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PREFACE
PREFACE
This book is what its author believes to be the only attempt yet made to put the English reader into possession, in clear, compact, and what it is hoped may prove agreeable, form, of the mythical, legendary, and poetic traditions of the earliest inhabitants of our islands who have left us written records—the Gaelic and the British Celts. It is true that admirable translations and paraphrases of much of Gaelic mythical saga have been recently published, and that Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation
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CHAPTER I THE INTEREST AND IMPORTANCE OF CELTICMYTHOLOGY
CHAPTER I THE INTEREST AND IMPORTANCE OF CELTICMYTHOLOGY
It should hardly be necessary to remind the reader of what profound interest and value to every nation are its earliest legendary and poetical records. The beautiful myths of Greece form a sufficing example. In threefold manner, they have influenced the destiny of the people that created them, and of the country of which they were the imagined theatre. First, in the ages in which they were still fresh, belief and pride in them were powerful enough to bring scattered tribes into confederation. Se
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CHAPTER II THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THECELTIC MYTHOLOGY
CHAPTER II THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THECELTIC MYTHOLOGY
We may begin by asserting with confidence that Mr. Elton has touched upon a part only of the material on which we may draw, to reconstruct the ancient British mythology. Luckily, we are not wholly dependent upon the difficult tasks of resolving the fabled deeds of apocryphal Irish and British kings who reigned earlier than St. Patrick or before Julius Caesar into their original form of Celtic myths, of sifting the attributes and miracles of doubtfully historical saints, or of separating the prim
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CHAPTER III WHO WERE THE “ANCIENT BRITONS”?
CHAPTER III WHO WERE THE “ANCIENT BRITONS”?
But, before proceeding to recount the myths of the “Ancient Britons”, it will be well to decide what people, exactly, we mean by that loose but convenient phrase. We have, all of us, vague ideas of Ancient Britons, recollected, doubtless, from our school-books. There we saw their pictures as, painted with woad, they paddled coracles, or drove scythed chariots through legions of astonished Romans. Their Druids, white-bearded and wearing long, white robes, cut the mistletoe with a golden sickle at
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CHAPTER IV THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS ANDDRUIDISM
CHAPTER IV THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS ANDDRUIDISM
The ancient inhabitants of Britain—the Gaelic and British Celts—have been already described as forming a branch of what are roughly called the “Aryans”. This name has, however, little reference to race, and really signifies the speakers of a group of languages which can be all shown to be connected, and to descend remotely from a single source—a hypothetical mother-tongue spoken by a hypothetical people which we term “Aryan”, or, more correctly, “Indo-European”. This primeval speech, evolved, pr
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CHAPTER V THE GODS OF THE GAELS
CHAPTER V THE GODS OF THE GAELS
Of the two Celtic races that settled in our islands, it is the earlier, the Gaels, that has best preserved its old mythology. It is true that we have in few cases such detailed account of the Gaelic gods as we gain of the Hellenic deities from the Greek poets, of the Indian Devas from the Rig Veda, or of the Norse Æsir from the Eddas. Yet none the less may we draw from the ancient Irish manuscripts quite enough information to enable us to set forth their figures with some clearness. We find them
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CHAPTER VI THE GODS ARRIVE
CHAPTER VI THE GODS ARRIVE
The people of the goddess Danu were not the first divine inhabitants of Ireland. Others had been before them, dwellers in “the dark backward and abysm of time”. In this the Celtic mythology resembles those of other nations, in almost all of which we find an old, dim realm of gods standing behind the reigning Pantheon. Such were Cronos and the Titans, dispossessed by the Zeus who seemed, even to Hesiod, something of a parvenu deity. Gaelic tradition recognizes two divine dynasties anterior to the
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CHAPTER VII THE RISE OF THE SUN-GOD[109]
CHAPTER VII THE RISE OF THE SUN-GOD[109]
It was as a result of the loss of his hand in this battle with the Fir Bolgs that Nuada got his name of Argetlám , that is, the “Silver Handed”. For Diancecht, the physician of the Tuatha Dé Danann, made him an artificial hand of silver, so skilfully that it moved in all its joints, and was as strong and supple as a real one. But, good as it was of its sort, it was a blemish; and, according to Celtic custom, no maimed person could sit upon the throne. Nuada was deposed; and the Tuatha Dé Danann
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CHAPTER VIII THE GAELIC ARGONAUTS
CHAPTER VIII THE GAELIC ARGONAUTS
The preparations for this war are said to have lasted seven years. It was during the interval that there befel an episode which might almost be called the “Argonautica” of the Gaelic mythology. [115] In spite of the dethronement of Bress, the Fomors still claimed their annual tribute from the tribe of the goddess Danu, and sent their tax-gatherers, nine times nine in number, to “Balor’s Hill” to collect it. But, while they waited for the gods to come to tender their submission and their subsidy,
