Early Irish Myths and Sagas

by Jeffrey Gantz

  In ‘The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel’, a druid partakes of the flesh and broth of a slaughtered bull and then lapses into a deep sleep, wherein he is expected to see the form of the new king. In later Irish history, however, the king was chosen from an extended family unit; and his position, continually contested by other family members (just as in fifteenth-century England), was far from secure. Curiously, the kings of the Irish stories are not battle leaders: either they betray vestiges of divinity (Cú Ruí, for example) or they have a young champion as heir and rival. Examples of this second pattern – which reflects the relationship of Agamemnon to Achilles and anticipates those of Arthur to Lancelot and Mark to Tristan – are legion: Mider temporarily loses Étaín to his foster-son Óengus; Conchubur loses Derdriu to the young warrior Noísiu and relinquishes supremacy in battle to Cú Chulaind; Cet rather than King Ailill is the champion of the Connachta.

  The second class of Irish society, the priests, is more controversial. Popular notions of white-robed druids overseeing human sacrifices, cutting mistletoe with golden sickles and chanting spells over magic cauldrons persist – and not without reason. But Strabo points out that the druids concern themselves with questions of ethics in addition to their study of natural phenomena. And because they are considered the most just of all, they possess the power to decide judicial matters, both those dealing with individuals and those involving the common good. Thus they have been known to control the course of wars, and to check armies about to join battle, and especially to judge cases of homicide. When there is a large number of these last, they suppose there will be a large return from the land as well. And both they and others maintain that the soul and the cosmos are immortal, though at some time in the future fire and water will prevail over them.4

  Diodorus, moreover, makes mention of certain philosophoi and religious interpreters, men highly honoured, whom they call Druids… It is their custom not to make any sacrifice without one of these philosophoi, since they believe that offerings should be rendered to the gods through the agency of those well acquainted with the divine nature (on speaking terms, one might say), and that requests for favours should likewise be made by these same men. In matters of war too the philosophoi are readily obeyed, they and the singing bards, and this by enemies as well as their own people. Often, in fact, when battle lines are drawn and armies close ground with swords and spears poised, they will step out into the middle and halt both sides, as if enchanting wild beasts. Thus even among the most savage barbarians, the spirit yields to the arts, and Ares reveres the Muses.5

  Valuable as they are, these Classical accounts, at second hand and biased, should not be accepted at face value: the druids were, most probably, neither human-sacrificing savages nor great moral philosophers. Certainly, there is no evidence of either role in the Irish tales. In the mythological stories, druids are magicians: in ‘The Wooing of Étain’, Fúamnach, who has been reared by the druid Bresal, is able to turn her rival, Étaín, into first a pool of water and then a scarlet fly; in ‘The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel’, Ingcél’s druids bring about Conare’s death by making him thirsty. The druids of the Ulster Cycle, however, are little more than wise old men (reminiscent of Nestor), though they claim some power of prophecy. Cathub and Senchae are greatly revered for their sagacity and for their peacemaking (‘Bricriu’s Feast’ and ‘The Intoxication of the Ulaid’ fully confirm Diodorus’s account of druidic intervention between combatants), but they display neither magical powers nor moral philosophy. It seems that the process of becoming a druid was a protracted one – according to Caesar, it could take twenty years – and involved the study of myth/history, law, science, religion and philosophy. Since the Celts in general and the druids in particular were averse to writing their knowledge down (out of fear that it might be corrupted if outsiders found it, but doubtless also because of the druids’ desire to preserve their privileged status), all this material had to be memorized. In short, the druids appear to have been the caretakers of whatever knowledge – from magic to science – their people possessed.

  The third class of people were free men who farmed and herded. As the clients of a chieftain or other landowner, they received rent of the land, perhaps some stock, and some protection from enemies; in return, they surrendered a portion of what the land yielded and did some kind of service for their landlord. The upper class of these tenant farmers took possession of the rented stock after seven years; the lower classes did not and were in effect serfs. At the bottom of the social scale were the slaves; these were often people captured from neighbouring tribes, but they do not appear to have been numerous.

