Milesius and his Descendents The sixteenth century scholar, O’Flaherty, fixes the Milesian invasion of Ireland at about 1000 B.C. - the time of Solomon. It is proven that the Celts whenceover they came, had, before the dawn of history, subjugated the German people and established themselves in Central Europe. At about the date we have mentioned, a great celtic wave, breaking westward over the Rhine, penetrated into England, Scotland, and Ireland. Subsequently a wave swept over the Pyrenees into the Spanish Peninsula. Other waves came westward still later. A celtic cemetery discovered at Hallstatt in upper Austria proves them to have been skilled in art and industries as far back as 900 B.C. - shows them as miners and agriculturists, and blessed with the use of iron instruments. They invaded Italy twice, in the seventh and in the fourth centuries before Christ. In the latter tie they were at the climax of their power. They stormed Rome itself, 300 B.C. The rising up of the oppressed Germans against them, nearly three centuries before Christ, was the beginning of the end of the Continental power of the celt. After that they were beaten and buffeted by Greek and by Roman, and even by despised races - broken, and blown like the surf in al directions, North and South, and East and West. A fugitive colony of these people, that had settled in Asia Minor, in the territory which from them (the Gaels) was called Galatia, and among whom Paul worked, was found to be still speaking a Celtic language in the days of St. Jerome, five or six hundred years later. Eoin MacNeill and other scientific enquirers hold that it was only in the fifth century before Christ that they reached Spain - and that it was not via Spain but via northern France and Britain that they, crushed out from Germany, eventually reached Ireland. In Caesar’s day the Celts (Gauls) who dominated France used Greek writing in almost all their business, public or private. Of the Milesians, Eber and Eremon divided the land between them - Eremon getting the Northern half of the Island, and Eber the Southern. The Northeastern corner was accorded to the children of their lost brother, Ir, and the Southwestern corner to their cousin Lughaid, the son of Ith. The oft-told story says that when Eber and Eremon had divided their followers, each taking an equal number of soldiers and an equal number of the men of every craft, there remained a harper and a poet. Drawing lots for these, the harper fell to Eremon and the poet to Eber - which explains why, ever since, that the North of Ireland has been celebrated for music, and the South for song. The peace fell upon the land then, and the happiness of the Milesians, was only broken, when, after a year, Eber’s wife discovered that she must be possessed of the three pleasantest hills in Eirinn, else she could not remain one other night in the Island. Now the pleasantest of all the Irish hills was Tara, which lay in Eremon’s half. And Eremon’s wife would not have the covetousness of the other woman satisfied at her expense. So, because of the quarrel of the women, the beautiful peace of the Island was broken by battle. Eber was beaten, and the high sovereignty settled upon Eremon. This is the Myth of the coming of the Milesians to Ireland in 1699 BC, and of the rule of their descendents in Ireland as quoted from T. W. Rolleston's 'Celtic Myths and Legends': (For a Complete King List of the Kings of Ireland Click Here) Contents:
'After the Second Battle of Moytura, the Danaans held rule in Ireland until the coming of the Milesians, the sons of Miled (Milesius). Miled, whose name occurs as a god in a Celtic inscription from Hungary, is represented as a son of Bile. Bile, like Balor, is one of the names of the god of Death, ie. of the Underworld. The manner of their coming into Ireland was as follows: Ith, the grandfather of Miled, dwelt in a great tower which his father, Bregon, had built in Spain. One clear winter's day, when looking out westwards from this tower, he saw the coast of Ireland in the distance and resolved to sail to the unknown land. He embarked with ninety warriors, and took land at Corcadyna, in the south-west. At this time Ireland was ruled by three Danaan kings, grandsons of the Dagda. Their names were MacCuill, MacCecht, and MacGrene, and their wives were named respectively Banba, Fohla and Eriu. MacGrene means Son of the Sun. The names of the three queens have each at different times been applied to Ireland, but that of the third, Eriu, alone has persisted and in the dative form, Erinn, is a poetic name for the country to this day. That Eriu is the wife of MacGrene means, as de Jubainville observes, that the Sun-god, the god of Day, Life, and Science, has wedded the land and is reigning over it. Ith, on landing, finds that