The Mythology of All Races/Volume 3/Celtic/Chapter 9

by John Arnott MacCulloch

CHAPTER IX
THE DIVINE LAND

ELYSIUM, called by many beautiful Celtic names, is the gods' land and is never associated with the dead. The living were occasionally invited there, however, and either remained perpetually or returned to earth, where sometimes they found themselves decrepit and aged; time had lapsed like a dream, because they were in the immortal land and had tasted its immortal food. Many tales already cited have shown different conceptions of its situation—in the síd, on a mysterious island, or beneath the waters; or the gods create it on earth or produce it by glamour to mortal eyes. Occasionally such conceptions are mingled. These legends have illustrated its marvellous beauty, its supernatural fruit trees and music, its unfailing and satisfying food and drink, and the deathless glory and youth of its people.

The tales now to be summarized will throw further light upon its nature. The first of these. The Voyage of Bran, is an old pagan myth retold in prose and verse in the seventh or eighth century by a Christian editor, interested in the past. Bran, son of Febal, one day heard music behind him produced by a woman from unknown lands, i. e. from Elysium. Lulled by its sweetness, he slept, and on awaking found by his side a musical branch of silver with white blossoms. Taking it into his royal house, he there saw the woman, who sang of the wondrous isle whence she had brought the branch. Four feet of white bronze upheld it, and on its plains were glistening, coloured splendours. Music swelled there; wailing, treachery, harshness, grief, sorrow, sickness, age, and death were unknown. An exquisite haze hung over it, and its people listened to the sweet music, drinking wine the while; laughter pealed there and everlasting joy. Thrice fifty islands lay to the west of it, each double or triple the size of Erin. The woman then prophesied of Christ's birth, and after she had urged Bran to sail till he reached Tír na m-Ban ("the Land of Women"), she disappeared, the branch leaping from Bran's hand into hers.

Next day Bran sailed with twenty-seven men, and on the voyage they saw Manannan driving his chariot over the waves. The god sang to the voyagers and told how he was passing over a flowery plain, for what Bran saw as the sea was to Manannan a plain. The speckled salmon in the sea were calves and lambs, and steeds invisible to Bran were there also. People were sitting playing and drinking wine, and making love without crime. Bran's coracle was not on the waves, but on an immortal wood, yielding fruit and perfume; the folk of that land were immortal and sinless, unlike Adam's descendants, and in it rivers poured forth honey. Finally Manannan bade Bran row to Tír na m-Ban, which he would reach by sunset.

Bran first came to an isle of laughter; and when one of his men was sent ashore, he refused to leave the laughing folk of this Isle of Joy. At the Land of Women their Queen welcomed Bran, throwing a ball of thread which cleaved to his hand, and by which the boat was drawn ashore. All now went into a house where were twenty-seven beds, one for each; the food never grew less and for each man It had the taste which he desired. They stayed for a year, though It was In truth many years; but home-sickness at last seized one of them, Nechtan, so that he and the others begged Bran to return. The Queen said they would rue this, yet as they were bent on going, she bade them not set foot on Erin and to take with them their comrade from the Isle of Joy. When Erin was reached, Bran told his name to the men gathered on the shore; but they said, "We do not know him, though the voyage of Bran is in our ancient stories." Nechtan now leaped ashore, but when his foot touched land, he became a heap of ashes. Bran then told his wanderings and bade farewell to the crowd, returning presumably to the divine land. "From that hour his wanderings are not known."¹

