Wars of the Irish Kings (4 page)

The [first] battle of Mag Tured was fought between them and the Fir Bolg. The Fir Bolg were defeated, and 100,000 of them were killed including the king, Eochaid mac Eirc.

[King] Núadu’s hand was cut off in that battle—Sreng mac Sengainn struck it from him. So with Crédne the brazier helping him, Dían Cécht the physician put on him a silver hand that moved as well as any other hand ….

Then those of the Fir Bolg who escaped from the battle fled to the Fomoire, and they settled in Arran and in Islay and in Man and in Rathlin.

There was contention regarding the sovereignty of the men of Ireland between the Túatha Dé and their wives, since Núadu was not eligible for kingship after his hand had been cut off. They said that it would be appropriate for them to give the kingship to Bres the [illegitimate] son of Elatha, to their own adopted son, and that giving him the kingship would knit the Fomorians’ alliance with them, since his father Elatha mac Delbaith was king of the Fomoire.

Now the conception of Bres came about in this way.

One day one of their women, Ériu the daughter of Delbáeth, was looking at the sea and the land from the house of Máeth Scéni; and she saw the sea as perfectly calm as if it were a level board. After that, while she was there, she saw something: a vessel of silver appeared to her on the sea. Its size seemed great to her, but its shape did not appear clearly to her; and the current of the sea carried it to the land.

Then she saw that it was a man of fairest appearance. He had golden
yellow hair down to his shoulders, and a cloak with bands of gold thread around it. His shirt had embroidery of gold thread. On his breast was a brooch of gold with the lustre of a precious stone in it. Two shining silver spears and in them two smooth riveted shafts of bronze. Five circlets of gold around his neck. A gold-hilted sword with inlayings of silver and studs of gold.

The man said to her, “Shall I have an hour of lovemaking with you?” “I certainly have not made a tryst with you,” she said. “Come without the trysting!” said he.

Then they stretched themselves out together. The woman wept when the man got up again.

“Why are you crying?” he asked.

“I have two things that I should lament,” said the woman, “separating from you, however we have met. The young men of the Túatha Dé Danann have been entreating me in vain—and you possess me as you do.”

“Your anxiety about those two things will be removed,” he said. He drew his gold ring from his middle finger and put it into her hand, and told her that she should not part with it, either by sale or by gift, except to someone whose finger it would fit.

“Another matter troubles me,” said the woman, “that I do not know who has come to me.”

“You will not remain ignorant of that,” he said. “Elatha mac Delbaith, king of the Fomoire, has come to you. You will bear a son as a result of our meeting, and let no name be given to him but Eochu Bres (that is, Eochu the Beautiful), because every beautiful thing that is seen in Ireland—both plain and fortress, ale and candle, woman and man and horse—will be judged in relation to that boy, so that people will then say of it, ‘It is a Bres.’”…

But after Bres had assumed the sovereignty, three Fomorian kings (Indech mac Dé Domnann, Elatha mac Delbaith, and Tethra) imposed their tribute upon Ireland—and there was not a smoke from a house in Ireland which was not under their tribute. In addition, the warriors of Ireland were reduced to serving him: Ogma beneath a bundle of firewood and the Dagda as a rampart-builder, and he constructed the earthwork around Bres’s fort ….

Now Núadu was being treated, and Dían Cécht put a silver hand on him which had the movement of any other hand. But his son Miach did not like that. He went to the hand and said “joint to joint of it, and sinew to sinew”; and he healed it in nine days and nights. The first three days he carried it against his side, and it became covered with skin. The second three days he carried it against his chest. The third three days he would cast
white wisps of black bulrushes after they had been blackened in a fire ….

At that time, Bres held the sovereignty as it had been granted to him. There was great murmuring against him among his maternal kinsmen the Túatha Dé, for their knives were not greased by him. However frequently they might come, their breaths did not smell of ale; and they did not see their poets nor their bards nor their satirists nor their harpers nor their pipers nor their horn-blowers nor their jugglers nor their fools entertaining them in the household. They did not go to contests of those pre-eminent in the arts, nor did they see their warriors proving their skill at arms before the king ….

Now after that the Túatha Dé went together to talk with their adopted son Bres mac Elathan, and they asked him for their sureties. He gave them restoration of the kingship, and they did not regard him as properly qualified to rule from that time on. He asked [them to wait] for seven years. “You will have that,” the same assembly agreed, “provided that the safeguarding of every payment that has been assigned to you—including house and land, gold and silver, cattle and food—is supported by the same securities, and that we have freedom of tribute and payment until then.”

“You will have what you ask,” Bres said.

This is why they were asked for the delay: that he might gather the warriors of the síd, the Fomoire, to take possession of the Túatha by force provided he might gain an overwhelming advantage. He was unwilling to be driven from his kingship.

Then he went to his mother and asked her where his family was. “I am certain about that,” she said, and went onto the hill from which she had seen the silver vessel in the sea. She then went onto the shore. His mother gave him the ring which had been left with her, and he put it around his middle finger, and it fitted him. She had not given it up for anyone, either by sale or gift. Until that day, there was none of them whom it would fit.

Then [Bres] went forward until they reached the land of the Fomoire. They came to a great plain with many assemblies upon it, and they reached the finest of these assemblies. Inside, people sought information from them. They answered that they were of the men of Ireland. Then they were asked whether they had dogs, for at that time it was the custom, when a group of men visited another assembly, to challenge them to a friendly contest. “We have dogs,” said Bres. Then the dogs raced, and those of the Túatha Dé were faster than those of the Fomoire. Then they were asked whether they had horses to race. “We have,” and they were faster than the horses of the Fomoire.