the Danaan king, Neit, has just been slain in a battle with the Fomorians, and the three sons MacCuill and the others, are at the fortress of Aileach, in Co. Donegal, arranging for a division of the land among themselves. At first they welcome Ith, and ask him to settle their inheritance. Ith gives his judgement, but in concluding, he expresses his admiration for the newly discovered country: "Act", he says, "according to the laws of justice, for the country you dwell in is a good one, it is rich in fruit and honey, in wheat and fish; and in heat and cold it is temperate." From this panegyric the Danaans conclude that Ith has designs upon their land, and they seize him and put him to death. His companions, however, recover his body and bear it back with them in their ships to Spain; when the children of Miled resolve to take vengeance for the outrage and prepare to invade Ireland. They were commanded by thirty-six chiefs, each having his own ship with his family and his followers. Two of the company perished on the way. One of the sons of Miled, having climbed to the masthead of his vessel to look out for the coast of Ireland, fell into the sea and was drowned. The other was Skena, wife of the poet Amergin, son of Miled, who died on the way. The Milesians buried her when they landed, and called the place "Inverskena" after her; this was the ancient name of the Kenmare River in Co. Kerry. "It was on a Thursday, the first of May, and the seventeenth day of the moon, that the sons of Miled arrived in Ireland. The first of May was sacred to Beltane, one of the names of the god of Death, the god who gives life to men and takes it away from them again." When the poet Amergin set foot upon the soil of Ireland it is said that he chanted this Lay: "I am the Wind that blows
over the sea, The Milesian host, after landing, advance to Tara, (ancient capital of Ireland), where they find the three kings of the Danaans awaiting them, and summon them to deliver up the island. The Danaans ask for three days' time to consider whether they shall quit Ireland, or submit, or give battle; and they propose to leave the decision to Amergin. Amergin pronounces judgement - "the first judgement which was delivered in Ireland." He agrees that the Milesians must not take their foes by surprise - they are to withdraw the length of nine waves from the shore, and then return; if they then conquer the Danaans the land is to be fairly theirs by right of battle. The Milesians submit to this decision and embark on their ships. But no sooner have they drawn off for this mystical distance of the nine waves than a mist and storm are raised by the sorceries of the Danaans - the coast of Ireland is hidden from their sight, and they wander dispersed upon the ocean. To ascertain if it is a natural or a Druidic tempest which afflicts them, a man named Aranan is sent up to the masthead to see if the wind is blowing there also or not. He is flung from the swaying mast, but as he falls to his death he cries 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. A great battle with the Danaans at Telltown (Teltin, so named for the goddess Telta) then follows. The three kings and three queens of the Danaans, with many of their people, are slain, and the children of Miled 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. The Milesian Settlement of Ireland The Milesians had three leaders when they set out for the conquest of Ireland - Eber Donn (Brown Eber), Eber Finn (Fair Eber) and Eremon. Of these the first-named, did not enter the land - he perished as a punishment for his brutality. When the victory over the Danaans was secure the two remaining brothers turned to the Druid Amergin for a Judgement as to their respective titles to the sovranty. Eremon was the elder of the two, but Eber refused to submit to him. Thus Irish history begins with dissension and jealousy. Amergin decided that the land should belong to Eremon for his life, and pass to Eber after his death. But Eber refused to submit to the award, and demanded an immediate partition of the new won territory. This was agreed to and Eber took the southern half of Ireland, "from the Boyne to the Wave of Cleena," while Eremon occupied the north. But even so the brothers could not be at peace and after a short while war broke out between them. Eber was slain, and Eremon became sole King of Ireland, which he ruled from Tara. Of the kings who succeeded Eremon, there is little of note to record till the reign of Tiernmas, fifth in succession from Eremon. He is said to have introduced into Ireland the worship of Crom Cruach, Moyslaught (The Plain of Adoration) and to have perished himself with three quarters of his people while worhipping the idol on November Eve, the festival of the inauguration of winter. Tiernmas