Manannan's land overseas is the subject of a conventionalized tale in the Colloquy of the Ancients (Acallamh na Senorach), which contains primitive material. One of Fionn's men, Ciabhan, embarked with two youths, Lodan and Eolus, sons of the Kings of India and of Greece; and during a storm Manannan appeared riding over the waves. "For the space of nine waves he would be submerged in the sea, but would rise on the crest of the tenth, and that without his breast or chest wetted." He rescued them on condition of fealty to himself, and drawing them on his horse, brought them to the Land of Promise. Having passed the loch of dwarfs, they came to Manannan's stone fort, where food, wine, and music delighted them; and where they saw Manannan's folk perform many tricks, which they themselves were able to imitate. In the Land of Promise were three beautiful sisters, Clidna, Aeife, and Edaein, who eloped with the visitors in two boats, Clidna going along with Ciabhan. When he reached Erin, he went ashore to hunt, and now a great wave, known ever after as Clidna's wave, rolled in and drowned her, overwhelming at the same time Manannan's men, Ildathach and his sons, both in love with Clidna and following in pursuit of her. A different account of Clidna has already been cited.²

In the story of Bran, the queen-goddess fell in love with him and visited him (as in the legend of Connla) to induce him to come to her. While there are hints of other inhabitants, women or goddesses alone exist on this island—an additional parallel to the story of Connla, though there the island has a king; to the incident in Maelduin; and to the name "Land of Ever-Living Women" in the Dindsenchas of Tuag Inbir.

PLATE XIII

SUCELLOS

This divinity, characterized by a hammer (of. p. 9), was a ruler of the underworld (cf. the representation of Dispater with a hammer, Plate XIV). A benevolent god, his hammer is a symbol of creative force. The artistic type (for another instance of which see Plate XXVI) was influenced by that of the Alexandrian Serapis and the Classical HadesPluto. Cf. also Plate IX, B. The figure was found at Premeaux, France.

Another instance occurs in a Fionn story. Fionn and his men were hunting when there met them a huge and beautiful woman, whose finger-rings were as thick as three ox-goads. She was Bebhionn from Maidens' Land in the west, where all the inhabitants were women save their father (its king) and his three sons; and for the third time she had escaped from her husband, son of the King of the adjacent Isle of Men, and had come to seek Fionn's protection. As she sat by him and Goll, however, her huge husband came, and slaying her, eluded the heroes' pursuit, vanishing overseas in a boat with two rowers.³

The tradition of the Isle of Women still exists in Celtic folklore. Such an island was on|y a part of the divine land and may have originated in myth from actual custom—women living upon or going at certain periods to small islands to perform rites generally tabu to men, a custom to which reference is made by Strabo and Pomponius Mela.⁴

That the gods could create an Elysium on earth has been found in the story of Lug and Dechtire, and another instance occurs in the tale of Cormac mac Art, King of Ireland in the third century, of whom an annalist records that he disappeared for seven months in 248 a. d., a reference to the events of this story. To Cormac appeared a young man with a branch from which hung nine apples of gold; and when this was shaken, it produced strange music, hearing which every one forgot his troubles and fell asleep. He came from a land where there was nought save truth, and where was no age, nor decay, nor gloom, nor sadness, nor envy, nor jealousy, nor weeping; and Cormac said that to possess the branch he would give whatever was asked, whereupon the stranger answered, "give me then thy wife, thy son and daughter." Cormac agreed and now told his bargain to his wife, who, like her children, was sorrowful that he should have preferred the branch to them. The stranger carried off successively, daughter, son, and wife, and all Ireland grieved, for they were much loved; but Cormac shook the branch, and the mourning ceased. In a year desire to see his wife and children came to the King. He set off, and as he went, a magic mist surrounded him, and he saw a house in the midst of a wonderful plain. After witnessing many marvels, he reached another house where a huge and beautiful man and woman offered him hospitality. Cormac bathed, the hot stones going into the bath-water of themselves, and the man brought in a boar, while Cormac prepared the fire and set on a quarter of the beast. His host proposed that he should tell a tale, at the end of which, if it were true, the meat would be cooked, but Cormac asked him to begin first. "Well, then," said the host, "the pig is one of seven, and with them I could feed the whole world. When one is eaten, I place its bones in the sty, and next day it is alive again." This tale proved true, because the meat was already cooked. When a second quarter was placed on the fire, the host told of his corn which grew and gathered itself, and never grew less; and thus a second quarter was cooked. A third quarter was set on, and now the woman described the milk of her seven cows which filled seven tubs and would satisfy the whole world. Her tale also proved true, and now Cormac realized that he was in presence of Manannan and his wife, because none possessed such pigs as he, and he had brought his wife and her cows from the Land of Promise. Cormac then told how he had lost his wife and children—a true story, for the fourth quarter was found cooked. Manannan bade him eat, but when he refused, for he would never dine with two persons only, the god opened a door and brought in his wife and children, and great was their mutual joy. Manannan now assumed his divine form and related how he had brought the branch because he desired Cormac to come hither, and he also explained the mystery of the wonders seen by him. When they sat down to eat, Manannan produced a table-cloth on which appeared whatever food was demanded, and a cup. If one told a lie, it would break, but if truth was then spoken, it would be restored; and to prove this, he informed Cormac that his lost wife had had a new husband, whereupon the cup broke. "My husband has lied," cried the goddess, and at her words the cup was repaired. Manannan then said that tablecloth, cup, and branch would be Cormac's and that he had wrought magic upon him in order that he might be with him that night in friendship. In the morning, after a night's sleep, Cormac and his family found themselves no longer in the divine land, but in their own palace of Tara, and beside him were the cup, branch, and table-cloth which had covered the board of the god.⁵ Cormac's recognition of the god through his swine shows knowledge of the myth of the gods' food—the Mucca Mhanannain, "to be killed and yet to be alive for evermore."⁶

