The Mythology of All Races/Volume 3/Celtic/Chapter 3

by John Arnott MacCulloch

CHAPTER III
THE DIVISION OF THE SÍD

CELTIC deities may have been associated in pagan times with hills and pre-historic tumuli, especially those near the Boyne; and within these was the subterranean land of the gods, who also dwelt on distant islands. If this were the case, it would help to explain why mounds were regarded as the retreats of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and why they are still supposed to emerge thence as a kind of fairies. If the folk believed that the old gods had always been associated with mounds, it was easy for the euhemeristic writers to evolve a legend of their having retired there after being defeated by the Milesians.

Within these hills and mounds were their gorgeous palaces, replete with all Elysian joys. These hollow hills were known as síd, a word possibly cognate with Latin sedes, and hence perhaps meaning "seats of the gods"; and their divine inhabitants were the áes'síde, fir'síde, mná síde, "the people [or "men" or "women"] of the síd," or simply "the síde. These are everywhere regarded as the Tuatha Dé Danann or their descendants. Men used to worship the síde, says St. Fiacc's hymn, while the daughters of King Loegaire regarded St. Patrick and his white-robed bishops as áes'síde, appearing on earth.¹ In later times the síde were held to be fairies and were called by various names, but these fairies closely resemble the earlier síde, the Tuatha Dé Danann, while they are not necessarily of small stature. In this they are very like the fées of mediaeval French belief—romantic survivals of earlier goddesses.

In some stories the síde are associated both with the síd and with the island Elysium, these being regarded as synonymous—the goddess with whom Connla elopes is of the áes'síde, yet she comes from the island overseas. The confusion may be due to the fact that the gods were supposed to have various dwelling-places, not necessarily to the priority of one belief over the other. On the other hand, the Mesca Ulad, or Intoxication of the Ulstermen, says that after their defeat the Tuatha Dé Danann went underground to speak with the síde,² although this may be only the confused notion of an annalist who knew of the síde, yet regarded the Tuatha Dé Danann as human.

The mingled romantico-annalistic view was that the Tuatha Dé Danann retired to the síd. An early text, The Conquest of the Síd (De Gahail int'sída), tells how Dagda apportioned the síd among them, his son Oengus, who was absent, being omitted. This story is clearly based upon an earlier myth which narrates how the chief god divided their various spheres among the divinities, as the Babylonian Marduk prepared the mansions of the deities and made them inhabit these as their strongholds. Of Dagda's' síd another document says:

"Behold the síd before your eyes,
It is manifest to you that it is a king's mansion
Which was built by the firm Dagda;
It was a wonder, a court, an admirable hill."³

This was the Brug na Boinne. Oengus Mac Ind Óc, or "Son of the Young Ones," viz. Dagda and Boann, was then with his foster-father Midir, but soon claimed his abode as Esau did his blessing. The claim, however, could not be granted, whereupon Oengus asked to spend the night in Dagda's palace, to which his father agreed, granting him also the next day. When this had elapsed, Oengus was bidden to go, but refused, because, time being composed of day and night, his tenancy must be perpetual. Thus Dagda was dispossessed; and the síd, passing to Oengus, took his name, Brug Maic Ind Óc.⁴

In another version of this story from the Book of Fermoy, in

PLATE VI

A and B

Plan of the Brug na Boinne

1. General view of the tumulus.
2. Cross-section of the mound.
3. Plan of the central chamber.
4. View of the stone-work of the Brug and its entrance, after the removal of the earth.
5. General ground-plan of the Brug.
See also Plate I and cf. pp. 66–67, 176–77

fluenced by the view that some of the Tuatha Dé Danann had died as mortals, Dagda has long since passed away, and the mounds are places of sepulture, perhaps a reflection of the fact that kings were interred there. Yet they are apportioned by the chief survivors, Bodb Dearg and Manannan, the latter having the task of selecting concealed dwellings. These he found in beautiful hills and valleys, and drew round them an invisible and impenetrable wall, though the Tuatha Dé Danann themselves could see and pass through it. He gave them Goibniu's ale, which preserved them from old age, disease, and death, and his own swine, which, killed and eaten one day, were alive the next and fit again for use. Thus even from this euhemeristic narrative the real divinity of its personages appears.⁵

