Westuopp — The Earthwork*, i.V<?-, oj S. E, Co. Limerick. 153 



resting on four pillars, is another stone, 7 feet by 4 feel. 1 These probabl] 

 mark Eodb's holy place. Nuada Derg had a fort on the same mountain, and 

 may, perhaps, have been identified with Bodb Derg 3 if the Dergthene tribe 

 took over the worship of the god of Slievenaman. The hill, as we saw, 3 

 forms a conspicuous and beautiful landmark, when looking down the vale of 

 Ahcrloe, from the hill of the goddess Aife, over Gleneefy and Duntrileague. 



Bodb seems to have had two residences — the Sid, so widely celebrated as 

 Sid na mbann, Sid bann iinn os Femen, and Sid Femen ; and a second, some- 

 where near Loch Derg. Some said he was brother of the goddess Dechtire, 

 and uncle to Cu Cbulaind. 4 He was a god of the more amiable type. When 

 pressed to let his attendants pursue and wound Ler, the sea god, he, with 

 calm dignity, forbade it, saying, " I am none the less king of the Tuatha De 

 Danann because he is not submissive." He also controlled his anger when 

 the wicked Aoife said that her husband Ler would not trust his children with 

 him. Like Lug, he is called " one to whom all science has done homage." 5 

 He had friendly relations with the mortal rulers of the land, and made a 

 treaty with King Conn of the Hundred Battles, undertaking that neither he 

 nor the Tuatha De under his rule would injure the king. Fer Fi of Aine was a 

 hostage, or perhaps a guarantor, of the treaty. From his taking the place 

 of Nuada Derg in some versions of the Mog Nuadat legend, I venture to 

 suggest that the Dal Cais endeavoured to identify the chief god of their new 

 settlement with the more familiar god, Nuada, whom their ancestors had 

 worshipped before their invasion of Ireland. 



Bodb had a numerous offspring. 6 His " seven sons " and his " three sons " 

 are named. Among his children are Ferdoman ; Artrach, who had a bruiden 

 of seven doors, and a liss, Rath Artrach, once resplendent, but blighted even 

 in Finn's day. Bodb's daughter, Sadb, was plighted to Finn at Sid Femen ; 7 

 but (of course in so evidently late a poem) she was mortal, and her death 

 was announced to " her highborn kinsmen " of the Sid, the Tuatha De. 

 Bodb's three sons were born in his father's Sid at the " many-windowed 

 Brugh of the Boyne." s 



1 Ordnance Survey Letters, Co. Tipperary (11. I. Acad., 14, P. IS), i, p. 170. due 

 recalls the altar of Zeus on Mount Lycaon, a mouuil with two pillars facing the sunrise, 

 as described by Pausanias. 



2 " Magh Leana," p. 3. 



3 Supra, xxxiii, p. 479. 



4 Book of Leinster, p. 123b. 



6 "Fate of Children of Lir " (Atlantis, iv, pp. 115-131). 

 6 Book of Feruioy (Ir. Texts, R. I. Acad., i). 



'The poems connecting Finn with Slievenaman are endless, but more striking is 

 Keatiug"s note of Suidhe Finn on that mountain (History, ii, p. 325). 

 s Agallamh, ii, pp. 100, 171, 225. 



[28*] 



