A Literary History of Ireland, from Earliest Times to the Present DayHyde, Douglas
History
A Literary History of Ireland, from Earliest Times to the Present Day
Hyde, Douglas
Civilization, Celtic, in literature; Irish literature -- History and criticism; Language and culture -- Ireland
"Dagda," says the saga, "had a habitation at Glenn-Etin in the north.
He had arranged to meet a woman at Glenn-Etin on the day of Samhan
[November day] just a year, day for day, before the battle of Moytura.
The Unius, a river of Connacht, flows close beside Glenn-Etin, to the
south. Dagda saw the woman bathe herself in the Unius at [Kesh] Coran.
One of the woman's feet in the water touched Allod Eche, that is to
say Echumech to the south, the other foot also in the water touched
Lescuin in the north. Nine tresses floated loose around her head.
Dagda approached and accosted her. From thenceforth the place has been
named the Couple's Bed. The woman was the goddess Mór-rígu"--
the goddess of war, of whom we shall hear more in connection with
Cuchulain.
As for the Dagda himself, his character appears somewhat contradictory.
Just as the most opposite accounts of Zeus are met with in Greek
mythology, some glorifying him as throning in Olympus supreme over
gods and men, others as playing low and indecent tricks disguised as
a cuckoo or a bull; so we find the Dagda--his real name was Eochaidh
the Ollamh--at one time a king of the De Danann race and organiser
of victory, but at another in a less dignified but more clearly
mythological position. He is sent by Lugh to the Fomorian camp to put
them off with talk and cause them to lose time until the De Danann
armaments should be more fully ready. The following account exhibits
him, like Zeus at times, in a very unprepossessing character:--
"When the Dagda had come to the camp of the Fomorians he demanded a
truce, and he obtained it. The Fomorians prepared a porridge for him;
it was to ridicule him they did this, for he greatly loved porridge.
They filled for him the king's cauldron which was five handbreadths
in depth. They threw into it eighty pots of milk and a proportionate
quantity of meal and fat, with goats and sheep and swine which they
got cooked along with the rest. Then they poured the broth into a hole
dug in the ground. 'Unless you eat all that's there,' said Indech to
him, 'you shall be put to death; we do not want you to be reproaching
us, and we must satisfy you.' The Dagda took the spoon; it was so
great that in the hollow of it a man and a woman might be contained.
The pieces that went into that spoon were halves of salted pigs and
quarters of bacon. The Dagda said, 'Here is good eating, if the broth
be as good as its odour,' and as he carried the spoonful to his mouth,
he said, 'The proverb is true that good cooking is not spoiled by a
bad pot.'[12]
"When he had finished he scraped the ground with his finger to the
very bottom of the hole to take what remained of it, and after that
he went to sleep to digest his soup. His stomach was greater than the
greatest cauldrons in large houses, and the Fomorians mocked at him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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