An older writer, quoted in the Book of Lecan, tells a plainer tale. He
does not admit the truth of the ancient mythology, and says that the
Tuatha De Danann were a remnant of the fallen angels. They assume, he
says, bodies of airy substance so as to become visible to men, the
better to tempt them. They come at the call of sorcerers and those who
practise malevolent incantations by walking in circles lefthandwise.
They used to be worshipped, and it was they who invented the spells
sung by smiths and druids and wise-women and pilots and cupbearers.
From them druidism came in Ireland.
The poet-historians did not succeed in killing off the Tuatha De
Danann. In 1088 the annalist Tigernach died, and in 1084, four years
before his death, his chronicle contains an account of a pestilence
which visited Ireland at that time. The cause of this pestilence, says
the chronicler, was revealed in that year to a certain man, Gilla
Lugán, who was in the habit of frequenting a fairy mound at
Hallowtide, the old heathen festival of Samhain. There in the year
1084, Oengus appeared to him and told him that the plague was brought
to Ireland by legions of evil spirits from the islands of the northern
ocean, who spread it over the country with their fiery breath. And
Gilla Lugán himself, says the chronicler, afterwards saw one of these
demon legions on the rath of Mullaghmast, and in whatsoever direction
their fiery breath came on the land, there the plague broke out among
the people.
In _Agallamh na Seanorach_, the rulers of the Tuatha Dé Danann are
still alive in St. Patrick's time, and inhabit the hills associated
with their memory. One of them has recently come to life once more in
Dublin, Finnbheara of Cnoc Meadha. From the hills at Tourmakeady you
can see Cnoc Meadha, a low round hill, on the eastern horizon. It was
pointed out to me by a man who knew all about it. That is where Finn
Bheara lives, he said. He is the king of the Good People. He is not
always there. When Finn Bheara is living in Cnoc Meadha, it is a good
year for the country. When he goes away, it is a bad year.
A poem in Duanaire Finn tells how Oengus aided the Fiana in their
hostilities with king Cormac, and, like the gods in the Homeric poems,
remained invisible while he fought on their behalf.
The passage already cited from the Book of Lecan tells how the Tuatha
De Danann arrived in Ireland. They came, it says, without ships or
boats and first alighted on Sliabh an Iarainn, in the heart of the
country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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