also, found the first gold-mine in Ireland, and introduced variegated colours into the clothing of the people: a slave might wear but one colour, a peasant two, a soldier three, a wealthy landowner four, a provincial chief five, and an Ollav, or royal person, six. Ollav was a term applied to a certain Druidic rank. The most distinguished Ollav of Ireland was also a king, the celebrated Ollave Fola, who is supposed to have been eighteenth from Eremon and to have reigned about 1000 BC. He was the Lycurgus or Solon of Ireland, giving to the country a code of legislature, and also subdividing it, under the High King at Tara among the provincial chiefs, to each of whom his proper rights and obligations were allotted. To Ollav Fola is also attributed the foundation of an institution which, whatever its origin, became of great importance in Ireland - the great triennial Fair or Festival at Tara where the sub-kings and chiefs, bards, historians, and musicians from all parts of Ireland assembled to make up the genealogical records of the clan chieftanships, to enact laws, hear disputed cases, settle succession and so forth; all these political and legislative labours being lightened by song and feast. It was a stringent law that at this season all enmities must be laid aside; no man might lift his hand against another, or even institue a legal process, while the Assembly at Tara was in progress. Of all political and national institutions of the kind Ollav Fola was regarded as the traditional founder. He is supposed to have been buried in the great tumulus at Loughcrew, in Westmeath. With Kimbay (Cimbaoth) about 300 BC, we have the foundations of the kingdom of Ulster at its centre, Emain Macha. Emain Macha is now represented by the grassy ramparts of a great hill-fortress close to Ard Macha (Armagh). According to one of the derivations offered in Keating "History of Ireland," Emain is derived from eo, a bodkin, and muin, the neck, the word being thus equivalent to "brooch" and Emain Macha means the Brooch of Macha. An Irish brooch was a large circular wheel of gold or Bronze, crossed by a long pin and the great circular rampart surrounding a Celtic fortess might well be imaginatively likened to the brooch of a giantess guarding her cloak, or territory. The legend of Macha tells that she was the daughter of Red Hugh, an Ulster prince who had two brothers, Dithorba and Kimbay. They agreed to enjoy, each in turn the sovranty of Ireland. Red Hugh came first, but on his death Macha refused to give up the realm and for Dithorba for it, whom she conquered and slew. She then, in equally masterful manner, compelled Kimbay to wed her, and ruled all Ireland as queen. I give the rest of the tale in the words of Standish O'Grady: "The five sons of Dithorba, having been expelled out of Ulster, fled across the Shannon, and in the west of the kindom plotted against Macha. The the Queen went down alone into Connacht and found the brothers in the forest, where, wearied with the chase, they were cooking a wild boar which they had slain, and were carousing before a fire which they had kindled. She appeared in her grimmest aspect, as the war-goddess, red all over, terrible and hideous as war itself but with bright and flashing eyes. One by one the brothers were inflamed by her sinister beauty, and one by one she overpowered and bound them. The she lefted her burthen of champions upon her back and returned with them into the north. With the spear of her brooch she marked out on the plain the circuit of the city of Emain Macha, whose ramparts and trenches were constructed by the captive princes, labouring like slaves under her command." Ugainy the Great, Laery and Covac The next king who comes into legendary prominence is Ugainy the Great, who is said to have ruled not only all Ireland, but a great part of Western Europe, and to have wedded a Gaulish princess named Kesair. He had two sons, Laery and Covac. The former inherited the kindom, but Covac, consumed and sick with envy sought to slay him, and asked the advice of a Druid as to how this could be managed, since Laery, justly susppicious, never would visit him without an armed escort. The Druid bade him feign death, and have word sent to his brother that he was on his bier ready for burial. This Covac did, and when Laery arrived and bent over the supposed corpse Covac stabbed him to the heart, and slew also one of his sons, Ailill (pronounced "El yill."), who attended him. Then Covac ascended the throne, and straightway his illness left him. Maon, Son of Ailill (Labra the Mariner) He did a brutal deed, however, upon a son of Ailill's named Maon, about whom a number of legends cluster. Maon, as a child, was brought into Covac's presence, and was there compelled, says Keating, to swallow a portion of his