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He married a wife named Ebliu (genitive Eblinde), who
fell in love with her stepson, Eochaid. The two brothers.
make up their minds to leave their father and to take
Ebliu with them, together with all that was theirs, includ-
ing in all a thousand men. They proceed northwards,
but their druids persuade them that they cannot settle
down in the same district, so Rib goes westwards to
a plain known as Tir Cluchi Midir acus Maic Óic, 'the
Play-ground of Mider and the Mac Óc,' so called after
the two great fairy chiefs of Ireland. Mider visits
Rib's camp and kills their horses, then he gives them
a big horse of his own ready harnessed with a pack-
saddle. They had to put all their baggage on the big
horse's back and go away, but after a while the nag lay
down and a well of water formed there, which eventu-
ally burst forth, drowning them all: this is Loch Ri,
'Rib's Loch, or Lough Ree,' on the Shannon. Eochaid,
the other brother, went with his party to the banks of
the Boyne near the Brug, where the fairy chief Mac
Óc or Mac ind Óc had his residence: he destroyed
Eochaid's horses the first night, and the next day he
threatened to destroy the men themselves unless they
went away. Thereupon Eochaid said that they could
not travel without horses, so the Mac Óc

gave them a big horse, on whose back they placed all they had. The Mac Óc warned them not to unload the nag on the way, and not to let him halt lest he should be their death. However, when they had reached the middle of Ulster, they thoughtlessly took all their property off the horse's back, and nobody bethought him of turning the animal's head back in the direction from which they had come so he also made a well1. Over that well

The original has in these passages respectively siblais a fual corbo thipra, minxit urinam suam so that it was a spring'; ar na siblad a fúal ar na bad fochond báis doib, 'ne mingat urinam suam lest it should be the cause of

Eochaid had a house built, and a lid put on the well, which he set a woman to guard. In the sequel she neglected it, and the well burst forth and formed Lough Neagh, as already mentioned, p. 382 above. What became of the big horses in these stories one is not told, but most likely they were originally represented as vanishing in a spring of water where each of them stood. Compare the account of Undine at her unfaithful husband's funeral. In the procession she mysteriously appeared as a snow-white figure deeply veiled, but when one rose from kneeling at the grave, where she had knelt nought was to be seen save a little silver spring of limpid water bubbling out of the turf and trickling on to surround the new grave:-Da man sich aber wieder erhob, war die weisse Fremde verschwunden; an der Stelle, wo sie geknieet hatte, quoll ein silberhelles Brünnlein aus dem Rasen; das rieselte und rieselte fort, bis es den Grabhügel des Ritters fast ganz umzogen hatte; dann rann es fürder und ergoss sich in einen Weiher, der zur Seite des Gottesackers lag.

The late and grotesque story of the Gilla Decair may be mentioned next: he was one of the Fomorach, and had a wonderful kind of horse on whose back most of Finn's chief warriors were induced to mount. Then the Gilla Decair and his horse hurried towards Corkaguiny, in Kerry, and took to the sea, for he and his horse travelled equally well on sea and land. Thus Finn's men, unable to dismount, were carried prisoners to an island not named, on which Dermot in quest of them afterwards landed, and from which, after great perils, he made his way to Tír fo Thuinn, 'Terra sub Unda,' and brought his friends back to Erin. Now the number death to them'; and silis, 'minxit,' fo. 39b. For a translation of the whole story see Dr. O'Grady's Silva Gadelica, pp. 265-9; also Joyce's Old Celtic Romances, pp. 97-105.

1 See the story in Dr. O'Grady's Silva Gadelica, pp. 292-311.

of Finn's men taken away by force by the Gilla Decair was fifteen, fourteen on the back of his horse and one clutching to the animal's tail, and the Welsh Triads, i. 93= ii. 11, seem to re-echo some similar story, but they give the number of persons not as fifteen but just one half, and describe the horse as Du (y) Moroed, 'the Black of (the) Seas,' steed of Elidyr Mwynfawr, that carried seven human beings and a half from Pen ILech Elidyr in the North to Pen Lech Elidyr in Môn, 'Anglesey.' It is explained that Du carried seven on his back, and that one who swam with his hands on that horse's crupper was reckoned the half man in this case. Du Moroed is in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen called Du March Moro, 'Black the Steed of Moro,' the horse ridden in the hunt of Twrch Trwyth by Gwyn ab Nud, king of the other world; and he appears as a knight with his name unmistakably rendered into Brun de Morois in the romance of Durmart le Galois, who carries away Arthur's queen on his horse to his castle in Morois. Lastly, here also might be mentioned the incident in the story of Peredur or Perceval, which relates how to that knight, when he was in the middle of a forest much distressed for the want of a horse, a lady brought a fine steed as black as a blackberry. He mounted and he found his beast marvellously swift, but on his making straight for a vast river the knight made the sign of the cross, whereupon he was left on the ground, and his horse plunged into the water, which his touch seemed to set ablaze. The horse is interpreted to have been the devil, and this is a fair specimen of the way in which Celtic paganism is treated by the

I See Stengel's edition of li Romans de Durmart le Galois (Tübingen, 1873), lines 4185-340, and my Arthurian Legend, pp. 68-9.