A story told of Mongan has some resemblance to that of Cormac. He commiserated a poor bardic scholar, bidding him go to the síd of Lethet Oidni and bring thence a precious stone of his, as well as a pound of silver for himself and a pound of gold from the stream beside the síd. At two síd on his way a noble-looking couple welcomed him as Mongan's messenger, and a similar pair received him at the síd of Lethet Oidni, where was a marvellous chamber. Asking for its key, he took thence the stone and silver, and from the river he took the gold, returning to Mongan, who bestowed the silver upon him.⁷ Another story of Mongan relates how he, his wife, and some others, entering a mysterious house during a storm, found in It seven "conspicuous men," many marvellous quilts, wonderful jewels, and seven vats of wine. Welcome was given to them, and Mongan became intoxicated and told his wife his adventures, or "frenzy," from the telling of which he had formerly asked a respite of seven years. When they woke next morning, they found that they had been in the house a full year, though it seemed but a night.⁸ In this instance, however, the house had not disappeared. Examples of beautiful places vanishing at daybreak are found in Flonn tales and also In the Grail romances. The seeker of the Grail finds himself no longer in the Grail castle in the morning, and the castle itself has become invisible. Such creations of glamour were probably suggested by dreams, whose beauty and terror alike vanish "when one awaketh."

Fruit-bearing, musical trees, in whose branches birds are constantly singing, grow in the gods' land. In the síd of Oengus were three trees always in fruit; and there were also two pigs, one always living, and the other always cooked and ready for eating—the equivalent of the Mucca Mhanannain, or "Pigs of Manannan"—and a jar of excellent beer, Goibniu's ale. None ever died there.⁹ The Elysian ale is doubtless a superlative form of the Irish cuirm or braccat, made from malt, of which the Gauls had a divinity, Braciaca;¹⁰ and it is analogous to the Vedic soma and the wine of Dionysos.¹¹ Within the síd, or the gods' land, were other domestic animals, especially cows, which were sometimes brought thence by those who left it or were stolen by heroes or by dwellers in one síd from those of another. Where mortals steal them, there is a reminiscence of the mythical idea that the elements of civilization were wrested from the gods by man. Cauldrons were used by the Celts for domestic and sacrificial as well as other ritual purposes, and these also gave rise to myths of wonderful divine cauldrons like Dagda's, from which "no company ever went unthankful." Their contents restored the dead or produced inspiration, and they were stolen from the gods' land, e. g. by Cuchulainn and by Arthur.¹² The cauldron rimmed with pearls which Arthur and his men sought resembles the basin with rows of carbuncles on its edge in which, according to another story, a fairy woman washed.¹³

