Westropp — The Earthworks, fye., of S. E. Co. Limerick. 169 



and accept the euhemerist "Annals," hardly deserve refutation. Such "irra- 

 tional rationalizing " as made the Tuatha De, flying on the wind to the north 

 coast of Ireland, to be Scandinavians coming in ships, and perverted science by 

 pointing out the forts and skulls 1 of what was a divine pantheon, is outside the 

 true methods of study. Even a knowledge of Homer and Ovid might have 

 shown our students that the heroes of Luachair and Muirthemne are replicas 

 of the demigods who fought before breezy Ilion ; that Cu Chulaind was a 

 counterpart to Sarpedon and the divine Achilles, and that Lug and Manannan 

 were but Apollo and Neptune in Celtic attire. 



In A.D. 900, gods were recognized as gods ; then the euhemerist movement 

 by 1050 brought them down to dead kings and heroes and, later still, to 

 magicians, 2 protecting spirits, and family banshees, and at last to devils. 3 

 Only the peasantry were faithful to the spirit of the old tales ; the god became 

 a wizard and the druid a jester in literature. The gods " who o'er the Celtic 

 roamed the utmost Isles " were as nearly dead as the Aesir and Wanir. Yet 

 the dead weight of the old literature kept back the expurgators. A " redeeming 

 verse " after a pagan legend, the praise of charity above keeping (jcusa, a verse 

 on the Trinity after a poem to the " Seven Daughters,"' reconciled the pious. 

 It was as well, for there is less to offend a Christian spirit in the ancient tales 

 than in St. Patrick's abuse and brutal threatenings in the late popular Finn 

 poems, so unworthy of the " humble and holy man of heart " of his own 

 writings and of the early " Lives," and even stories. 



Ireland had no Saemund to give us uncorrupted tales of the old gods, but 

 much survives before a.d. 1000 to enable us to "judge a people by their gods," 

 and get an all-important side-light on the brave and brilliant race, poets and 

 missionaries and warriors, who evolved the gods in their own image before 

 St. Patrick preached. One advantage the Irish mythology enjoyed — there had 

 been no cruel struggle between it and the new faith. 6 The wise tolerance of 



1 Sir W. Wilde, " Boyue and Black water," p. 23!) ; Lady Wilde, " Ancient Legends, 

 Mystic Charms," &c. (1887), pp- 353-7. 



3 Magicians, Silva Gad., ii, p. 132, and often ; protecting spirits, Nar, " Magh Leaua " ; 

 Cacht " Book of Lisinore " ; 'Aine, supra, xxxiv, p. o!> ; Aibhiu, Wars of Gaedhil, pp. 200, 

 201 ; Folk Lore, xxi, p. 20 ; cf. W. Stokes, "Three Irish Glossaries," p. xxxiv. 



3 Like Balor in Donegal, Ulster Journal Archocol. (orig. ser.) i ; maskers disguised as 

 devils for Samhain night, see New Ir. Rev., xxvi, p. 145. King Cormac is slain by the 

 siabra in old tales, " by siabra and demons," says Keating (Hist, i, sect, sli), " a devil 

 attacked him," say the Four Masters. The Book of Ballymote discusses whether the 

 Tuatha De " were diabolical demons," or a human tribe. So late as 1317 the Cathreim 

 Thoirdhealbaith makes the Badbh dwell in hell. So the Welsh gods became demons 

 or fairies (Squire, Myth. Brit. Isles, " Decline of the Gods "). 



4 Celtic Review, x, p. 203. 



"' In Scotland John Carsewell, Bishop of the Isles, denounced bis (lock for preferring 

 tales of the Tuatha De Dananu to the faithful Word of God and other cases. We have 



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