See Williams' Seint Greal, pp. 60-1, 474-5; Nutt's Holy Grail, p. 44; and my Arthurian Legend, pp. 69–70.

Grail writers when they feel in the humour to assume an edifying attitude.

If one is right in setting Môn, 'Anglesey,' over against the anonymous isle to which the Gilla Decair hurries Finn's men away, Anglesey would have to be treated as having once been considered one of the Islands of the Dead and the home of Other-world inhabitants. We have a trace of this in a couplet in a poem by the medieval poet, Dafyd ab Gwilym, who makes Blodeuwed the Owl give a bit of her history as follows:

Daughter to a lord, son of Meirchion,
Am I, by St. David! from Mona.

Merch i arglwyd, ail Meirchion, Wyfi, myn Dewi! o Fon1. This, it will be seen, connects March ab Meirchion, as “ it were 'Steed son of Steeding,' with the Isle of Anglesey. Add to this that the Irish for Anglesey or Mona was Moin Conaing, 'Conaing's Swamp,' so called apparently after Conaing associated with Morc, a name which is practically March in Welsh. Both were leaders of the Fomori in Irish tales: see my Arthurian Legend, p. 356.

On the great place given to islands in Celtic legend and myth it is needless here to expatiate: witness

1 Bardoniaeth D. ab Gwilym, poem 183. A similar descent of Blodeuwed's appears implied in the following englyn-one of two-by Anthony Powel, who died in 1618: it is given by Taliesin ab Iolo in his essay on the Neath Valley, entitled Traethawd ar Gywreineđ, Hynafiaeth, a hen Bendefigion Glynn Ned (Aberdare, 1886), p. 15:—

Crug ael, carn gadarn a godwyd yn fryn,

Yn hen fraenwaith bochlwyd;

Main a'i tud man y tadwyd,

Merch hoewen loer Meirchion lwyd.

It refers, with six other englynion by other authors, to a remarkable rock called Craig y Đinas, with which Taliesin associated a cave where Arthur or Owen Lawgoch and his men are supposed, according to him, to enjoy a secular sleep, and it implies that Blodeuwed, whose end in the Mabinogi of Math was to be converted into an owl, was, according to another account, overwhelmed by Craig y Dinas. It may be Englished somewhat as follows: Heaped on a brow, a mighty cairn built like a hill, Like ancient work rough with age, grey-cheeked ; Stones that confine her where she was slain,

Grey Meirchion's daughter quick and bright as the moon.

of Finn's men taken away by force by the Gilla Decair was fifteen, fourteen on the back of his horse and one clutching to the animal's tail, and the Welsh Triads, i. 93= ii. 11, seem to re-echo some similar story, but they give the number of persons not as fifteen but just one half, and describe the horse as Du (y) Moroeđ, 'the Black of (the) Seas,' steed of Elidyr Mwynfawr, that carried seven human beings and a half from Pen ILech Elidyr in the North to Pen ILech Elidyr in Môn, 'Anglesey.' It is explained that Du carried seven on his back, and that one who swam with his hands on that horse's crupper was reckoned the half man in this case. Du Moroed is in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen called Du March Moro, 'Black the Steed of Moro,' the horse ridden in the hunt of Twrch Trwyth by Gwyn ab Nud, king of the other world; and he appears as a knight with his name unmistakably rendered into Brun de Morois in the romance of Durmart le Galois, who carries away Arthur's queen on his horse to his castle in Morois1. Lastly, here also might be mentioned the incident in the story of Peredur or Perceval, which relates how to that knight, when he was in the middle of a forest much distressed for the want of a horse, a lady brought a fine steed as black as a blackberry. He mounted and he found his beast marvellously swift, but on his making straight for a vast river the knight made the sign of the cross, whereupon he was left on the ground, and his horse plunged into the water, which his touch seemed to set ablaze. The horse is interpreted to have been the devil 2, and this is a fair specimen of the way in which Celtic paganism is treated by the

1 See Stengel's edition of li Romans de Durmart le Galois (Tübingen, 1873), lines 4185-340, and my Arthurian Legend, pp. 68-9.

* See Williams' Seint Greal, pp. 60-1, 474-5; Nutt's Holy Grail, p. 44; and my Arthurian Legend, pp. 69-70.

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