Dagda

“ They went round nine times, and then the Gobhaun Saor said: "Son, what wisdom came to you? " "I think," said the Son, "this pot belongs to the Dagda Mor." "There is truth on your tongue," said the Gobhaun, "for it is the Cauldron of Plenty that used to feed all the men of Ireland at one time, when the Dagda had it, and every one got out of it the food he liked best. It was by stealth and treachery the Fomorians got it, and that is why they cannot put fire under it." With that he let a shout to the Fomorians: "Come in now, for I have wisdom on me." ”

“ A time will come for these people also, and they will sacrifice a mullet to Artemis, or some other fish to some new divinity, unless indeed their own divinities, the Dagda, with his overflowing cauldron, Lug, with his spear dipped in poppy-juice lest it rush forth hot for battle. ”

“ The Dagda finished building the fort, and then went to Bress for his reward. “What will you have?” asked Bress. “I want all the cattle in Ireland gathered together upon a plain, so that I may choose one of them for myself.” Bress did this; and the Dagda took the black-maned heifer Angus had told him of. The king, who had expected to be asked very much more, laughed at what he thought was the Dagda’s simplicity. But Angus had been wise; as will be seen hereafter.
Meanwhile Bress was infuriating the people of the goddess Danu by adding avarice to tyranny. ”

“ When the men were going out to battle, the Dagda would set up his magic harp and sweep his hand across the strings, and a war song would ring out which would make every warrior buckle on his armour, brace his knees, and shout, "Forth to the fight!" ”

“ So the myth placing the Dagda at the head of the departed, simply happy on fruit and pork and ale, is the counterpart, and a very ancient one, of the Greek story of Cronus, vanquished and driven from power, wandering to the Isles of the Blessed, there to reign over them and share the functions of Rhadamanthus. The Irish idea of the Dagda as a Goidelic Cronus, ruling over an Elysium with which a sepulchral mound was associated, nay even confounded, contributed possibly to the formation of the story that all the Tuatha Dé Danann, beaten in battle, withdrew into the hills and mounds of Erinn ”

“ From Gorias was brought Lug's spear; no battle was ever won against it or against him who bore it. From Findias came Nuada's sword, which none could escape when it was drawn. From Murias came Dagda's cauldron, from which no company ever went away unthankful.40 Their magic food and other possessions will be mentioned later. Some things of which no myths remain are said to have been in the Brug na Boinne—the bed of Dagda, the two paps of Morrigan, the comb and casket of Dagda's wife (i. e. two hills) , the stone wall of Oengus, the shot of Midir's eye, and the like. ”

“ Lugh, it is true, is a great harper, and the harp of the Dagda, into which he has bound his music, plays a music at whose sound all men laugh, and another so that all men weep, and another so enthralling that all fall asleep ”

“ Then, when the men came back from the battle, weary and wounded, the Dagda would take his harp and strike a few chords, and as the magic music stole out upon the air, every man forgot his weariness and the smart of his wounds, and thought of the honor he had won, and of the comrade who had died beside him, and of the safety of his wife and children. Then the song would swell out louder, and every warrior would remember only the glory he had helped win for the king; and each man would rise at the great tables his cup in his hand, and shout "Long live the King!" ”

“ The Mac Óc is represented as the Dagda's son, which cannot be paralleled by any of the accounts of Merlin Emrys' birth; but this may be one of the results of the disturbing influence of the historical element. On a third point we are more fortunate: the Dagda and Cronus, supplanted by their respective sons, go to preside over the departed; and the parallel extends to Vortigern. ”

“ When the Tuatha de Danann first became invisible to men, the Dagda gave me this pleasant hillside to dwell in, and many years we lived here in peace. But one day when I was away from home, there came a giant Fomorian from the Island of Torach, who seized my daughter, and would have carried her away with him to his island of rocks. ”

“ Now if the Mac Óc be regarded as a Goidelic Zeus, the Dagda should be a Cronus, and that is corroborated by the peculiar relations in which the two Irish gods are placed with regard to one another. For as Cronus is disinherited by his youngest son Zeus, so is the Dagda by his Young Son the Mac Óc, excepting that it is brought about in Irish mythology, not by war, but by craft. ”