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CHAPTER IX THE WAR WITH THE GIANTS[135]
CHAPTER IX THE WAR WITH THE GIANTS[135]
By this time the seven years of preparation had come to an end. A week before the Day of Samhain, the Morrígú discovered that the Fomors had landed upon Erin. She at once sent a messenger to tell the Dagda, who ordered his druids and sorcerers to go to the ford of the River Unius, in Sligo, and utter incantations against them. The people of the goddess Danu, however, were not yet quite ready for battle. So the Dagda decided to visit the Fomorian camp as an ambassador, and, by parleying with them
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CHAPTER X THE CONQUEST OF THE GODS BY MORTALS
CHAPTER X THE CONQUEST OF THE GODS BY MORTALS
Of what Badb had in mind when she uttered this prophecy we have no record. But it was true. The twilight of the Irish gods was at hand. A new race was coming across the sea to dispute the ownership of Ireland with the people of the goddess Danu. And these new-comers were not divinities like themselves, but men like ourselves, ancestors of the Gaels. This story of the conquest of the gods by mortals—which seems such a strange one to us—is typically Celtic. The Gaelic mythology is the only one whi
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CHAPTER XI THE GODS IN EXILE
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
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CHAPTER XII THE IRISH ILIAD
CHAPTER XII THE IRISH ILIAD
With Eber and Eremon, sons of Milé, and conquerors of the gods, begins a fresh series of characters in Gaelic tradition—the early “Milesian” kings of Ireland. Though monkish chroniclers have striven to find history in the legends handed down concerning them, they are none the less almost as mythical as the Tuatha Dé Danann. The first of them who has the least appearance of reality is Tigernmas, who is recorded to have reigned a hundred years after the coming of the Milesians. He seems to have be
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CHAPTER XIII SOME GAELIC LOVE-STORIES
CHAPTER XIII SOME GAELIC LOVE-STORIES
The heroic age of Ireland was not, however, the mere orgy of battle which one might assume from the previous chapter. It had room for its Helen and its Andromache as well as for its Achilles and its Hector. Its champions could find time to make love as well as war. More than this, the legends of their courtships often have a romantic beauty found in no other early literature. The women have free scope of choice, and claim the respect of their wooers. Indeed, it has been pointed out that the myth
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CHAPTER XIV FINN AND THE FENIANS[223]
CHAPTER XIV FINN AND THE FENIANS[223]
The epoch of Emain Macha is followed in the annals of ancient Ireland by a succession of monarchs who, though doubtless as mythical as King Conchobar and his court, seem to grow gradually more human. Their line lasts for about two centuries, culminating in a dynasty with which legend has occupied itself more than with its immediate predecessors. This is the one which began, according to the annalists, in A.D. 177, with the famous Conn “the Hundred-Fighter”, and, passing down to the reign of his
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CHAPTER XV THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GODS
CHAPTER XV THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GODS
In spite, however, of the wide-spread popularity of the ballads that took the form of dialogues between Ossian and Patrick, certain traditions say that the saint succeeded in converting the hero. Caoilté, the other great surviving Fenian, was also represented as having gladly exchanged his pagan lore for the faith and salvation offered him. We may see the same influence on foot in the later legends concerning the Red Branch Champions. It was the policy of the first Christianizers of Ireland to d
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CHAPTER XVI THE GODS OF THE BRITONS
CHAPTER XVI THE GODS OF THE BRITONS
The descriptions and the stories of the British gods have hardly come down to us in so ample or so compact a form as those of the deities of the Gaels, as they are preserved in the Irish and Scottish manuscripts. They have also suffered far more from the sophistications of the euhemerist. Only in the “Four Branches of the Mabinogi” do the gods of the Britons appear in anything like their real character of supernatural beings, masters of magic, and untrammelled by the limitations which hedge in m
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CHAPTER XVII THE ADVENTURES OF THE GODS OF HADES
CHAPTER XVII THE ADVENTURES OF THE GODS OF HADES
It is with the family of Pwyll, deities connected with the south-west corner of Wales, called by the Romans Demetia, and by the Britons Dyfed, and, roughly speaking, identical with the modern county of Pembrokeshire, that the earliest consecutive accounts of the British gods begin. The first of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi tell us how “Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed”, gained the right to be called Pen Annwn , the “Head of Hades”. Indeed, it almost seems as if it had been deliberately written to exp
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CHAPTER XVIII THE WOOING OF BRANWEN AND THEBEHEADING OF BRÂN[336]
CHAPTER XVIII THE WOOING OF BRANWEN AND THEBEHEADING OF BRÂN[336]
