whom the river Boyne takes its name. The younger god, fully described, was 'Aengus son of the (two) Young Ones.'[1] What this exactly meant is not clear; for though his parents as immortals might perhaps be regarded as ever young, no reference is made, so far as I know, to the youthfulness of either: on the contrary, the Dagda is represented both as old and old-fashioned, fond of porridge, and generally a good subject for comic treatment.[2] Aengus is also called In Mac Óc, 'the Young Son,' possibly 'the Young Fellow,' which is in harmony with the stories extant about his youthful beauty and personal attractions; as, for example, when he once on a time appeared to king Cormac and gave him prophetic answers to his questions about the future: on that occasion he carried a musical instrument, and he is usually described much devoted to music of an irresistible nature. The Mac Óc's foster-father was Mider, king of the Fairies, whose wife was Etáin, another dawn-goddess; but a fragmentary story[3] represents a rival of hers succeeding by her wiles and magic arts in severing her from Mider. When her husband lost her, she was found in great misery by the Mac Óc, who had her clad in purple and placed in a glass grianan or sun-bower, where she fed on fragrance and the bloom of odoriferous flowers. One of the most curious things in this very curious story is the
- ↑ In Irish Oengus mac ind Óc, or merely Mac ind Óc, a name which probably belonged to a lost pedigree of the god, differing from the one ordinarily given.
- ↑ See the British Museum MS. Harl. 5280, fol. 66b; also Dr. Sullivan's introductory volume to O'Curry's Manners, &c., pp. dcxxxix, dcxl.
- ↑ Bk. of the Dun, p. 129; Windisch, pp. 130—132.
