John Arnott MacCulloch

“ Clear glimpses through this Celtic mist are rare. This is not to be wondered at when we consider how much of the mythology has been long forgotten, and how many hands have worked upon the remainder. The stories are relics of a dead past, as defaced and inexplicable as the battered monuments of the old religion. Romancers, would-be historians, Christian opponents of paganism, biographers of saints, ignorant yet half-believing folk, have worked their will with them. ”

“ ELYSIUM, called by many beautiful Celtic names, is the gods' land and is never associated with the dead. The living were occasionally invited there, however, and either remained perpetually or returned to earth, where sometimes they found themselves decrepit and aged; time had lapsed like a dream, because they were in the immortal land and had tasted its immortal food. Many tales already cited have shown different conceptions of its situation—in the síd, on a mysterious island, or beneath the waters; or the gods create it on earth or produce it by glamour to mortal eyes. ”

“ Then one of the weird daughters took the form of Niamh, daughter of Celtchar, and speaking in her name, bade Cúchulainn attack the foes who were overwhelming Ulster. Neither the protestations of the real Niamh, nor of Dechtire, nor of Conchobar, nor the assurances of Cathbad that the hosts were illusions could withhold him. On his way to Emain he saw Badb's daughter washing blood from a warrior's gear—the "Washer at the Ford," a prophecy of his own death—but he was resolute and cheerful in face of the desperate fight to which he bound himself. ”

“ Again Diarmaid besought him, and again and yet again Fionn brought water, but each time let it drop away, as inexorable with the hero as Lug was with Bran. So Diarmaid died, lamented by all. Oengus, too, mourned him, singing sadly of his death; and since he could not restore him to life, he took the body to his síd, where he breathed a soul into it so that Diarmaid might speak to him for a little while each day.61 Fionn, who knew that Grainne intended her sons to avenge Diarmaid, was afterward afraid and went secretly to her, only to be greeted with evil words. ”

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

“ Their occupations were fighting on a vast scale, the records of which, like those of the Cúchulainn saga, are often tiresome and ghastly; mighty huntings, watched from some hill- top by Fionn, and described with zest and not a little romantic beauty as the hunt wends by forests, glens, watercourses, or smiling valleys; lastly, love-making, for these warriors could woo tenderly and with compelling power. Their vast strength and size—one of their skulls held a man seated— tend to remove them from the puny race of mere human beings ”

“ At dawn the giant arrived, and when he stretched out his hand, Cúchulainn made his salmon-leap and whirled his sword round his head, whereupon the monster vanished after having agreed to grant his three wishes—the sovereignty of Ireland's heroes, the champion's morsel, and precedence for Emer over the women of Ulster. Cúchulainn's leap had brought him outside the castle, but after several trials he sprang back into it with a sigh, and Bláthnat said, "That is a sigh of victory." When Cúroi arrived, he found the trophies outside his castle and gave judgement in Cúchulainn's favour. ”

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

“ Cúchulainn, however, bade Fand have no fear, and addressing Emer he told her how the goddess was more worthy of his love. Emer reproached him, and when she added, "If only I could find favour in thy sight," Cúchulainn's love for her returned: "Thou shalt find favour so long as I am in life."
Then began a noble contest between Fand and Emer as to which of them should sacrifice herself for the other, and Fand sang a beautiful lament. At this moment Manannan became aware of Fand's predicament and arrived to rescue her, unseen by all save her and Loeg. ”

“ Though we are alive, we are dead. Great are the signs. Destruction of life. Sating of ravens. Feeding of crows. Strife of slaughter. Wetting of sword-edge. Shields with broken bosses in hours after sundown. Lo, my son!" With this boding prophecy they vanished, and the gods themselves thus caused the violation of Conaire's geasa. After arriving at the hostel he broke yet another, for there came a hideous woman who, standing on one foot, holding up one hand, and casting an evil eye on Conaire and his men, foretold their doom. ”

“ In writing this book it has been some relief to try to lose oneself in it and to forget, in turning over the pages of the past, the dark cloud which hangs over our modern life in these sad days of the great war, sad yet noble, because of the freely offered sacrifice of life and all that life holds dear by so many of my countrymen and our heroic allies in defence of liberty. ”

“ Having discovered that Aife loved above all else her charioteer and chariot-horses, he exclaimed, as he fought her, that these had perished. She looked aside, and that moment Cuchulainn overcame her and made her promise never again to oppose Scathach. From his amour with Aife, a son would be born called Conlaoch, who was to wear a ring which Cúchulainn left for him and to seek his father when he was a warrior of seven years old. He must make himself known to none, turn aside for none, and refuse combat to none. ”

“ Vaguely we discern behind the legend a strife of anthropomorphic figures of summer, light, growth, and order, with powers of winter, darkness, blight, and disorder. Such powers agree but ill. There is strife between them, as, to the untutored eye, there is strife in the parts of nature for which they stand; and this apparent dualism is reflected on the life of the beings who represent the powers of nature. ”