In the second of the “Four Branches”, Pryderi, come to man’s estate, and married to a wife called Kicva, appears as a guest or vassal at the court of a greater god of Hades than himself—Brân, the son of the sea-god Llyr. The children of Llyr—Brân, with his sister Branwen of the “Fair Bosom” and his half-brother Manawyddan, as well as two sons of Manawyddan’s mother, Penardun, by an earlier marriage, were holding court at Twr Branwen , “Branwen’s Tower”, now called Harlech. As they sat on a cliff
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CHAPTER XIX THE WAR OF ENCHANTMENTS[345]
CHAPTER XIX THE WAR OF ENCHANTMENTS[345]
Manawyddan was now the sole survivor of the family of Llyr. He was homeless and landless. But Pryderi offered to give him a realm in Dyfed, and his mother, Rhiannon, for a wife. The lady, her son explained, was still not uncomely, and her conversation was pleasing. Manawyddan seems to have found her attractive, while Rhiannon was not less taken with the son of Llyr. They were wedded, and so great became the friendship of Pryderi and Kicva, Manawyddan and Rhiannon, that the four were seldom apart
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CHAPTER XX THE VICTORIES OF LIGHT OVER DARKNESS
CHAPTER XX THE VICTORIES OF LIGHT OVER DARKNESS
The powers of light were, however, by no means invariably successful in their struggles with the powers of darkness. Even Gwydion son of Dôn had to serve his apprenticeship to misfortune. Assailing Caer Sidi—Hades [347] under one of its many titles,—he was caught by Pwyll and Pryderi, and endured a long imprisonment. [348] The sufferings he underwent made him a bard—an ancient Celtic idea which one can still see surviving in the popular tradition that whoever dares to spend a night alone either
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CHAPTER XXI THE MYTHOLOGICAL “COMING OF ARTHUR”
CHAPTER XXI THE MYTHOLOGICAL “COMING OF ARTHUR”
The “Coming of Arthur”, his sudden rise into prominence, is one of the many problems of the Celtic mythology. He is not mentioned in any of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, which deal with the races of British gods equivalent to the Gaelic Tuatha Dé Danann. The earliest references to him in Welsh literature seem to treat him as merely a warrior-chieftain, no better, if no worse, than several others, such as “Geraint, a tributary prince of Devon”, immortalized both by the bards [358] and by Ten
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CHAPTER XXII THE TREASURES OF BRITAIN
CHAPTER XXII THE TREASURES OF BRITAIN
It is in keeping with the mythological character of Arthur that the early Welsh tales recorded of him are of a different nature from those which swell the pseudo-histories of Nennius [437] and of Geoffrey of Monmouth. We hear nothing of that subjugation of the countries of Western Europe which fills so large a part in the two books of the Historia Britonum which Geoffrey has devoted to him. [438] Conqueror he is, but his conquests are not in any land known to geographers. It is against Hades, an
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CHAPTER XXIII THE GODS AS KING ARTHUR’S KNIGHTS
CHAPTER XXIII THE GODS AS KING ARTHUR’S KNIGHTS
It is not, however, by such fragments of legend that Arthur is best known to English readers. Not Arthur the god, but Arthur the “blameless king”, who founded the Table Round, from which he sent forth his knights “to ride abroad redressing human wrongs”, [452] is the figure which the name conjures up. Nor is it even from Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur that this conception comes to most of us, but from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King . But Tennyson has so modernized the ancient tradition that it
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CHAPTER XXIV THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GODS
CHAPTER XXIV THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GODS
If there be love of fame in celestial minds, those gods might count themselves fortunate who shared in the transformation of Arthur. Their divinity had fallen from them, but in their new rôles, as heroes of romance, they entered upon vivid reincarnations. The names of Arthur’s Knights might almost be described as “household words”, while the gods who had no portion in the Table Round are known only to those who busy themselves with antiquarian lore. It is true that a few folk-tales still survive
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CHAPTER XXV SURVIVALS OF THE CELTIC PAGANISM INTO MODERNTIMES
CHAPTER XXV SURVIVALS OF THE CELTIC PAGANISM INTO MODERNTIMES
The fall of the Celtic state worship began earlier in Britain than in her sister island. Neither was it Christianity that struck the first blow, but the rough humanity and stern justice of the Romans. That people was more tolerant, perhaps, than any the world has ever known towards the religions of others, and gladly welcomed the Celtic gods—as gods—into its own diverse Pantheon. A friendly Gaulish or British divinity might at any time be granted the so-to-speak divine Roman citizenship, and be
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A FEW BOOKS UPON CELTIC MYTHOLOGYAND LITERATURE
A FEW BOOKS UPON CELTIC MYTHOLOGYAND LITERATURE
The object of this short list is merely to supplement the marginal notes by pointing out to a reader desirous of going deeper into the subject the most recent and accessible works upon it. That they should be accessible is, in its intention, the most important thing; and therefore only books easily and cheaply obtainable will be mentioned....
