Westropp — The Earthworks, Sfc, of S. E. Co. Limerick. 151 



In Clin, Manannan was the instructor and slayer of Fer Fidail, and the 

 husband (or father) of 'Aine and Aife of Knockainey. In other tales his 

 numerous sons love or wed these goddesses; hut, as I shall try to show, these 

 were coast stories brought inland, for the Knockainey stories have no such 

 episodes. The Shannon was called from him " the stream of MacLir." 1 



Cormac of Cashel, telling of him as a merchant of the Isle of Man, adds 

 " the Irish and British call him god of the sea." 2 He met the usual fate of 

 the Celtic gods — as " Oirbsen the wizard," Uillen Bed Edge, slew him in the 

 battle of Guillen. A Donegal legend makes him ask St. Coluniba if the Sid 

 folk could be saved ; the reply being in the negative, he cries that he will 

 no longer help the Irish till they are weak as water. 3 In Co. Limerick the 

 questioners are fairies and ask " Crom Dubh." Later writers made him a 

 wizard, but, altogether, he resisted the hostile influences of Christianity better 

 than any other god, 4 and remains, in half secret belief on the Mayo coast, a 

 being of great and dangerous power. 



(E)— The Tribal Gods. 



Beside the great national gods there were a number of local deities, 

 doubtless those of the pre-Celtic tribes. As their worshippers were absorbed, 

 and genealogies invented to affiliate them to the stem of the conquerors, so 

 such gods, in some instances, were affiliated to the divine race of De and 

 Ana. Many were probably mountain and lake gods, 5 a few, river gods, 

 others tribal ancestors ; but their connexion with the Sid mounds goes far 

 to stamp them as divine, however " parochial " their cultus may have been. 

 The goddesses, Echtge the horrible, who was reared upon children's flesh ; 

 Eibliu, daughter of Guaire ; and Mer, daughter of Treg, undoubtedly were 

 reverenced at Slieve Aughty, down to Leakle in Co. Clare, Slievephelim, and 

 the Barnan Ele, or " Devil's Bit.'" 5 They, however, are not connected with the 

 group of Clfu, and would overcrowd an already overcrowded paper. 



Bodb Dekg. — Of all the gods of Minister " Bodbh Derg," by a general 

 consensus, was ruler. 7 This probably sprang from his holy hill of Slievena- 



1 Rev. Celt., xvi, p. 276. 2 Sanas Chormaic, p. 114. 



3 "Voyage of Bran," ii, p. 213. 



4 Rev. Celt., xxxv, p. 6-9; Encyc. Relig., p. 6; Folk Lore, xxviii, p. 181. The 

 Rennes Dind Senchas (Rev. Celt., xvi, p. 276) makes him a druid .-mil a champion. In 

 Achill he is "a king of druidism and enchantment and devil's craft." (Lanainie'a 

 " Irish Folk Tales," p. 1.) 



5 So the Gauls (like all nations) had their holy mountains where gods were called 

 Paeninus (Pennine Alps), Vosegus (Vosges), and Dumiatus (Puy de Dome). See Encyc. 

 Relig., viii, p. 863. 



15 Mesca Ulad, p. 15. 



7 " Legend of Cacht," Book of Lismore (Erin, viii, p. 35). 



B.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXXIV., SUt'T. 0, [~^i] 