“ Twelve of Ailill's men died, as they heard;
It was Boand [FN#7] who foretold them that slaying,
And right well was accomplished her word.
[FN#7] Pronounced with sound of "owned."
'Tis the three Chants of Child-Birth
Give names to those Three;
Of the Harp of the Dagda [FN#8]
The children they be.
[FN#8] The Dagda seems to have been the chief god of the old Celtic mythology.
To those harpers a fairy
Is mother, of yore
To that Harp, men call Child-Birth,
Queen Boand the three bore. ”

“ Two curious incidents, revealing the magic powers of weapons, which were worshipped by the Celts, and of musical instruments, occur here. Ogma captured the sword of the war-god Tethra, and when unsheathed it told the deeds it had done, as was the custom with swords in those days, for, as the Christian compiler adds, "the reason why demons spake from weapons was because weapons were then worshipped and acted as safe-guards." The other incident tells how Dagda's harp was carried off and was found by Lug, Ogma, and Dagda in the house where Bres and his friends were. ”

“ King Dagda's palace, where every one who heard their sweet singing
was charmed into a sleep of three days and three nights.
Princess Etain, of the race of the Tuatha, and wife of Midir, was
born again as the daughter of Queen Medb, the wife of Ailill. She
remembers a little of the land from which she came, is never quite
happy,
"But sometimes--sometimes--tell me: have you heard,
By dusk or moonset have you never heard
Sweet voices, delicate music? Never seen
The passage of the lordly beautiful ones
Men call the Shee?" ”

“ In another version, Dagda being dead, Bodb Dearg divides the síd, and Manannan makes the Tuatha Déa invisible and immortal. He also helps Oengus to drive out his foster-father Elemar from his brug, where Oengus now lives as a god.271 The underground brugs are the gods' land, in all respects resembling the oversea Elysium, and at once burial-places of the euhemerised gods and local forms of the divine land. Professor Rh [^y] s regards Dagda as an atmospheric god; Dr. MacBain sees in him a sky-god. More probably he is an early Earth-god and a god of agriculture. ”

“ The Fomorians were then totally routed, and it is not recorded that they ever again gained any authority or committed any extensive depredations in Ireland. Lugh, the Ildánach, was then enthroned in place of Nuada, and the myth of the victory of the solar [pg 118] hero over the powers of darkness and brute force is complete.
The Harp of the Dagda
A curious little incident bearing on the power which the Danaans could exercise by the spell of music may here be inserted. The flying Fomorians, it is told, had made prisoner the harper of the Dagda and carried him off with them. ”

“ The gods were a superhuman race, the síde, helping men on occasion; and this influenced the official view, for euhemeristic documents tell how, after their defeat, the Tuatha Dé Danann retired to subterranean palaces, emerging now and then to help or to harm mortals. Even the Milesians were not yet free of their power, especially that of Dagda. ”

“ The dead, [pg 095] though hidden, are not passed away; their souls are in perpetual nearness to ours. If we enter deep within ourselves, to the remote shrine of the heart, as they entered that secluded shrine, we may find the mysterious threshold where their world and our world meet.
In the gloom and silence of those pyramid-chambers, the De Danaans thus sought the souls of their mighty ones--the Dagda, surnamed the Mighty, and Lug the Long-Armed, and Ogma of the Sunlike Face, and Angus the Young. ”

“ As Aynia, a "fairy" [192] queen, she is still remembered in Ulster, 202 while as Aine, a Munster "fairy", she was formerly honoured on St. John's Eve, when villagers, circulating a mound, carried straw torches which were afterwards waved over cattle and crops to give protection and increase.
A prominent Danann god was Dagda, whose name is translated as "the good god", "the good hand", by some, and as "the fire god" or "fire of god" by others. He appears to have been associated with the oak. By playing his harp, he caused the seasons to follow one another in their proper order. ”