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INTRODUCTORY
INTRODUCTORY
Matthew Arnold.— The Study of Celtic Literature. Popular Edition. London, 1891. Ernest Renan.— The Poetry of the Celtic Races (and other studies). Translated by William G. Hutchinson. London, 1896. Two eloquent appreciations of Celtic literature. Magnus Maclean, M.A., D.C.L.— The Literature of the Celts. Its History and Romance. London, 1902. A handy exposition of all the branches of Celtic literature. Elizabeth A. Sharp (editor).— Lyra Celtica. An Anthology of Representative Celtic Poetry. Anci
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HISTORICAL
HISTORICAL
H. d’Arbois de Jubainville.— La Civilisation des Celtes et celle de l’Épopée Homérique. Paris, 1899. Vol. VI of the author’s monumental “Cours de Littérature celtique.” Patrick Weston Joyce.— A Social History of Ancient Ireland , treating of the Government, Military System, and Law; Religion, Learning, and Art; Trades, Industries, and Commerce; Manners, Customs, and Domestic Life of the Ancient Irish People. 2 vols. London, 1903. Charles I. Elton, F.S.A.— Origins of English History. Second editi
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GAELIC MYTHOLOGY
GAELIC MYTHOLOGY
H. d’Arbois de Jubainville.— Le Cycle mythologique irlandais et la Mythologie celtique. Vol. II of the “Cours de Littérature celtique”. Paris, 1884. Translated into English as The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology. With notes by R. I. Best. Dublin, 1903. An account of Irish mythical history and of some of the greater Gaelic gods. With chapters on some of the more striking phases of Celtic belief. Alfred Nutt.— The Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal. An Irish Historic Legend of the eighth c
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BRITISH MYTHOLOGY
BRITISH MYTHOLOGY
Ivor B. John.— The Mabinogion. No. 11 of “Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance, and Folklore”. London, 1901. A pamphlet introduction to the Mabinogion literature. Lady Charlotte Guest.— The Mabinogion. From the Welsh of the Llyfr Coch o Hergest (the Red Book of Hergest) in the library of Jesus College, Oxford. Translated, with notes, by Lady Charlotte Guest. Cheap editions of this classic have been lately issued. One may obtain it in Mr. Nutt’s handsome little volume; as one of Dent’s “Temple C
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COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
John Rhys.— Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by Celtic Heathendom. “The Hibbert Lectures for 1886.” London, 1898. John Rhys.— Studies in the Arthurian Legend. Oxford, 1901. These two volumes are the most important attempts yet made towards a scientific and comprehensive study of the Celtic mythology....
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CELTIC FAIRY AND FOLK LORE
CELTIC FAIRY AND FOLK LORE
T. Crofton Croker.— Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland. This book is one of the earliest, and, if not the most scientific, perhaps the most attractive of the many collections of Irish fairy-lore. Later compilations are Mr. William Larminie’s “West Irish Folktales and Romances”, and Mr. Jeremiah Curtin’s “Hero Tales of Ireland”, “Myths and Folklore of Ireland”, and “Tales of the Fairies, collected in South Munster”. On the Scotch side, notice should be particularly taken of Camp
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FOLKLORE COMPARATIVELY TREATED
FOLKLORE COMPARATIVELY TREATED
George Laurence Gomme.— Ethnology in Folklore. “Modern Science” Series. London, 1892. An attempt to assign apparently non-Aryan beliefs and customs in the British islands to pre-Aryan inhabitants....
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