father's and grandfathers hearts, and also a mouse with her young. From the disgust he felt, the child lost his speech, and seeing him dumb, and therefore innocuous, Covac let him go. The boy was then taken into Munster, to the Kingdom of Feramorc, of which Scoriath ws king, and remained with him some time, but afterwards went to Gaul, his great-grandmother Kesair's country, where his guards told the king that he was heir to the throne of Ireland, and he was treated with great honour and grew up into a noble youth. But he left behind him in the heeart of Moriath, daughter of the King of Feramorc, a passion that could not be stilled, and she resolved to bring him back to Ireland. She accordingly equipped her father's haper, Craftiny, with many rich gifts, and wrote for him a love-lay in which her passion for Maon was set forth, and to which Craftiny composed an enchanting melody. Arrived in France, Craftiny made his way to the king's court, and found occasion to pour out his lay to Maon. So deeply stirred was he by the beauty and passion of the song that his speech returned to him and he broke out into praises of it, and was thencforth dumb no more. The King of Gaul then equipped him with an armed force and sent him to Ireland to regain his kingdom. Learning that Covac was at a place near at hand named Dinrigh, Maon and his body of Gauls made a sudden attack upon him and slew him, with all his nobles and guards. After the slaughter a Druid of Covac's company asked one of the Gauls who their leader was. "The Mariner" (Loingseach) replied the Gaul meaning the captain of the fleet - ie Maon. "Can he speak?" inquired the Druid who had begun to suspect the truth. "He does speak" (Labraidh) said the man; and henceforth the name "Labra the Mariner" clung to Maon son of Ailill, nor was he known by any other. He then sought out Moriath, wedded her and reigned over Ireland ten years. From this invasion of the Gauls the name of the province of Leinster is traditionally derived. They were armed with spears having broad blue-green iron heads called laighne (pronounced lyna), and as they were allotted lands in Leinster and settled there the province was called in Irish Laighin ("Ly-in") after them - the Province of the Spearmen. The ending ster in three of the names of the Irish provinces is of Norse origin, and is a relic of the Viking conquests in Ireland. Connacht, where the Vikings did not penetrate, alone preserves its Irish name unmodified. Ulster (in Irish Ulaidh) is supposed to derive its name from Ollav Fola, Munster (Mumhan) from King Eocho Mumho, tenth in succession from Eremon, and Connacht was "the land of the children of Conn" called Conn of the Hundred Battles, and who died 157AD. Eochy (prounounced Yeo'hee) married Etain, daughter of Etar, who was described as the fairest maiden in all of Ireland. Here is a description of how Eochy first found her when he went to woo her from A. H. Leahy's translation from a fifteenth century Egerton manuscript: "A clear comb of silver was held in her hand, the comb was adorned with gold; and near her, as for washing, was a basin of silver whereon four birds had been chased, and there were little bright gems of carbuncles on the rims of the basin. A bright purple mantle waved round her; and beneather it was another matle ornamented with silver fringes: the ounter mantle was clasped over her bosom with a golden brooch. Atunic she wore with a long hood that might cover her head attached to it; it was stiff and glossy with green silk beneath red embroidery of gold, and was claped over her breasts with marvellously wrought clasps of silver and gold; so that men saw the bright gold and the green silk flashing against the sun. On her head were two tresses of golden hair, and each tress had been plaited into four strands; at the end of each strand was a little ball of gold. And there was that maiden undoing her hair that she might wash it, her two arms out thrugh the armholes of her smock. Each of her two arms was as white as the snow of a single night, and ech of her cheeks was as rosy as the foxglove. Even and small were the teeth in her head, and they shone like pearls. Her eyes were as blue as a hyacinth, her lips delicate and crimson; very high, soft and white were her shoulders. Tender, polished and white were her wrists; her fingers long and of great whiteness; her nails were beautiful and pink. White as snow, or the foam of a wave, was her neck; long was it, slender, and as soft as silk. Smooth and white were her thighs; her knees were round and firm and white; her ancles were as straight as the rule of a carpenter. Her feet were slim and as white as the ocean's foam; evenly set were her eyes; her eyebrows were of a bluish black, such as you see upon the shell of a beetle. Never a maid fairer