Old Celtic Romances Part 63

VI.

"Often when my feeble feet grew weary wandering along the valleys, and climbing the hills to view the chase, often would they bear me home lightly on their linked shields and spears.

VII.

"It was gladness of heart to be with the sons of Usna: long and weary is the day without their company: short will be my span of life since they have left me.

VIII.

"Sorrow and tears have dimmed my eyes, looking at the grave of Naisi: a dark deadly sickness has seized my heart: I cannot, I cannot live after Naisi.

IX.

"O thou who diggest the new grave, make it deep and wide: let it be a grave for four; for I will sleep for ever beside my beloved."

When she had spoken these words, she fell beside the body of Naisi and died immediately. And a great cairn of stones was piled over their grave, and their names were inscribed in Ogham, and their funeral rites were performed.

This is the sorrowful tale of The Fate of the Sons of Usna.

FOOTNOTES:

[CLXXIX.] Slieve Cullinn, now Slieve Gullion mountain in Armagh.

NOTES.

NOTE 1.--_The Dedannans._

According to the old bardic legends, the first man who led a colony to Ireland after the Flood was Parthalon. Next came Nemed and his people; and after these the Firbolgs, who were conquered and succeeded by the Dedannans.

The legend relates that the Dedannans, in the course of their wanderings, spent some time in Greece, where they learned magic and other curious arts. From this they migrated to Lochlann, in the north of Europe (see note 6), from which they came through Scotland to their final resting-place, Ireland.

From the three queens of their three last kings, Ireland got the three names, Erin, F[=o]la, and Banba.

After the Dedannans had held sway in Ireland for about two hundred years, they were in their turn conquered by the last and greatest colony of all, the people of Miled or Milesius, who are commonly known by the name of Milesians, and who are the ancestors of the leading Gaelic families of Ireland. The Milesians defeated the Dedannans in two great battles: one fought at _Tailltenn_, now Teltown, on the river Blackwater, between Navan and Kells, in Meath; and the other at _Druim-Lighean_, now Drumleene, about three miles from Lifford, in Donegal.

In the legendary and romantic literature of Ireland, the Dedannans are celebrated as magicians. By the Milesians and their descendants they were regarded as G.o.ds, and ultimately, in the imagination of the people, they became what are now in Ireland called "fairies."

After their defeat by the Milesians, they seem to have retired to remote and lonely places; and their reputation as magicians, as well as the obscure and mysterious manner in which they lived, gradually impressed the vulgar with the belief that they were supernatural beings.

The notion was that they lived in splendid palaces in the interior of pleasant green hills. These hills were called _sidh_ (p.r.o.nounced _shee_); and hence the Dedannans were called _Daoine-sidhe_ (_Deena-shee_), or people of the fairy hills; _Marcra-sidhe_ (_Markra-shee_), fairy cavalcade; and _Sluagh-sidhe_ (_Sloo-shee_), fairy host.

Of this mysterious race, the following are the princ.i.p.al characters mentioned in these tales.

Mannanan Mac Lir, the Gaelic sea-G.o.d. In "Cormac's Glossary" (written A.D. 900), we are told that he was a famous merchant who resided in, and gave name to, _Inis-Manann_, or the Isle of Man; that he was the best merchant in Western Europe; and that he used to know, by examining the heavens, the length of time the fair and the foul weather would last.

The Dagda, whose name some interpret to mean "the great good fire," so called from his military ardour, who reigned as king of Ireland from A.M. 3370 to 3450.

Angus or Angus Oge, the son of the Dagda, who lived at _Brugh_ or Bruga, on the north sh.o.r.e of the Boyne, a little below the village of Slane.

Angus is spoken of as the wisest and the most skilled in magic of all the Dedannan race.

Nuada of the Silver Hand. (See note 4.)

Lir of Shee Finnaha, the father of the four "Children of Lir," and Bove Derg of Shee Bove, of whom we know little more than what is told of them in the "Fate of the Children of Lir." Shee Finnaha is supposed to have been situated near Newtown Hamilton, in Armagh; and Shee Bove was on the sh.o.r.e of Lough Derg, on the Shannon.

Luga of the Long Arms, who imposed the eric-fine on the three sons of Turenn for slaying his father Kian. (See note 7 for a further account of this Luga.)

Dianket, the great physician, of whose powers of cure extraordinary stories are told. He had a son Midac, and a daughter Armedda, more skilful than himself. The old legend relates that Midac took off the silver arm which his father Dianket had put on Nuada (see note 4), and, having procured the bones of the real arm, he clothed them with flesh and skin, and fixed the arm in its place as well as ever "in three moments." Dianket was so enraged at being outdone by his son that he slew him. After Midac had been buried for some time, three hundred and sixty-five healing herbs grew up from his grave, one from every joint and sinew of his body--each herb to cure disease in that part of the human body from which it grew--all which were gathered by his sister Armedda, and placed carefully in her cloak in their proper order. But before she had time to study their several virtues fully, her father Dianket mixed them all up in utter confusion. (O'Curry, _Atlantis_, vii.

and viii. 158.) Were it not for this churlish proceeding, Armedda would have found out, and we should now know, the exact herb to cure each particular disease of the human frame.

NOTE 2.--_The Feast of Age._

This was also called the Feast of Gobnenn the Dedannan smith. It was inst.i.tuted by Mannanan Mac Lir, and whoever was present at it, and partook of the food and drink, was free ever after from sickness, decay, and old age.

NOTE 3.--_The Druids._

The ancient Irish druids do not appear to have been _priests_ in any sense of the word. They were, in popular estimation, men of knowledge and power--"Men of science," as they were often designated; they knew the arts of healing and divination; and they were skilled above all in magic. In fact, the Irish druids were magicians, neither more nor less; and hence the Gaelic word for "druidical" is almost always applied where we should use the term "magical"--to spells, incantations, metamorphoses, etc. (See O'Curry, "Lectures on the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish," Lecture ix.)

NOTE 4.--_Nuada of the Silver Hand._

Nuada of the Silver Hand was king of Ireland, according to the chronology of the Four Masters, from A.M. 3311 to 3330. He commanded the Dedannans in the first battle of Moytura (see note 11), where his arm was cut off with a sword-blow by Sreng, the great Firbolg champion.

Afterwards Credne the artificer made him a silver arm with a hand, which was fixed on by Dianket, the physician (see note 1). Nuada was slain in the second battle of Moytura, by Balor of the Mighty Blows (see note 11).

NOTE 5.--_The Fomorians._

"Fomor," the simple form of this word, means, according to the old etymologists, a sea-robber, from _fo_, on or along, and _muir_, the sea.

The word is also used to denote a giant, or a gigantic champion.

The Fomorians of Irish history were sea-robbers, who infested the coasts, and indeed the interior, of Ireland, for a long series of years, and at one time fortified themselves in Tory Island. They are stated to have come to Ireland from Lochlann, in the north of Europe (for which see next note); but they were originally from Africa, being, according to the legend, the descendants of Ham the son of Noah.

NOTE 6.--_Lochlann: The Lochlanns._

Lochlann was the Gaelic designation of the country from which came the people who are known in European history as Danes, _i.e._ the country round the southern sh.o.r.es of the Baltic, including the south part of Sweden. The Lochlanns, or Lochlannachs, or Danes, it need hardly be said, make a very conspicuous figure in our early history, and in our mediaeval romantic literature.

In the Gaelic tales, the chief city of Lochlann is always Berva; but whether this represents a real name, or is merely an invention of the old story-tellers, I cannot tell.