  Irish society, especially that of the historical tales, was an aristocratic one. The strongholds of the Ulster Cycle – Crúachu and Emuin Machae – are not cities but rather compounds where the king lives with his household and where he regales his chieftains with feasts and entertainments: poets, singers, musicians, jugglers. These strongholds may also have been centres for rounding up stock in autumn and for the holding of annual fairs, such as the one described at the beginning of ‘The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind’: ‘Each year the Ulaid held an assembly: the three days before Samuin and the three days after Samuin and Samuin itself. They would gather at Mag Muirthemni, and during these seven days there would be nothing but meetings and games and amusements and entertainments and eating and feasting.’ And drinking. Such a lifestyle dictated an expansionist policy towards one’s neighbours, since, in order to distribute wealth to their clients, kings and chieftains first had to accumulate it. Even in the mythological stories, the importance of land and possessions is patent: in ‘The Wooing of Étaín’, Óengus asserts his right to land from his father, the Dagdae, and it is the wealth of Bruig na Bóinde that enables him to compensate his foster-father, Mider, when the latter is injured.

  The Irish year was divided into two parts: winter and summer. The first day of November, called Samuin, was both the first day of winter and the first day of the new year; the feast has since given rise to Hallowe’en/All Saints’ Day and contributed the bonfire to Guy Fawkes celebrations. Samuin was a day of changes, of births and deaths; it was an open door between the real world and the otherworld. Óengus (in ‘The Wooing of Étaín’) dispossesses Elcmar of Bruig na Bóinde at Samuin, and he finds his beloved (in ‘The Dream of Óengus’) at Samuin. It is at Samuin that Da Derga’s hostel is destroyed and Conare Már is slain (the death of a king at Samuin is so common as to suggest regeneration myths and ritual slaying); it is at Samuin that, in ‘The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind’, beautiful birds appear at Mag Muirthemni and Cú Chulaind is entranced by Fand; it is at Samuin that, in ‘The Intoxication of the Ulaid’, the Ulaid charge off to the south-west of Ireland and are nearly burnt inside an iron house. Proinsias Mac Cana has called Samuin ‘a partial return to primordial chaos… the appropriate setting for myths which symbolise the dissolution of established order as a prelude to its recreation in a new period of time’;6 and there can be no doubt that Samuin was the most important day of re-creation and rebirth in Ireland.

  The first day of May, called Beltene, marked the beginning of summer; this feast has since given rise to May Eve/Walpurgisnacht and May Day. Beltene was a less important day, and, consequently, less information about it has survived; the name seems to mean ‘fire of Bel’ (Bel presumably being the Irish descendant of the continental god Belenos) or ‘bright fire’, and there is a tradition that cattle were driven between two fires on this day so that the smoke would purify them. In any case, the rites of Beltene were probably directed towards ensuring the fertility of land and stock. The Welsh hero Pryderi is born on the first of May, and this fact coupled with the unusual circumstances of his birth (the concurrent birth of colts, the otherworld visitor) suggests that Beltene was also a day when the real and the fantastic merged.

  The beginnings of spring and autumn were also celebrated, but even less is known about these holidays. Imbolg, which fell on the first of February, seems t
o have been the beginning of the lambing season; it is also associated with the goddess Brigit (Briganti in Britain), whose successor, Saint Brighid, has her feast day, significantly, on the first of February. Lugnasad, which fell on the first of August, was named after the god Lug and seems to have been a harvest festival; if so, it was probably a late addition, since harvest time (that is, the end of the grazing season) in a pastoral (as opposed to an agrarian) community would have fallen closer to Samuin. In any case, the opening sentences of ‘The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind’ show that the annual autumn round-up and assembly of the Ulaid took place at Samuin.

