316 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



which they worshipped— one the hazel, the second the sun. and the third the 

 ploughshare. If this means anything, it implies rather that they were 

 culture-heroes, who taught certain forms of religion to their people. The 

 connexion of Fiachu with rattle is also suggestive of a pastoral culture-hero. 



The Fir Bolg and the Tuatha lists both end in a catastrophe called the 

 Battle of Mag Tuired. Our historians, taking these records as literal history 

 about literal persons and places, sought and found a different site for each 

 battle. This is, of course, only late euhemerism, acquiring plausibility from 

 the existence of megalithic monuments on the sites chosen. Or, perhaps 

 preferably, we are i" see here a false identification. The epic narrative ended 

 in a tale of disaster. There weir current, independently of the epic, stories 

 battles in the places called Mag Tuired, suggested by the megalithic 

 remains. The epic disastei became popularly associated with these battles. 

 We do not find any such definite story of catastrophe in the Ulidian 

 narrative, though in its Pictish version there is more than a hint of it, in the 

 battles which destroyed the crops in the reign of the last king. 



To sum up, an epic in four bunks is adumbrated : — 



Book I : Gods. 



i. Divine Wisdom (OUom Fodln, Mm Klni/uno impersonate in a mighty 

 [Ires) divine horseman {Eocltu nuu I i. iVi-haps we should rather say a 

 divine horse-man; the deity may have been hippomorphic, or hippanthropo- 

 morpbic. 



ii. Nuadu. 



iii. Lug. These are the more ordinary names of tin- gods, who appear 

 under other names m the other lists. Ii i- noteworthy that although others 



the Tuatha 1 ».'■ Danann were certainly l ach as Ogma, Dian 



tit, etc. .yet they have no place among the 'kings." This fact is suggestive, 



indicating artificial selection and manipulation. 



Book II : The & I ■ Demi-god. 



iv. Eochu (a different being from K. mac Eire); a storm deity G&uh i, but 

 also a ' . " (Dagdai He is closely akin to the three preceding, as the 



genealogies in the Fit Bolg I Lidian lists show, but on a lower plane. He 



is killed by his successor in the kingdom — the meaning of this custom, and 

 the special significance ol ginning at this stage in the narrative, will 



appeal in the following section. He toearth.and is the "Old Gann" 



of the earth-dwellers; and is a great prince (OU-flaith) and universal Father 

 OU-athair). We may fnrthi . i that this epic married Tea to the 



iting deini-god, and that the latter, after his death became lord among the 

 dead. This would account foi < ■ ory that the Gauls reckoned then 



