CHAPTER IV
MYTHIC POWERS OF THE GODS
AS in most mythologies, the Celtic deities have powers which reflect those supposed to be possessed by medicine-men, as well as others peculiar to themselves. These were the subject of myths taught by the Druids, who knew many things concerning the might of the immortal gods.1 The gods were undying, and their abode was that of "the ever-living ones," where none ever died. Caoilte describes the Tuatha Dé Danann to St. Patrick as beings "who are unfading, and whose duration is perennial" in contrast with himself or men;2 or they are "fairies or sprites with corporeal forms, endowed with immortality." Yet immortality is said to have been given them by Manannan through their drinking Goibniu's immortal beer, so that "no disease nor sickness ever attacks them," nor "decay nor old age comes upon them."3 The daughter of Bodb Dearg was asked by St. Patrick what it was which maintained the gods in form and comeliness, and her answer was, "All such of us as partook of Goibniu's banquet, nor pain nor sickness troubles them."4 Elsewhere this immortality seems to be dependent upon the eating of certain fragrant berries, of which it is said that "no disease attacks those who eat them, but they feel the exhilaration of wine and old mead; and were it at the age of a century, they would return again to be thirty years old." Once the Tuatha Dé Danann had played a match with the Feinn and brought from the Land of Promise crimson nuts, catkin apples, and these fragrant berries; but one of them fell to earth, and from it grew a quicken (rowan) tree, whose berries possessed these virtues. The gods sent one of their people