“ The human heart still sets up its idol; the young, full of hope and joy like the Philistines after their victory, pay homage to the world, and expect from it those pleasures and delights which it is ever promising to bestow. Dagon has a lofty shrine, and many bow down before it. Then comes some providential dispensation of sorrow, that opens the eyes to the fact that the world and the things of the world have no power to secure our peace. Have we not known such a moment, when Dagon is seen prostrate on earth, and we feel that he is indeed but an idol? ”

“ Fulfilled was the mystery that was in the Lamb, and fulfilled was the type that was in Dagon. Blessed is He Who by the True Lamb redeemed us, and destroyed our destroyer as He did Dagon! In December when the nights are long, rose unto us the Day, of Whom there is no bound! In winter when all the world is gloomy, forth came the Fair One Who cheered all in the world! In winter that makes the earth barren, virginity learned to bring forth. ”

“ Male figures, with a horned cap on the head, and ending in a fish, and priests with fishskins hung above them, are often found on the monuments of Nineveh. As the word Dag means "fish," we may with confidence find in the god Dakan the fish-god of the Babylonians; the god who out of moisture gives plenty, fertility, and increase. That the Canaanites also worshipped Dagon is proved by the names Beth-Dagon and Kaphar-Dagon, which occur near Joppa and Sichem. The Philistines also on the coast of the Mediterranean invoked the same god. ”

“ Elak asked again. "Tell me, before I go mad thinking hell has loosed its legions on Atlantis."
"They are the children of Dagon," Zend said. "Their dwelling-place is in the great deeps of the ocean. Have you never heard of the unearthly ones who worship Dagon?"
"Yes. But I never believed——"
"Oh, there's truth in the tale. Eons and unimaginable eons ago, before mankind existed on earth, only the waters existed. There was no land. And from the slime there sprang up a race of beings which dwelt in the sunken abysses of the ocean, inhuman creatures that worshipped Dagon, their god. ”

“ They are always getting into trouble."
"Yes, it does seem so," answered the doctor, [Pg 37] "but if we could look down to the bottom of a boy's heart, we would find that very little of the mischief that he gets into is planned for the purpose of making trouble. He does things from a pure love of fun, or from some sudden impulse, and because he never stops to think of what it may lead to. Phil never stopped to think any more than Dago would have done, what would be the result of setting fire to the powder. You must remember that he is a very little fellow, Aunt Patricia. He is only eight. ”

“ So in his name Dagon had imposed new rents on the people, and the active movement on which he had been looking while moving along the shores was the extortion of rents. It was clear that the man whom they had been beating on the shore had nothing to pay with. The children who were crying bitterly in the boat were sold at a drachma per head for a twelvemonth, and that woman who was wading in the water to her waist and weeping was their mother.
"Women are very unquiet," said the prince to himself. "Sarah is the quietest woman; but others love to talk much, to cry and raise an uproar." ”

“ Happy for us if the knowledge make us turn to One who is over all, God exalted for ever!
But it is not always that sorrow and disappointment wean the soul from the world. We too often find Dagon set up again on his shrine, and as ardently worshipped as ever. Yes, even the gray-headed, the weary-hearted, who from repeated trials know the hollowness of the world and its sinful pleasures—who have, as it were, but the stump of the idol left—too often, even to the last, fondly worship that stump! ”

“ Dagon, I pray
Thy raving wrath confuse her daring mind.
[DELILAH ascends the altar, and places the child in Dagon's arms; then she remains kneeling.]
SAMSON: [From within.] Lord Sabaoth! Be blessed for evermore,
That Thou no heathen hast created me
CHORUS: Devoted to Dagon's holy bliss
The flesh and blood of mankind is,
If it ascends a sacrifice
'Gainst thund'ring wrath 'tis calming spice. ”

“ How could they attribute their victory to the power of Dagon when Dagon himself could not keep his own ground before the ark? But they are resolved Dagon shall be their god still, and therefore set him in his place. Bishop Hall observes hence, It is just with God that those who want grace shall want wit too; and it is the work of superstition to turn men into the stocks and stones they worship. Those that make them are like unto them. ”