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Earthing the Myths. Daragh Smyth
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isbn 9781788551373
Автор произведения Daragh Smyth
Издательство Ingram
The horse goddess is a manifestation of the mother goddess, and thus the union of the king with the mother goddess is another variation of the sovereignty myth where the white horse as a symbol of life represents the cailleach as one who legitimately bestows sovereignty on the king-to-be.
Inaugural connections with other Celtic tribes can be found, and Herodotus mentions a Celtic tribe in Carinthia, north of the Adriatic, with similar inauguration rites to the Irish. He writes:
In Carinthia as often as a new prince of the republic enters upon the government, they observe a solemnity nowhere else heard of. In the open fields stands erect a marble stone, which when the leader is about to be created a certain countryman, to whom through his race the succession to that office hereditarily belongs, ascends, having on his right hand a black heifer in calf, while on his left is placed a working mare … he in the common dress of the country, wearing a hair cap, carrying shoes and a pastoral shaft, acts the herdsman more than the prince … the man in charge says that the mare and the heifer shall be his [the prince’s] and that he shall be free of tribute … then the king to be gently stikes the cheek of the official in charge and commands him to be a fair judge. Then the prince takes possession of the stone and turns himself around to every part and brandishing a naked sword addresses the clans and promises to be an equitable judge.
O’Donovan in Tribes and Customs of Hy-Fiachrach writes that in Ireland the king-to-be turns himself around thrice forwards and thrice backwards in order to view his people and territory in every direction.
The inauguration rite of kings is generally associated with the Iron Age, which straddled the late pre-Christian and early Christian era. At the inauguration site at Aughris Head, we may assume that a man became eligible to succeed as king, as Mac Neill writes in Celtic Ireland, if ‘they belonged to the derbfine as a king who had already reigned’. The derbfine consisted of four generations in direct line – that is, father, sons, grandsons and great-grandsons. All those within the derbfine were eligible to succeed, subject to election. Those in line for kingship were classified as rígdomna, or ‘crown prince’, or ‘royal heir’. Given the number of possible contenders to the throne, one can see how this led to the continuous series of battles that are at the basis of our early history.
Moytirra West and Moytirra East [25], three miles east of Lough Arrow, are the location of the Second Battle of Moytura (Cath Muighe Tuireadh, ‘the battle of the plain of reckoning or keening or lamentation’). There are five megalithic tombs in the area as well as mounds, cairns, sweathouses and ring forts. There is also a crannóg on the northern end of Lough Arrow. The plain of Moytura is about ten miles from Ballysadare Bay, which would have been a good landing place for an invader.
The Second Battle of Moytura is possibly the most widely known of all the inter-racial battles in Ireland. It was fought between the ‘native’ Irish, the followers of the sun goddess Anu, whose people were known as the Tuatha Dé Danann,* and the invading force, the Fomorians* – Fomoiri (a race from ‘across the sea’) – more generally known as the Phoenicians, who were traders from Lebanon.
Like the Tuatha Dé Danann,* the Fomorians,* who had become the overlords of Ireland after their invasion, also worshipped a sun god namely Balor, so this story has often been regarded as a great tale of the Irish gods. Perhaps more than any other tale, this legend presents a roll call of the gods who combine to defeat the invading force led by their king, Elatha Mór mac Dealbhaoi, who reminds the Fomorians of their supremacy and charges them to defeat their vassals. The Tuatha Dé Danann forces are led by Lug,* who is a man, a sun god and a master of all the arts (samildánach).
The story is interwoven like many a biblical one with elements of the godly and the earthly. The great goddess the Mórrígan previously had predicted the battle when mating with the Dagda* on the River Unshin. The Dagda was the king and god of the Tuatha Dé Danann.* Prior to the battle the Mórrígan killed the Fomorian warrior Indech and gave handfuls of his blood to the Dagda’s warriors. She then went with Badb and Macha to the Mound of the Hostages at Tara and from here they sent forth ‘a cloud of mist and furious rain of fire, with a downpour of red blood from the air onto the warriors’ heads’.
