Manannán mac Lir

“ In the man sitting upon the wave, it is impossible not to recognise an adaptation of Manannán Mac Lír, who drove over the waves in his chariot to meet Bran.
The prevalence of the island-hermit incident in Irish legend is accounted for by the early history of the Irish Church. ”

“ Llyr, we have noticed, married two wives, Penardun and Iweridd. By the daughter of Dôn he had a son called Manawyddan, who is identical with the Gaelic Manannán mac Lir. [314] We know less of his character and attributes than we do of the Irish god; but we find him equally a ruler in that Hades or Elysium which the Celtic mind ever connected with the sea. Like all the inhabitants of that other world, he is at once a master of magic and of the useful arts, which he taught willingly to his friends. ”

“ And I will leave the branch with you for music and delight, but on the day of your death they will be taken from you again." "And I myself," he said, "am Manannan, son of Lir, King of the Land of Promise, and I brought you here by enchantments that you might be with me to-night in friendship.
"And the Riders you saw thatching the house," he said, "are the men of art and poets, and all that look for a fortune in Ireland, putting together cattle and riches. For when they go out, all that they leave in their houses goes to nothing, and so they go on for ever. ”

“ People had to be careful of them, for they often did mischief when interfered with.
Mannanan Mac Lir was the Irish sea-god, like Neptune of the Greeks and Romans. He generally lived on the sea, riding in his chariot at the head of his followers. He is in his glory on a stormy night, and on such a night, when you look over the waste of waters, there before your eyes, in the dim [Pg 28] gloom, are thousands of Mannanan’s white steeds careering along after their great chief’s chariot. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the Oxford version of the same tale doubts whether the maiden was drowned, for it suggests, ‘Or maybe it (the wave) was Manannan himself that was carrying her off.’ [353] Thus the scribe understood that to go to Manannan’s world literally meant entering a sleep or trance state, or, what is equivalent in the case of the maiden whom Manannan summoned, the passage through death from the physical body. And still, to-day, the Irish peasant believes that the ‘good people’ take to their invisible world all young men or maidens who meet death ”

“ Manawyddan, whose name is derived from Welsh Manaw, the Isle of Man, is much more humanized in Welsh story than the divine Manannan of the Voyage of Bran; yet he has magic powers and great superiority as a craftsman. He is associated with Arthur in a poem and is praised for his wise counsels, while Pryderi was instructed by him in various crafts and aided by him, just as the Irish Diarmaid was nurtured and taught by Manannan. ”

“ Like one in high authority is this young man, and like the sun at junction of the day and night the gentle radiance of his lofty brow; methinks that in its midday glow no mortal eyes could bear the shining of its wondrous light. The armour of Manannan clothes him round, and none can pierce or wound him through its joints; the sword of Manannan is in his hand, from which no enemy returns alive, while on his head the jewelled helmet of Manannan gleams.”
“’Tis true, indeed,” replied the wounded man, “Lugh the Long-handed, mightiest of the gods, is come to succour me. ”

“ Then two men came down the road: they were clerics.
"I never saw that kind of uniform before," said mac an Dáv.
"Even if you didn't," said Mongan, "there are plenty of them about. They are men that don't believe in our gods," said he.
"Do they not, indeed?" said mac an Dáv. "The rascals!" said he. "What, what would Manannán say to that?"
"The one in front carrying the big book is Tibraidè, he is the priest of Cell Camain, and he is the chief of those two."
"Indeed, and indeed!" said mac an Dáv. "The one behind must be his servant, for he has a load on his back." ”

“ The euhemerising tendency comes out strongly in Cormac's account of Manannán, a kind of Irish Proteus and Neptune combined, who according to him was "a renowned trader who dwelt in the Isle of Man, he was the best pilot in the West of Europe; through acquaintance with the sky he knew the quarter in which would be fair weather and foul weather, and when each of these two seasons would change. Hence the Scots and Britons called him a god of the sea. ”

“ But he swung himself out of the tree all the same, for he did not wish to seem frightened before Mananna’n. “You can go now and beat the men of Lochlann,” said Mananna’n. “You will be King of Lochlann before nightfall.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” said the king. “It’s no threat,” said Mananna’n.
The son of Lir turned then and went away in the direction of Ireland to take up his one-day rights, and Fiachna continued his battle with the Lochlannachs.
He beat them before nightfall, and by that victory he became King of Lochlann and King of the Saxons and the Britons. ”

“ Men to seek me came;
None could win my trysting,
I myself was flame.
Ah! no maid her longing
On a man should set
Till a love full equal
To her own she get.
Fifty women hither,
Emer! thou hast brought
Thou wouldst Fand make captive,
Hast on murder thought.
Till the day I need them
Waits, my home within;
Thrice thy host! fair virgins,
These my war shall win.
Now upon this it was discerned by Manannan that Fand the daughter of Aed Abra was engaged in unequal warfare with the women of Ulster, and that she was like to be left by Cuchulain. ”

“ Of his Oriental paraphrases the most stirring is “The Karamanian Exile.” Strangely enough, Mangan’s Irish renderings are less happy than those poems which he based upon German and Oriental originals; but sometimes, as in the beautiful “Fair Hills of Eiré, O!” after the Irish of Donough mac Con-Mara, he has bequeathed a memorable lyric. Of poems that are strictly original, nothing seems to me more characteristic of Mangan than “The One Mystery” (see p. 142) .
ROSA MULHOLLAND.
PAGE 144
This accomplished prose-writer and poet was born in Belfast. ”

