The Religion of the Ancient Celts. J. A. MacCulloch
Tuatha Dé Danann—their supernatural character, their powers, their divine and unfailing food and drink, their mysterious and beautiful abode. In their contents, their personages, in the actions that are described in them, the materials of the "mythological cycle," show how widely it differs from the Cúchulainn and Fionn cycles.198 "The white radiance of eternity" suffuses it; the heroic cycles, magical and romantic as they are, belong far more to earth and time.
Footnote 153: (return)
For some Highland references to the gods in saga and Märchen, see Book of the Dean of Lismore, 10; Campbell, WHT ii. 77. The sea-god Lir is probably the Liur of Ossianic ballads (Campbell, LF 100, 125), and his son Manannan is perhaps "the Son of the Sea" in a Gaelic song (Carmichael, CG ii. 122). Manannan and his daughters are also known (Campbell, witchcraft, 83).
Footnote 154: (return)
The euhemerising process is first seen in tenth century poems by Eochaid hua Flainn, but was largely the work of Flainn Manistrech, ob. 1056. It is found fully fledged in the Book of Invasions.
Footnote 155: (return)
Keating, 105–106.
Footnote 156: (return)
Keating, 107; LL 4b. Cf. RC xvi. 155.
Footnote 157: (return)
LL 5.
Footnote 158: (return)
Keating, 111. Giraldus Cambrensis, Hist. Irel. c. 2, makes Roanus survive and tell the tale of Partholan to S. Patrick. He is the Caoilte mac Ronan of other tales, a survivor of the Fians, who held many racy dialogues with the Saint. Keating abuses Giraldus for equating Roanus with Finntain in his "lying history," and for calling him Roanus instead of Ronanus, a mistake in which he, "the guide bull of the herd," is followed by others.
Footnote 159: (return)
Keating, 164.
Footnote 160: (return)
LL 5a.
Footnote 161: (return)
Keating, 121; LL 6a; RC xvi. 161.
Footnote 162: (return)
Nennius, Hist. Brit. 13.
Footnote 163: (return)
LL 6, 8b.
Footnote 164: (return)
LL 6b, 127a; IT iii. 381; RC xvi. 81.
Footnote 165: (return)
LL 9b, 11a.
Footnote 166: (return)
See Cormac, s.v. "Nescoit," LU 51.
Footnote 167: (return)
Harl. MSS. 2, 17, pp. 90–99. Cf. fragment from Book of Invasions in LL 8.
Footnote 168: (return)
Harl. MS. 5280, translated in RC xii. 59 f.
Footnote 169: (return)
RC xii. 60; D'Arbois, v. 405 f.
Footnote 170: (return)
For Celtic brother-sister unions see p. 224.
Footnote 171: (return)
O'Donovan, Annals, i. 16.
Footnote 172: (return)
RC xv. 439.
Footnote 173: (return)
RC xii. 71.
Footnote 174: (return)
Professor Rh[^y]s thinks the Partholan story is the aboriginal, the median the Celtic version of the same event. Partholan, with initial p cannot be Goidelic (Scottish Review, 1890, "Myth. Treatment of Celtic Ethnology").
Footnote 175: (return)
HL 591.
Footnote 176: (return)
CM ix. 130; Campbell LF 68.
Footnote 177: (return)
RC xii. 75.
Footnote 178: (return)
US 211.
Footnote 179: (return)
D'Arbois,