Then the battle begins and Nuadu mac Echtach of the Tuatha Dé Danann engages Elatha in combat and wounds him. Lug* then arrives and strikes off Elatha’s head – Is ann sin do riacht Lug an láthair agus sealluis a cheann de.
Balor’s eye, which no one could look at directly, is eventually pierced by a sling shot from the Goibniu,* the smith to the gods. Balor awakens from his injury and beheads Nuadu, then escapes from the field of battle followed by the remainder of the Fomorians;* they go to Carn Eóluirg, alternatively called Carn Uí Néid or Mizen Head [88], at the southernmost part of Ireland – agus do Carn Eóluirg risa raitear Carn Í Néid I n-iarthur Éireann. It is named after the father of Elatha.
Brian Ó Cuív who edited Cath Muighe Tuireadh came across a summary of the battle in a Trinity College manuscript written about 1630, or twenty years earlier than Cath Muighe Tuireadh. The following extract refers to the form that the tributes imposed by the Fomorians* took:
Tángatar Fomhóraigh go hÉrind, agus do chuirset dáorchíos uirre .i. dá ttrían etha, bleachta, cloinne, agus conáich do tharclamh ó fhearaibh Éirionn gacha Sámhna go Magh gCéidne na bFhomhórach .i. uinge dh’ór ón tsróin, nó an tsrón ón chionn amach.
The Fomorians came to Ireland, and they put a severe tribute on them, namely two thirds of arable land, of milch cows, of their progeny and their wealth to be collected from the men of Ireland each samain [Hallowe’en] at Magh Céidne of the Fomorians [a plain between the rivers Erne which extends eighty miles between Cavan to the west of Ballyshannon where it flows into the sea at Drowes], for example, the wealth tax being the nose tax for which an ounce of gold was to be paid or one’s nose to be cut off.
[Translated by the author]
Donegal Bay, which is shared by Donegal, Leitrim and Sligo, may have been the entrance for the first recorded people to have arrived in Ireland, namely Cesair with fifty women and three men; they possibly arrived at Dún na mBárc or present day Mount Temple, and close by at Trá Tuaidh or Traig Eba [16] is where Eba or Eua or Eve, one of the fifty women who arrived with Cesair, is said to have drowned. Machaire Eba, or the Plain of Eba, is a name for a stretch of the Sligo coast which goes from Drumcliff Bay to Cliffony. The name is now reduced to Magherow, a townland north of Lissadell Strand west from Drumcliff.
At Streedagh [16] south-west of O’Conor’s Island is a megalithic tomb mentioned in Acallam na Senórach or the Colloquy of the Ancients, a twelfth-century tale of discourses mostly between Caoilte of the Fianna* of Finn mac Cumhail* and St Patrick. According to Caoilte, this tomb, which still stands, was where the remains of Finn’s deer-hound was buried, and in this tomb were later found ‘the two lower jaws of a hound or wolf’. Whether or not this animal was Finn’s, it certainly enriches the tale.
A mention of Trá Eba in the Dindshenchas* gives credence to the suggestion that Sligo rather than Kerry may have been the location of Dún na mBárc, the port of call where Cesair and her followers entered Ireland:
‘Tráigh Eaba, cídh diatá? Ní ansa. Día tanic Cesair ingen Betha mic Naoí lucht curaigh co hÉrinn. Tainic Eaba in banlíaidh léi, cho rocodail isin trácht, co robáidh in tonn iarom. Conidh de raiter Rind Eaba agus Traigh Eaba dona hinadhaibh sin osin ille.
Traig Eba, whence the name? Not hard to say. When Cesair daughter of Bith son of Noah came with a boat’s crew to Erin, Eba the leech-woman came with her. She fell asleep on the strand, and the waves drowned her. Hence these places were called Rind Eba and Traig Eba from that time forth.
[Translated by Edward Gwynn]
Cesair has been connected to Noah in the Book of Invasions and in Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Éirinn but she is also regarded as a Greek princess and as a French woman in other stories. Many