, yet, in no country in Europe has a bardic literature been preserved except in Ireland, for no thinking man can believe Homer to have been a product of that rude type of civilisation of which he sings.89 This being the case, modern philosophy, accounting for the origin of the classical deities by guesses and _a priori_ reasonings, has almost universally adopted that explanation which I have, elsewhere, called Wordsworthian, and which derives them directly from the imagination personifying the aspects of nature.90

"In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched On the soft grass through half a summer's day, With music lulled his indolent repose, And in some fit of weariness if he, When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear A distant strain far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched, Even from the blazing chariot of the sun, A beardless youth who touched a golden lute And filled the illumined groves with ravishment-- *** "Sunbeams upon distant hills, Gliding apace with shadows in their train, Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed Into fleet oreads, sporting visibly."91

This is pretty, but untrue.92 In all the ancient Irish literature we find the connection of the gods, both those who survived into the historic times, and those whom they had dethroned, with the raths and cairns perpetually and almost universally insisted upon.93 The scene of the destruction of the Firbolgs will be found to be a place of tombs, the metropolis of the Fomorians a place of tombs, and a place of tombs the sacred home of the Tuatha along the shores of the Boyne.94 Doubtless, they are represented also as dwelling in the hills, lakes, and rivers, but still the connection between the great raths and cairns and the gods is never really forgotten.95 When the floruit of a god has expired, he is assigned a tomb in one of the great tumuli.96 No one can peruse this ancient literature without seeing clearly the genesis of the Irish gods, _videlicet_ heroes, passing, through the imagination and through the region of poetic representation, into the world of the supernatural.97 When a king died, his people raised his ferta, set up his stone, and engraved upon it, at least in later times, his name in ogham.98 They celebrated his death with funeral lamentations and funeral games, and listened to the bards chanting his prowess, his liberality, and his beauty.99 In the case of great warriors, these games and lamentations became periodical.100 It is distinctly recorded in many places, for instance in connection with Taylti, who gave her name to Taylteen and Garman, who gave her name to Loch Garman, now Wexford, and with Lu Lamfada, whose annual worship gave its name to the Kalends of August.101 Gradually, as his actual achievements became more remote, and the imagination of the bards, proportionately, more unrestrained, he would pass into the world of the supernatural.102 Even in the case of a hero so surrounded with historic light as Cuculain we find a halo, as of godhood, often settling around him.103 His gray warsteed had already passed into the realm of mythical representation, as a second avatar of the Liath Macha, the grey war-horse of the war-goddess Macha.104 This could be believed, even in the days when the imagination was controlled by the annalists and tribal heralds.105

The gods of the Irish were their deified ancestors.106 They were not the offspring of the poetic imagination, personifying the various aspects of nature.107 Traces, indeed, we find of their influence over the operations of nature, but they are, upon the whole, slight and unimportant.108 From nature they extract her secrets by their necromantic and magical labours, but nature is as yet too great to be governed and impelled by them.109 The Irish Apollo had not yet entered into the sun.110

Like every country upon which imperial Rome did not leave the impress of her genius, Ireland, in these ethnic times, attained only a partial unity.111 The chief king indeed presided at Tara, and enjoyed the reputation and emoluments flowing to him on that account, but, upon the whole, no Irish king exercised more than a local sovereignty; they were all reguli, petty kings, and their direct authority was small.112 This being the case, it would appear to me that in the more ancient times the death of a king would not be an event which would disturb a very extensive district, and that, though his tomb might be considerable, it would not be gigantic.113

Now on the banks of the Boyne, opposite Rosnaree, there stands a tumulus, said to be the greatest in Europe.114 It covers acres of ground, being of proportionate height.115 The earth is confined by a compact stone wall about twelve feet high.116 The central chamber, made of huge irregular pebbles, is about twenty feet from ground to roof, communicating with the outer air by a flagged passage.117 Immense pebbles, drawn from the County of Antrim, stand around it, each of which, even to move at all, would require the labour of many men, assisted with mechanical appliances.118 It is, of course, impossible to make an accurate estimate of the expenditure of labour necessary for the construction of such a work, but it would seem to me to require thousands of men working for years.119 Can we imagine that a petty king of those times could, after his death, when probably his successor had enough to do to sustain his new authority, command such labour merely to provide for himself a tomb.120 If this tomb were raised to the hero whose name it bears immediately after his death, and in his mundane character, he must have been such a king as never existed in Ireland, even in the late Christian times.121 Even Brian of the Tributes himself, could not have commanded such a sepulture, or anything like it, living though he did, probably, two thousand years later than that Eocaidh Mac Elathan, whenever he did live.122 There is a _nodus_ here needing a god to solve it.123

Returning now to what would most likely take place after the interment of a hero, we may well imagine that the size of his tomb would be in proportion to the love which he inspired, where no accidental causes would interfere with the gratification of that feeling.124 Of one of his heroes, Ossian, sings--125

"We made his cairn great and high Like a king's."126

After that there would be periodical meetings in his honour, the celebration of games, solemn recitations by bards, singing his aristeia [Transcriber's Note: Greek in the original].127 Gradually the new wine would burst the old bottles.128 The ever-active, eager-loving imagination would behold the champion grown to heroic proportions, the favourite of the gods, the performer of superhuman feats.129 The tomb, which was once commensurate with the love and reverence which he inspired, would seem so now no longer.130 The tribal bards, wandering or attending the great fairs and assemblies, would disperse among strangers and neighbours a knowledge of his renown.131 In the same cemetery or neighbourhood their might be other tombs of heroes now forgotten, while he, whose fame was in every bardic mouth in all that region, was honoured only with a tomb no greater than theirs.132 The mere king or champion, grown into a topical hero, would need a greater tomb.133