“ IN Greek mythology the gods were represented as coming to man's help, and in Christian legend saints were seen hovering above an army in battle and giving it substantial aid. So in Celtic myth deities were often kindly disposed toward men or assisted them, sometimes for ends of their own.
Such a myth is associated with the historic King Mongan of Ulster in the sixth and seventh centuries. He is shown to be son of the god Manannan by a mortal mother, and as has been seen, he had powers of shape-shifting, and besides being brought up in the divine land, had free access to it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yeats for introducing mysticism and a definite symbolism and the ways of Eastern thought into their versions of Irish mythic tales and their records of Irish mood. There will be found some justification for such practices in Lady Gregory's translations. Manannan, the sea-god, is here presented doing tricks like those of the East Indian fakirs; Finn is reincarnated in later great leaders of the Gael; and in "The Hospitality of Cuanna's House" there is out-and-out allegory, to say nothing of a possible symbolistic interpretation of episodes in almost every other story. ”

“ I want Majnún,’ and eating and drinking nothing? Let me take her to Prince Majnún.” “Well,” said God, “you may do so; but tell her that she must not speak to Majnún if he is afraid of her when he sees her; and that if he is afraid when he sees her, she will become a little white dog the next day. Then she must go to the palace, and she will only regain her human shape when Prince Majnún loves her, feeds her with his own food, and lets her sleep in his bed.” So the angel came to Lailí again as a fakír and carried her to King Dantál’s garden. ”

“ Mongán's story is as follows: Manannán agrees to fight for the King Fiachna on the condition that he shall be allowed to sleep in his (Fiachna's) shape with the King's wife. This done, he actually does fight for him. Manannán's son is Mongán, and Manannán carries him off when he is three days old. There are here similar motives:
But these motives are either not quite identical or they are differently arranged, and, moreover, it is of great importance that we have in Irish much closer parallels to single motives in the Mabinogi than those which Mr. ”

“ While it is not the case, as sometimes averred, that Mangan was, or is, to Ireland what Burns is to Scotland, it is indisputable that the claim may be made for him rather than for any other Irish poet of the Early Victorian period. In fire and energy his faculty is unsurpassed by any of his poetic countrymen, though we may dispute Sir Charles Gavan Duffy’s assertion that Mangan “has not, and perhaps never had, any rival in mastery of the metrical and rhythmical resources of the English tongue.” Mangan was the child of a small tradesman of Dublin, where, in 1803, he was born. ”

“ Brendan is in every way the most important example.
We have been induced somewhat to anticipate the earliest of the Imrama, and to give the greater part of the description of Manannán’s Elysium contained in the Voyage of Bran, in order to present in a single view the different forms in which the Otherworld was conceived by the ancient Irish. The story goes on to relate how, the maiden’s song ended, the branch leapt back again into her hand, and she vanished; but the glamour was on Bran, and he set forth in his curach across the sea. ”

“ This verse, quoted as containing two words which required explanation in or before the eleventh century, pre-supposes the story of Diarmuid and Gráinne. In addition to this we have the apparently historical story of the "Cause of the Battle of Cnucha." We have also the story of the Mongan, an Ulster king of the seventh century, according to the annalists who [Pg 381] declared that he was not what men took him to be, the son of the mortal Fiachna, but of the god Mananán mac Lir, and a re-incarnation of the great Finn, and calls back from the grave the famous Fenian, Caoilte, who proves it. ”

“ Manannán, the Irish Neptune, driving in a chariot across the sea, which to him was a flowery plain, meets Bran thereafter, and chants to him twenty-eight more verses about the lovely land of Moy Mell, "the Pleasant Plain," which the unknown lady had described, and they are couched in the same strain.
"Though [but] one rider is seen
In Moy Mell of many powers,
There are many steeds on its surface
Although thou seest them not.
* * * * *
A beautiful game, most delightful
They play [sitting] at the luxurious wine,
Men and gentle women under a bush
Without sin, without crime. ”

“ Balar then set fire to the sea before them in hopes of burning them, but Mananaun threw out a stone, and extinguished the sea.
"Now, Kian, son of Contje, you are safe and sound home, and what will you give me for it?"
"I have nothing but the boy, and we will not go to make two halves of him, but I will give him to you entirely."
"I am thankful to you. That is what I was wanting. There will be no champion in the world as good as he," said Mananaun. ”

“ In the Welsh Mabinogi, bearing the name of Manannán's counterpart Manawyᵭan, the latter is not much associated with the sea, excepting perhaps his sojourn with Brân's Head in the lonely island of Gresholm (p. 90) . It makes him, however, take to agriculture, especially the growing of wheat, [145] which reminds one of Saturn. He is also called one of the three Golden Cordwainers of Britain, owing to his having engaged successively in the making of saddles, shields and shoes, and taught it to Pryderi, son of Pwyỻ Head of Hades. ”

“ The ancient Irish people—like those of several other countries—believed that when a just and good king reigned, the country was blessed with fine weather and abundant crops, the trees bended with fruit, the rivers teemed with fish, and the whole kingdom prospered. This was the state of Connaught while Cahal of the Red Hand reigned in peace. And it is recorded that when he died, fearful portents appeared, and there was gloom and terror everywhere. James Clarence Mangan, a Dublin poet, who died in 1849, pictures all this in the following fine poem. ”

“ The bard imagines the clans of the North of Ireland gathering to bewail the dead and share Nuala's grief. Though Mangan's broken metre imparts a fervour and fire to the original, he adds nothing to its slow monotonous impressiveness. For original see Egerton III, Art. 48 (Brit. Mus.) , and translation of extracts in O'Grady's Catalogue, pp. 371-3. Mangan's version has been often reprinted.
"Co. Mayo." There are many versions of this favourite song. That given here is said to have been composed by a bard named Thomas Flavell, a native of Bophin on the Western Seaboard. ”