  For Celtic and Irish religion, there is a wealth of evidence: the testimony of the Classical writers, especially Caesar; that of Gaulish sculpture and inscriptions; and that of the surviving Welsh and Irish myths. The resultant picture, however, is far from clear. Caesar identifies a Gaulish pantheon headed by Mercury and including Apollo, Mars, Jupiter and Minerva; corroborating evidence is so absent, however, that one has to suspect he is simply pinning Roman tails on a Celtic donkey.7 It is the Gaulish sculptures and inscriptions (we have no stories, unfortunately) that attest to the true nature of Celtic religion: no pantheon, but rather localized deities with localized functions; and this accords with what we know of the Celts politically, for they had little tolerance for centralized authority, even their own. The more widespread and possibly more important deities include Lugos (Mercury in Caesar, Lug in Ireland, Lleu in Wales; he gave his name to Lyon, Leiden and Liegnitz (Legnica), as well as to the Irish autumn festival of Lugnasad); Belenos, whose name means ‘bright’ and who might have been a rough counterpart to Apollo; Maponos (Mabon in Wales, the Macc Óc in Ireland; his name means ‘great son’); Ogmios, whom Lucian describes as the Gaulish Herakles and as a god of eloquence;8 Cernunnos, whose name means ‘horned’ and who presumably is the homed figure on the Gundestrup cauldron; and Epona, a goddess whose name means ‘great horse’. Much attention has been given to the trio of Esus, Taranis and Teutates in Lucan9 and to the sacrifices with which they allegedly were appeased (hanging, burning and drowning, respectively), but their true importance is uncertain. Evidence as to how these and other Celtic gods (who are literally too numerous to mention) related to each other – the kind of testimony we find in Greek mythology – is totally lacking.

  The evidence of the Irish tales, our third and final source, is abundant, but it has suffered from faulty transmission, political distortion, historical overlays and church censorship; the result is no clearer than that from the continent. The Ireland of the tales comprises two worlds, ‘real’ and ‘other’; but the line between them is not well demarcated. Even the location of the otherworld – which should not be confused with the Classical underworld – is uncertain: sometimes it is to the west, over the sea; sometimes it is in the south-west of Ireland (where it may be called the ‘House of Dond’, Dond being a chthonic deity); but usually it is found in the great pre-Celtic burial mounds of the Síde, of which the most important in the tales is Bruig na Bóinde, today’s New Grange. The Irish otherworld is, not surprisingly, a stylized, idealized version of the real one: everyone is beautiful, and there is an abundance of beautiful things, and the joys of life are endless – hunting, feasting, carousing, perhaps even love. Paradoxically (of course), though this otherworld makes the real one seem a shadow by comparison, it is the Síde who are the shadows, for they have no physical strength for fighting; just as Pwyll, in ‘Pwyll Lord of Dyved’, is asked to fight on behalf of the otherworld ruler Arawn, so Cú Chulaind, in ‘The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind’, is asked to fight on behalf of the otherworld ruler Labraid Lúathlám. The Síde are distinguished primarily by their power of transformation: they move invisibly, or they turn themselves (and others) into birds and animals. But they exert no moral authority, and, while they can injure and heal, they do not have that power over life and death characteristic of the Greek Olympians. Often they seem just like ordinary humans.

  Relatively few of the names from Gaulish inscriptions reappear in Ireland – given the decentralized nature of Gaulish religion, this is not surprising. Lug is the major figure in ‘The Second Battle of Mag Tured’, but in the stories included in this volume he appears prominently only as the father of Cú Chulaind. The Macc Óc is a central character in both ‘The Wooing of Étaín’ and ‘The Dream of Óengus’, but he has been so thoroughly euhemerized that there is no trace of the Gaulish Maponos; and such names as the Dagdae, Mider, Bóand, Étaín. Cáer Ibormeith, Medb and Cú Ruí have no apparent continental counterparts. Many of the quasi-divine figures in these tales are associated with animals or with natural features. The name Bóand, for example, means ‘white cow’; but Bóand is also the Irish name of the river Boyne. At the outset of ‘The Wooing of Étaín’, Bóand sleeps with the Dagdae, whose other name, Echu, means ‘horse’; Frank O’Connor saw this ‘love affair’ between a horse god and a cow goddess as a reconciliation between Bronze Age invaders and the indigenous Neolithic civilization, which gives some idea of how old these stories might be.10 Like Rhiannon in ‘Pwyll Lord of Dyved’, Macha of ‘The Labour Pains of the Ulaid’ is a euhemerized horse goddess; and the same may be conjectured of Étaín, whose epithet Echrade means ‘horse troop’. A number of the Síde appear as birds: Mider and Étaín leave Temuir as swans, and Óengus (Mider’s foster-son) and Cáer Ibormeith return to Bruig na Bóinde as swans; Conare Már’s unnamed father discloses himself to Mess Búachalla in the form of a bird; and Fand and Lí Ban first present themselves to Cú Chulaind as birds.