Then they were asked whether they had anyone who was good at
sword-play, and no one was found among them except Bres. But when he lifted the hand with the sword, his father recognized the ring on his finger and asked who the warrior was. His mother answered on his behalf and told the king that Bres was his son. She related to him the whole story as we have recounted it.

His father was sad about him, and asked, “What force brought you out of the land you ruled?”

Bres answered, “Nothing brought me except my own injustice and arrogance. I deprived them of their valuables and possessions and their own food. Neither tribute nor payment was ever taken from them until now.”

“That is bad,” said his father. “Better their prosperity than their kingship. Better their requests than their curses. Why then have you come?” asked his father.

“I have come to ask you for warriors,” he said. “I intend to take that land [of the Dé Danann] by force.”

“You ought not to gain it by injustice if you do not gain it by justice,” he said.

“I have a question then: what advice do you have for me?” said Bres.

After that he sent him to the champion Balor, grandson of Net, the king of the Hebrides, and to Indech mac Dé Domnann, the king of the Fomoire; and these gathered all the forces from Lochlainn [Scandinavia] westwards to Ireland, to impose their tribute and their rule upon them by force, and they made a single bridge of ships from the Hebrides to Ireland.

No host ever came to Ireland which was more terrifying or dreadful than that host of the Fomoire. There was rivalry between the men from Scythia of Lochlainn and the men out of the Hebrides concerning that expedition.

As for the Túatha Dé, however, that is discussed here.

After Bres [departed], Núadu was once more in the kingship over the Túatha Dé; and at that time he held a great feast for the Túatha Dé in Tara. Now there was a certain warrior whose name was Samildánach on his way to Tara. At that time there were doorkeepers at Tara named Gamal mac Figail and Camall mac Ríagail. While the latter was on duty, he saw the strange company coming toward him. A handsome, well-built young warrior with a king’s diadem was at the front of the band.

They told the doorkeeper to announce their arrival in Tara. The doorkeeper asked, “Who is there?”

“Lug Lonnansclech is here, the son of Cían son of Dían Cécht and of Ethne daughter of Balor. He is the foster son of Tailtiu the daughter of Magmór, the king of Spain, and of Eochaid Garb mac Dúach.”

The doorkeeper then asked of Samildánach, “What art do you practice?
For no one without an art enters Tara.”

“Question me,” he said, “I am a builder.”

The doorkeeper answered, “We do not need you. We have a builder already, Luchta mac Lúachada.”

He said, “Question me, doorkeeper: I am a smith.”

The doorkeeper answered him, “We have a smith already, Colum Cúaléinech of the three new techniques.”

He said, “Question me: I am a champion.”

The doorkeeper answered, “We do not need you. We have a champion already, Ogma mac Ethlend.”

He said again, “Question me.” “I am a harper,” he said.

Seating plan of the Banquet Hall of Tara, from
The Book of Leinster.

“We do not need you. We have a harper already, Abcán mac Bicelmois, whom the men of the three gods chose in the
síd
-mounds.” He said, “Question me: I am a warrior.”

The doorkeeper answered, “We do not need you. We have a warrior already, Bresal Etarlam mac Echdach Báethláim.”

Then he said, “Question me, doorkeeper. I am a poet and a historian.”

“We do not need you. We already have a poet and historian, En mac Ethamain.”

He said, “Question me. I am a sorcerer.”

“We do not need you. We have sorcerers already. Our druids and our people of power are numerous.”

He said, “Question me. I am a physician.”

“We do not need you. We have Dían Cécht as a physician.”

“Question me,” he said. “I am a cupbearer.”

“We do not need you. We have cupbearers already: Delt and Drúcht and Daithe, Tae and Talom and Trog, Glé and Glan and Glésse.”

He said, “Question me: I am a good brazier.”

“We do not need you. We have a brazier already, Crédne Cerd.”

He said, “Ask the king whether he has one man who possesses all these arts: if he has I will not be able to enter Tara.”

Then the doorkeeper went into the royal hall and told everything to the king. “A warrior has come before the court,” he said, “named Samildanach; and all the arts which help your people, he practices them all, so that he is the man of each and every art.”

Then he said that they should bring him the
fidchell
[chess] boards of Tara, and he won all the stakes. (But if
fidchell
was invented at the time of the Trojan war, it had not reached Ireland yet, for the battle of Mag Tured and the destruction of Troy occurred at the same time.)

Then that was related to Núadu. “Let him into the court,” said Núadu, “for a man like that has never before come into this fortress.”

Then the doorkeeper let him past, and he went into the fortress, and he sat in the seat of the sage, because he was a sage in every art.

Then Ogma threw the flagstone, which required fourscore yoke of oxen to move it, through the side of the hall so that it lay outside against Tara. That was to challenge Lug, who tossed the stone back so that it lay in the centre of the royal hall; and he threw the piece which it had carried away back into the side of the royal hall so that it was whole again.

“Let a harp be played for us,” said the hosts. Then the warrior played sleep music for the hosts and for the king on the first night, putting them to sleep from that hour to the same time the next day. He played sorrowful music so that they were crying and lamenting. He played joyful music
so that they were merry and rejoicing.

Then Núadu, when he had seen the warrior’s many powers, considered whether he could release them from the bondage they suffered at the hands of the Fomoire. So they held a council concerning the warrior, and the decision which Núadu reached was to exchange seats with the warrior. So Samildánach went to the king’s seat, and the king arose before him until thirteen days had passed.

The next day he and the two brothers, Dagda and Ogma, conversed together on Grellach Dollaid; and his two kinsmen Goibniu and Dían Cécht were summoned to them.

They spent a full year in that secret conference, so that Grellach Dollaid is called the
Amrún
of the Men of the Goddess.

Then the druids of Ireland were summoned to them, together with their physicians and their charioteers and their smiths and their wealthy landowners and their lawyers. They conversed together secretly.