“ The Grail and lance are associated with events of Christian history, but they have pagan Celtic parallels—the divine cauldron from which none goes unsatisfied and which restores the dead, the enchanted cup in tales of Fionn which heals or gives whatever taste is desired to him who drinks from it, and which is sometimes the object of a quest. The head in Peredur recalls Bran's head, the lance and sword the spear which slew him and the sword by which he was decapitated, as well as Lug's unconquerable spear, Nuada's irresistible sword, Manannan's magic sword, Tethra's talking sword. ”

“ When they sat down to eat, Manannan produced a table-cloth on which appeared whatever food was demanded, and a cup. If one told a lie, it would break, but if truth was then spoken, it would be restored; and to prove this, he informed Cormac that his lost wife had had a new husband, whereupon the cup broke. "My husband has lied," cried the goddess, and at her words the cup was repaired. Manannan then said that tablecloth, cup, and branch would be Cormac's and that he had wrought magic upon him in order that he might be with him that night in friendship. ”

“ Now he recognized her as Badb or the Morrígan, the battlegoddess, and she told him that for his conduct she would pursue him with vengeance. She was carrying the cow from the síd of Cruachan, that it might be covered by the bull of Cúalnge and when their calf was a year old, Cúchulainn would die. She would attack him when facing his opponent at the ford during the foray of Cúalnge, and as an eej she would twine round his feet. "I will crush thee against the stones of the ford, and thou wilt never obtain healing from me," answered Cúchulainn. ”

“ How close is the resemblance of this island to the Irish Elysium must at once be seen. It is mainly a land of women; there is no toil, but plenty; no sickness nor death, but immortal youth; and the divine women there can take the form of birds like Fand, Liban, and others. ”

“ Fionn's adventures are mainly of a supernatural kind— combats with gods, giants, phantoms, and other fantastic beings, apart from those in which he fought Norsemen or other foreign powers, an anachronism needing no comment. On one occasion Fionn, Oisin, and Caoilte came to a mysterious house, where a giant seized their horses and bade them enter. In the house were a three-headed hag and a headless man with an eye in his breast; and as they sang at the giant's bidding, nine bodies arose on one side and nine heads on the other, shrieking discordantly. ”

“ Three factors, however, played their part in corrupting and disintegrating the myths. The first of these was the dislike of Christianity to transmit whatever directly preserved the memory of the old divinities. In the surviving stories their divinity is not too closely descried; they are made as human as possible, though they are still superhuman in power and deed; they are tolerated as a kind of fairy-folk rather than as gods. ”

“ The fight, therefore, took place at night, lest there should be no distinction between them and men; and the síde took the form of deer. So terrible was the struggle that four hillocks were made of the hoofs and antlers of the slain; and to quell it, water broke forth from a well and formed Loch Riach, into which if white sheep are cast every seventh year at the proper hour, they become crimson. ”

“ Mythological traits are the magic powers of Math and Gwydion, their shape-shifting, and the introduction of the swine. Math Hên, or "the Ancient," is an old Welsh "high god," remembered for magic, which he taught to Gwydion; for the fact that the winds brought to him the least whisper of a conversation, wherever it might be held; and for his pre-eminent goodness to the suffering and his justice without vengeance upon the wrongdoer. The last trait shows a high ideal of divinity, and the second a conception of omniscience. ”

“ These stories illustrate what Is found In all Celtic tales of divine or fairy mistresses—they are the wooers, and mortals tire of them and their divine land sooner than they weary of their lovers. Mortals were apt to find that land tedious, for, as one of them said, "I had rather lead the life of the Féinn than that which I lead in the síd"—it is the plaint of Achilles, who would liefer serve for hire on earth than rule the dead in Hades, or of the African proverb, "One day in this world is worth a year in Srahmandazi." ”

“ In this, Manannan appears as a kern, or serving-man, at the houses of historic personages of sixteenth century Ireland. He plays such music as never was heard, bewitching men to slumber; he is a marvellous conjuror, producing out of his bag hound, hare, dog-boy, and lady, who all climb a silken thread which he tosses upward to a cloud; he performs miracles of healing; he takes off a man's head and puts it on again; and from each place where he goes he suddenly disappears from human sight, none knowing whither he has vanished.18 Folk-memory thus preserved much of the old conception of the gods. ”

“ Celtic and pre-Celtic folk alike had many myths, and these were bound to intermingle, with the result that such Celtic legends as we possess must contain remnants of the aboriginal mythology, though it, like the descendants of the aborigines, has become Celtic. It would be difficult, in the existing condition of the old mythology, to say this is of Celtic, that of non-Celtic origin, for that mythology is now but fragmentary. The gods of the Celts were many, but of large cantles of the Celtic race—the Celts of Gaul and of other parts of the continent of Europe—scarcely any myths have survived. ”

“ In these stories of divinities or heroes hunting fabulous swine it is possible that the animals represent some hurtful power, dangerous to vegetation; for the swine is apt to be regarded in a sinister light and might well be the embodiment of demoniac beings. On the other hand, the animal sacrificed to a god, or of which the god is an anthropomorphic aspect, is sometimes regarded as his enemy, slain by him. Whether this conception lurks behind these tales is uncertain, as also is the question whether the magic immortal swine—the food of the gods—were originally animals sacrificed to them. ”