This land whose mountains are great and extensive, Whose woods abound with various fruit, Its rivers and waterfalls are large and beautiful, It abounds with fountains on elevated grounds! May Tara be the regal residence of our many succeeding kings! May the Milesians be the conquerors of its people! May our ships anchor in its harbours! May they trade along the coast of Erin! May Eremon be its first ruling monarch! May the descendants of Ir and Eber be mighty kings! I implore that we may regain the land of Erin, I implore!" The incantation proved effectual. The Land of Ireland was pleased to be propitious, and the druidical wind dropped down. But success was not quite so easy as they had hoped. Manannán, son of the sea and lord of headlands, shook his magic mantle at them, and hurled a fresh tempest out over the deep. The galleys of the Milesians were tossed helplessly on the waves; many sank with their crews. Donn was among the lost, thus fulfilling Eriu's prophecy, and three other sons of Milé also perished. In the end, a broken remnant, after long beating about the coasts, came to shore at the mouth of the River Boyne. They landed; and Amergin, from the shore, invoked the aid of the sea as he had already done that of the land. (B 219) I "Sea full of fish! Fertile land! Fish swarming up! Fish there! Under-wave bird! Great fish! Crab's hole! Fish swarming up! Sea full of fish!" which, being interpreted like the preceding charm, seems to have meant: " 'May the fishes of the sea crowd in shoals to the land for our use! May the waves of the sea drive forth to the shore abundance of fish! May the salmon swim abundantly into our nets! May all kinds of fish come plentifully to us from the sea! May its flat-fishes also come in abundance! This poem I compose at the sea-shore that fishes may swim in shoals to our coast." Then, gathering their forces, they marched on the people of the goddess Danu. Two battles were fought, the first in Glenn Faisi, a valley of the Slieve Mish Mountains, south of Tralee, and the second at Tailtiu, now called Telltown. In both, the gods were beaten. Their three kings were killed by the three surviving sons of Milé-Mac Cuill by Eber, Mac Cecht by Eremon, and Mac Greiné by the druid Amergin. Defeated and disheartened, they gave in, and, retiring beneath the earth, left the surface of the land to their conquerors. From this day begins the history of Ireland according to the annalists. Milé's eldest son, Donn, having perished, the kingdom fell by right to the second, Eremon. But Eber, the third son, backed by his followers, insisted upon a partition, and Ireland was divided into two equal parts. At the end of a year, however, war broke out between the brothers; Eber was killed in battle, and Eremon took the sole rule. CHAPTER XI THE GODS IN EXILE But though mortals had conquered gods upon a scale unparalleled in mythology, they had by no means entirely subdued them. Beaten in battle, the people of the goddess Danu had yet not lost their divine attributes, and could use them either to help or hurt. "Great was the power of the Dagda", says a tract preserved in the Book of Leinster, "over the sons of Milé, even after the conquest of Ireland; for his subjects destroyed their corn and milk, so that they must needs make a treaty of peace with the Dagda. Not until then, and thanks to his good-will, were they able to harvest corn and drink the milk of their cows. "1 The basis of this lost treaty seems to have been that the Tuatha Dé Danann, though driven from the soil, should receive homage and offerings from their successors. We are told in the verse dinnsenchus of Mag Slecht, that— "Since the rule Of Eremon, the noble man of grace, Until the coming of good Patrick of Macha " 1 De Jubainville: Cycle Mythologique Irlandais, p. 269. 2 See chap. IV-"The Religion of the Ancient Britons and Druidism". Dispossessed of upper earth, the gods had, however, to seek for new homes. A council was convened, but its members were divided between two opinions. One section of them chose to shake the dust of Ireland off its disinherited feet, and seek refuge in a paradise over-seas, situate in some unknown, and, except for favoured mortals, unknowable island of the west, the counterpart in Gaelic myth of the British ... "island-valley of Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, -a land of perpetual pleasure and feasting, described variously as the "Land of Promise" (Tir Tairngiré), the "Plain of Happiness" (Mag Mell), the "Land of the Living" (Tir-nam-beo), the "Land of the Young" (Tir-nan-ög), and "Breasal's Island" (HyBreasail). Celtic mythology is full of the beauties and wonders of this mystic country, and the tradition of it has never died out. Hy-Breasail has been set down on old maps as a reality again and again;2 some pioneers in the Spanish seas thought they had discovered it, and called the land they found Brazil"; and it is still said, by lovers of old lore, that a patient watcher, after long gazing westward from the westernmost shores of Ireland or Scotland, 1 Tennyson: Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur. 2 See Wood-Martin: Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland, Vol I, pp. 213-215. |