than she, or more worthy of love, was till then seen by the eyes of men; and it seemed to them that she must be one of those that have come from the fairy mounds." It happened that the king had a brother named Ailill, who on seeing Etain, was so smitten with her beauty that he fell sick of the intensity of his passion and wasted almost to death. While he was in this condition Eocy had to make a royal progress through Ireland. He left his brother - the cause of whose malady none suspected - in Etain's care, bidding her to do what she could for him, and, if he died to bury him with due ceremonies and erect an Ogham stone above his grave. Etain goes to visit the brother; she inquires the casue of his illness; he speaks to her in enigms, but at last, moved beyond control by her tenderness, he breaks out in an avowal of his passion. His description of the yearning of hopeless love is a lyric of extraordinary intensity. "It is closer than the skin," he cries "it is like a battle with a spectre, it overwhelms like a flood, it is a weapon under the sea, it is a passion for an echo." Etain is now in some perplexity; but she decides, with a kind of naive good-nature, that although she is not in the least in love with Ailill, she cannot see a man die of longing for her, and she promises to be his. She arranges a tryst with Ailill in a house outside of Tara - for she will not do what she calls her "glorious crime" in the king's palace. But Ailill on the eve of the appointed day falls into a profound slumber and misses his appointment. A being in his shape does, however, come to Etain, but merely to speak coldly and sorrowfully of his malady, and departs again. When the two meet once more the situation is altogether changed. In Ailill's enchanted sleep his unholy passion for the queen has passed entirely away. But having a wife as beautiful as Etain causes the King even more trouble when her fairy (Danaan) husband, Midir - husband to her in a previous life comes to claim her back. Eochy looses Etain in a chess game to Midir and although he tries to prevent Midir taking her he has no power over his magical arts. Midir bears her away to Slievenamon and back to the fairy folk. Eochy does not accept defeat and enlists the help of Dalan the Druid to find out where his wife has gone. Dalan "made three wands of yew, and upon the wands he wrote anogham; and by the keys of wisdom that he had, and by the ogham, it wasrevelaed to him that Etain was in the fairy mound of Bri-Leith." Eochy then assembled his forces to storm and destroy the fairy mound in which was the palace of Midir. It is said that he was nine years digging up one mound after another, while Midir and his folk repaired the devastation as fast as it was made. At last Midir, driven to the last stronghold, attempted a stratagem - he offered to give up Etain, and sent her with fifty handmaids to the king, but made them all so much alike that Eochy could not distinguish the true Etain from her images. She herself, it is siad, gave him a sign by which to know her. Eochy regained his queen, who lived with him till his death, ten years afterwards and bore him one daughter who was named Etain, like herself. Etain, known as Etain Oig married Cormac King of Ulster. But as Etain bore him only one daughter, Cormac became embittered with her barrrenness and he put away Etain and ordered her infant to be abandoned and thrown into a pit. "Then his two thralls take her to a pit, and she smiles a laughing smile at them as they were putting her into it." After that they cannot leave her to die, and they carry her to a cowherd of Eterskel King of Tara by whom she is fostered an taught "till she became a good embroidress and there was not in Ireland a king's daughter dearer than she." Hence the name she bore, Messbuachalla ("Messboo'hala"), which means "the cowherd's foster-child." For fear of her being discovered, the cowherds keep the maiden in a house of wickerwork having only a roof-opening. But one of King Eterskel's folk has a curiosity to climb up and look in, and sees there the fairest maiden in Ireland. He bears word to the king who order an opening to be made in the wall and the maiden fetched for him. Before her release, however she is visited by a denizen from the Land of Youth. great bird comes down through her roof-window. On the floor of the hut his bird-plumage falls from him and reveals a glorious youth. Cormac mac Art was king of Ireland in the 3rd Century AD. He is best known through the hero, Finn mac Cumhal, Captain of the Fianna, who worked in his service and who was father of the Poet, Oisin, who was the first author of the poems known as the Ossianic Cycle. These poems were about Finn's and the Fianna's battles and exploits.
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