The inspiration of wisdom was obtained in the gods' land, either by drinking from a well or by eating the salmon in it; but this knowledge was tabu even to some members of the divine land. Such a well, called Connla's Well, was in the Land under Waves, and thither Sinend, grand-daughter of

PLATE XIV

Dispater and Aeracura (?)

Dispater was the great Celtic god of the underworld (see p. 9) and is here represented holding a hammer and a cup (for the hammer cf. the deity Sucellos, Plates XIII, XXVI, and see Plate IX, B; the cup suggests the magic cauldron of the Celtic Elysium; cf. pp. 41, 95–96, 100, 109–12, 120, 151, 192, 203–04 and see Plates IX, B, XXV). If the goddess beside him holding a cornucopia (cf. Plate IX, A) is really Aeracura, she probably represents an old earth goddess, later displaced by Dispater. From an altar found at Oberseebach, Switzerland.

Ler, went from the Land of Promise to behold it. Above it grew hazels of wisdom, bearing leaves, blossoms, and nuts together; and these fell into the water, where they were eaten by salmon—the salmon of knowledge of other tales. From the well sprang seven streams of wisdom, and Sinend, seeking understanding, followed one of these, only to be pursued and overwhelmed by the fount itself. Sometimes these hazels were thought to grow at the heads of the chief rivers of Erin.¹⁴ Such a fountain with five streams, their waters more melodious than mortal music, was seen by Cormac beside Manannan's house; above it were hazels, and in it five salmon. Nuts also formed part of the food of the gods in the story of Diarmaid and Grainne, and in a tale from the Dindsenchas they are said to be eaten by the "bright folk and fairy hosts of Erin."¹⁵ Another secret well stood in the green of Síd Nechtain, and none could approach it without his eyes bursting save Nechtan and his cup-bearers. Boann, his wife, resolved to test its power or, in another version, to prove her chastity after adultery with Dagda, and walked round it thrice withershins; but three waves from it mutilated her, she fled, and was drowned in the pursuing waters.¹⁶

Goddesses sometimes took the form of birds, like the swanmaidens of universal myth and folk-tale; and they sang exquisite, sleep-compelling melodies. Sweet, unending birdmusic, however, was a constant note of Elysium, just as the song of Rhiannon's birds caused oblivion and loss of all sense of time for eighty years. In the late story of Teigue's voyage to Elysium the birds which feasted on the delicious berries of its trees are said to warble "music and minstrelsy melodious and superlative," causing healthful slumber;¹⁷ while in another story the minstrel goddess of the síd of Doon Buidhe visited other síde with the birds of the Land of Promise which sang unequalled music.¹⁸

The lords of the síd Elysium were many, but the chief were Dagda, Oengus, and Midir, as Arawn in Brythonic story was king of Annwfn. In general, however, every síd had its own ruler, and if this is an early tradition, it suggests a cult of a local god on a hill within which his abode was supposed to be. Manannan is chief, par excellence, of the island Elysium, and it was appropriate that a marine deity should rule a divine region including "thrice fifty isliands." In that land he had a stone fort with a banqueting-hall. Lug, who may be a sungod, was sometimes associated with the divine land, as the solar divinity was in Greek myth, and also with Manannan; and he with his foster-brothers, Manannan's sons, came to assist the Tuatha Dé Danann, riding Manannan's steed before "the fairy cavalcade from the Land of Promise."¹⁹ He also appeared as owner of an Elysium created by glamour on earth's surface, where Conn the Hundred-Fighter heard a prophecy of his future career,²⁰ this prophetic, didactic tale doubtless having an earlier mythic prototype.