In this account Bodb Dearg is made sovereign of the Tuatha Dé Danann, as he is also in the story of The Children of Ler (Aided Chlainne Lir). Ler, disgusted at the choice, retired, whereupon the others resolved to punish him, but were overruled by Bodb, who gave Ler his daughter Aobh as wife, provided he would pay allegiance to him. Aobh bore him two daughters and two sons before her death, and to comfort him Bodb now gave him her sister Aoife who, jealous of her stepchildren, transformed them into swans—a shape which they must keep for nine hundred years, though they retained speech and reason and the power of exquisite song. As a punishment Bodb changed Aoife into a "demon of the air." Not till the time of St. Patrick and St. Mochaomhog did Ler's children resume their own form. Withered and old, they now accepted the Christian faith and died, after having found their father's palace a roofless ruin.⁶

In the version given in the Book of Fermoy Elemar, fosterfather of Oengus, received the Brug na Boinne, and Manannan advised Oengus to ask it from him. Through Manannan's magic power Elcmar was expelled, and Oengus gained the síd, where he dwells invisibly, eating the swine and drinking the ale of immortality. In still another version a curious account of the origin of Oengus is given. He was a natural son of Dagda, by Elcmar's wife. Dagda sent Elcmar on a journey and wrought spells, bringing darkness and "strayings" upon him, and warding off hunger and thirst from him. He obtained access to the goddess, perhaps because, like Uther and Manannan on like occasions, he assumed the appearance of the real husband. Elcmar was still absent when Oengus was born, but he may later have discovered the truth, for Oengus was taunted, as Merlin was, with having no parents. He went in tears to the god Midir, who took him to Dagda, and the latter acknowledged him as his son, bidding him go to Elcmar's síd and threaten him with death if he would not promise him "the sovereignty of a day and night in his land"—the same trick which Oengus played on Dagda in the first version.⁷ This story is introductory to the beautiful myth of Etain, to be told later; but here it should be noted that in a poem by the euhemerizing monk, Flann Manistrech, Elcmar slew Midir and was himself slain by Oengus.⁸ This, however, need be no part of an earlier myth.

Still another account is given in verse by the tenth century poet, Cináed úa hArtacáin. Boann, Nechtain's wife, came to stay with her brother Elcmar, vassal of Dagda, who sought her love in vain. His Druids advised him to send Elcmar on a mission, but the latter bargained that it should not keep him away over night, whereupon Dagda "kept the sun in the lofty ridge of the heavens till the end of nine months." Elcmar thought that only a day had passed, but on his return he saw by the change in the flowers how long the time had been. Meanwhile Dagda and Boann had deceived him, but now they were afraid, and birth-pangs seized the faithless wife. They left her child Oengus by the road-side near Midir's síd, and there he was brought up until his companions jeered at his unknown origin. Taxed by Oengus, Midir told the truth, and taking him to Dagda's síd, obtained it for him for a day and a night, thus tricking him.⁹

Whether the earliest story told of Dagda's or of Elcmar's dispossession, Oengus is a god who tricks his father or his fosterfather, and perhaps the latter was the sufferer in the primitive form. Rhŷs makes Dagda an equivalent of Kronos and Oengus of Zeus; but apart from the disinheriting incident, which is not exactly parallel in the respective Greek and Celtic stories,¹⁰ Dagda and Oengus have no clear traits in common with Kronos and Zeus, nor is there the slightest evidence that Dagda, like Kronos, ruled over the dead, either before or after his expulsion. The possible basis of the story, as the present writer has suggested elsewhere, is a myth explaining why the cult of one god came to supersede that of another.¹¹

References

Chapter III

1. E. Windisch, in IT i. 14; Stokes, Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick, p. 314.
2. Ed. and tr. W. M. Hennessy, in RIJ.TLS i. 3 (1889).
3. O'Curry [a], i. 505.
4. LL 246.
5. Book of Fermoy, iii f.; E. O'Curry, in Atlantis, iii. 385 (1862); RIA:IMS.i. 45 f. (1870).
6. Text and translation by E. O'Curry, in Atlantis, iv. 113 ff. (1863).
7. L. C. Stem, in ZCP v. 523 (1905); Stirn, in RCel xxvii. 332, xxviii. 330 (1906-07).
8. A, Nutt, in RCel xxvii. 328 (1906).
9. LL 209 b; text and translation by L. Gwynn, in Ériu, vii. 210 f. (1914).
11. See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 5–8.
12. MacCulloch [b], p. 81.