  Strabo’s testimony, the evidence of lavish grave goods buried with the wealthy, and the identification of the Boyne burial mounds as the dwelling place of the Síde all suggest that the Irish did believe in a life after death. But the Irish otherworld was not simply an anticipated joyful afterlife; it was also – even primarily – an alternative to reality, a world that the hero might enter upon the invitation of a king or a beautiful woman. Inasmuch as this otherworld, no matter how beautiful, is not quite human (there is, for example, no winter), the hero never stays; but the alternative – and thus the tension – is always present.

  Finally, there is the language, as beautiful and elusive as any aspect of Irish culture. Just as the Celts were a distinct Indo-European entity, so their languages formed an independent branch of the Indo-European language tree; nonetheless, Celtic is more like Italic (that is, the Romance languages) than it is like any of the other Indo-European language groups, and many place and personal names in Gaulish are very similar to those in Latin. For example, the Gaulish suffix -rix (as in Vercingetorix) is the counterpart of the Latin word rex, both meaning ‘king’.

  In the British Isles, the Celtic languages divided into two groups, one spoken primarily in Britain (and comprising Welsh and, eventually, Cornish and Breton), the other spoken primarily in Ireland (and comprising Irish Gaelic and, eventually, Scottish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic). The most obvious (though not necessarily the most important or fundamental) difference between the two groups is that Indo-European qu became p in the British languages (the word for ‘four’ was petwar) and c in the Irish group (‘four’ was cethair).

  At the time our stories are purported to have taken place – which is to say any time before the fourth century – the Irish language probably looked a good deal like Gaulish and not so very different from Latin. By the time these stories were being written down, however – and this could have begun as early as the seventh century – drastic changes had taken place: many final syllables had dropped away, many medial vowels had disappeared and many medial consonants had been simplified or lightened. Thus, the word for ‘horse’, equus in Latin, had become ech in Ireland at this time. The language of the tales, then, is quite different from that of the time they describe; and this makes the correlation of the stories’ proper names with those in earlier sources (such as Ptolemy’s geography) even more difficult. Although the syntax of the new language was straightforward, the morphology was not: regular verb conjugat
ions often looked wildly irregular, and word roots occasionally disappeared altogether. The principles of phonetic change were aesthetic rather than semantic; the resultant language was soft and subtle, verb poor but noun-and-adjective rich, static and yet vital.

  Irish Storytelling

  Irish literature – meaning whatever was written down in Irish – of this time encompassed a broad area, including history, genealogy and law tracts; but it is poetry and narrative prose that are relevant to the early Irish myths and sagas. The earliest poetry was alliterative and syllabic, with end-rhyme appearing later. In Welsh literature, there are epics told entirely through the medium of verse – the Gododdin, for example; in Ireland, however, the storytelling medium is invariably prose. Some of the very archaic poetry is essential to the tales in which it appears; thus, the rhetorics in the early part of ‘The Cattle Raid of Cúailnge’ help to clarify the relationship among Ailill, Medb and Fergus.11 The poetry in ‘The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu’, on the other hand, reinforces the narrative, adds detail – mostly descriptive – and provides weight; but it could be omitted without loss of sense. Conceivably these myths/sagas were at one time recited entirely in verse; what remains, however, is largely decorative.