The Brythonic Elysium differed little from the Irish. One of its names, Annwfn, or "the not-world," which was is elfydd ("beneath the world"), was later equated with Hades or Hell, as already in the story of Gwyn. In the Mabinogi of Pwyll it is a region of this world, though with greater glories, and has districts whose people fight, as in Irish tales. In other Mabinogion, however, as in the Taliesin poems and later folk-belief, there is an over-sea Elysium called Annwfn or Caer Sidi —

"its points are ocean's streams"—and a world beneath the water—"a caer [castle] of defence under ocean's waves."²¹ Its people are skilled in magic and shape-shifting; mortals desire its "spoils"—domestic animals and a marvellous cauldron; it is a deathless land, without sickness; its waters are like wine; and with it are associated the gods. The Isle of Avalon in Arthurian tradition shows an even closer likeness to the Irish Elysium.²²

Thus the Irish and Welsh placed Elysium in various regions —local other-worlds—in hills, on earth's surface, under or oversea; and this doubtless reflects the different environments of the Celtic folk. With neither is it a region of the dead, nor in any sense associated with torment or penance. This is true also of later folk-stories of the Green Isle, now seen beneath, now above, the waters. Its people are deathless, skilled in magic; its waters restore life and health to mortals; there magic apples grow; and thither mortals are lured or wander by chance.²³ The same conception is still found in a late story told of Dunlang O'Hartigan, who fought at Clontarf in 1014. A fairy woman offered him two hundred years of life and joy—"life without death, without cold, without thirst, without hunger, without decay"—if he would put off combat for a day; but he preferred death in battle to dishonour, and "foremost fighting, fell."²⁴

The parallel between Celtic and early Greek conceptions of Elysium²⁵ is wonderfully close. Both are open to favoured human beings, who are thus made immortal without death; both are exquisitely beautiful, but sensuous and unmoral. In both are found islands ruled by goddesses who sometimes love mortals; both are oversea, while a parallel to the síd Elysium underground may be found in the later Greek tradition of Elysium as a region of Hades, which may have had roots in an earlier period.²⁶ The main difference is the occasional Celtic view of Elysium as a place where gods are at war. This may be due to warrior aspects of Celtic life, while the more peaceful conception reflects settled, agricultural life; although Norse influences have sometimes been suggested as originating the former.²⁷

References

Chapter IX

1. Text and translation in Nutt [c], i. 2 f.
2. S. H. O'Grady, ii. 198 f.; see also supra, p. 89.
3. S. H. O'Grady, ii. 238.
4. Strabo, iv. 6 (=p. 198, ed. Casaubon); Mela, iii. 6; see MacCulloch [b], p. 385 f.
5. E. Windisch, in IT iii. 183 f.; S. H. O'Grady, in TOS iii. 213 f. (1857).
6. E. O'Curry, in Atlantis, iii. 387 (1862).
7. Nutt [c], i. 52 f.
8. ib. i. 56 f.
9. LL 246 a.
10. Holder, s. v. "Braciaca."
11. Cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916-17, x. 46-48, i. 218 ff.
12. See pp. 95–96, 151, 192.
13. Da Derga's Hostel, ed. W. Stokes, in RCel xxii. 14 (1901).
14. W. Stokes, in RCel xv. 546 (1894); O'Curry [b], ii. 142 f.
15. W. Stokes, in FL iii. 506 (1892).
16. W. Stokes, in RCel xv. 315 (1894); S. H. O'Grady, ii. 519; LL 209 b.
17. S. H. O'Grady, ii. 390.
18. ib. ii. 253.
19. See supra, p. 29.
20. O'Curry [a], pp. 388, 621.
21. Skene [a], i. 285.
22. See infra, pp. 194-95.
23. MacDougall, p. 261.
24. Hyde [c], p. 440.
25. Cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 147–48.
26. Nutt [c], i. 276, 289.
27. MacCulloch [b], p. 373.