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his message to his shipmates: "There is no storm aloft." Amergin, who as poet - that is to say, Druid - takes
the lead in all critical situations, thereupon chants his incantation to the land of Erin. The wind falls, and they
turn their prows, rejoicing, towards the shore. But one of the Milesian lords, Eber Donn, exults in brutal rage
at the prospect of putting all the dwellers in Ireland to the sword; the tempest immediately springs up again,
and many of the Milesian ships founder, Eber Donn's being among them. At last a remnant of the Milesians
find their way to shore, and land in the estuary of the Boyne.
The Defeat of the Danaans
A great battle with the Danaans at Telltown [Teltin; so named after the goddess Telta. See p. 103] then
follows. The three kings and three queens of the Danaans, with many of their people, are slain, and the
children of Miled - the last of the mythical invaders of Ireland - enter upon the sovranty of Ireland. But the
People of Dana do not withdraw. By their magic art they cast over themselves a veil of invisibility, which
they can put on or off as they choose. There are two Irelands henceforward, the spiritual and the earthly. The
Danaans dwell in the spiritual Ireland, which is portioned out among them by their great overlord, the Dagda.
Where the human eye can see but green mounds and ramparts, the relics of ruined fortresses or sepulchres,
there rise the fairy palaces of the defeated divinities; there they hold their revels in eternal sun-shine,
nourished by the magic meat and ale that give
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them undying youth and beauty ; and thence they come forth at times to mingle with mortal men in love or in
war. The ancient mythical literature conceives them as heroic and splendid in strength and beauty. In later
times, and as Christian influences grew stronger, they dwindle into fairies, the People of the Sidhe;
[Pronounced "Shee". It means literally the People of the [Fairy] Mounds] but they have never wholly
perished; to this day the Land of Youth and its inhabitants live in the imagination of the Irish peasant.
The Meaning of the Danaan Myth
All myths constructed by a primitive people are symbols, and if we can discover what it is that they
symbolise, we have a valuable clue to the spiritual character and sometimes even to the history, of the people
from whom they sprang. Now the meaning of the Danaan myth as it appears in the bardic literature, though it
has undergone much distortion before it reached us, is perfectly clear. The Danaans represent the Celtic
reverence for science, poetry, and artistic skill, blended, of course, with the earlier conception of the divinity
of the powers of Light. In their combat with the Firbolgs the victory of the intellect over dullness and
ignorance is plainly portrayed - the comparison of the heavy, blunt weapon of the Firbolgs with the light and
penetrating spears of the People of Dana is an indication which it is impossible to mistake. Again, in their
struggle with a far more powerful and dangerous enemy, the Fomorians, we are evidently to see the combat
of the powers of Light with evil of a more positive kind than that represented by the Firbolgs. The Fomorians
stand not for mere dullness or
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stupidity, but for the forces of tyranny, cruelty, and greed - for moral rather than for intellectual darkness.
Chapter III: The Irish Invasion Myths 63
 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race
The Meaning of the Milesian Myth
But the myth of the struggle of the Danaans with the sons of Miled is more difficult to interpret. How does it
come that the lords of light and beauty, wielding all the powers of thought (represented by magic and
sorcery), succumbed to a human race, and were dispossessed by them of their hard-won inheritance? What is
the meaning of this shrinking of their powers which at once took place when the Milesians came on the
scene? The Milesians were not on the side of the powers of darkness. They were guided by Amergin, a clear
embodiment of the idea of poetry and thought. They were regarded with the utmost veneration, and the
dominant families of Ireland all traced their descent to them. Was the Kingdom of Light, then, divided
against itself? Or, if not, to what conception in the Irish mind are we to trace the myth of the Milesian
invasion and victory?
The only answer I can see to this puzzling question is to suppose that the Milesian myth originated at a much
later time than the others, and was, in its main features, the product of Christian influences. The People of
Dana were in possession of the country, but they were pagan divinities they could not stand for the
progenitors of a Christian Ireland. They had somehow or other to be got rid of, and a race of less
embarrassing antecedents substituted for them. So the Milesians were fetched from "Spain" and endowed
with the main characteristics, only more humanised, of the People of Dana. But the latter, in contradistinction
to the usual attitude of early Christianity, are treated very tenderly in the story of their overthrow.
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One of them has the honour of giving her name to the island, the brutality of one of the conquerors towards [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]