I, idad, the yew in the ogham.

Associated is illait, the

eaglet; irfind, the colour white and the winter solstice as
well as the magical number three. I, she, Ir. í, sí, OIr. í, hi,
Cy. hi, Germ. síe, they, Skr. syá. Very similar to the G. sa an
emphatic particle having the force of “I myself.” Also note
G. so, this, here, in this place, her place, sin, that. See
iubharr, the yew tree. Note that this goddess matches the
Bafinn, the “three in one” deity. See iubharr. A form seen
for the island of Iona.

I, art, science.

IADH, to take a circuitous route, to magically bind, to bind,

obs. to enclose.

IAL, moment, time, season, a gleam of sunshine, Light. Any

passing phenomena. See the next.

IALL, a “flock of birds.” A herd, a drove, Formerly “May god

forgive you!” Now obsolete. One of the “keys” to divination,
which was a druidic specialty. See next entry. Birds appear
throughout Celtic tradition as gods and goddesses, as
symbols of divinity and as messengers of the gods. The
swan, the crane, the rave, and the hooded-crow had unbroken
popularity as cult figures. The eagle and the owl and the
goose had a period of popularity followed by a lessening of
importance. It can be guessed that birds operated first as
sky-messengers of solar-deities such as Lugh. The quarter
from out of which birds flew and the tenor of their cries
were therefore seen as god-directed and worth examining
as a portent for the future.
IALTAG, a bat, iall + tagradh, flock of birds + ghost. ghost-
birds, birds from the Otherworld. Flocks of birds were
watched as omens of wide-sweeping events among men.
These creatures were regarded as shape-changed deities, or
spirits of the air, capable of landing and assuming human
form at will.

IAR, The West, the end of things, obs. bird, dark, black,
dusky,

IARBANEL, western gang. One of the three sons of Nemed,

who escaped after the unfortunate experience of the
Nemedians in Ireland. Some claim he retreated to the
continent and fathered the Tuatha daoine. His brother Starn
was acclaimed the patriarch of the Firbolg and his son
Bethach, the direct ancestor of this tribe.

IAR-CHULLACH, iar, obs. dark, dusky, black; the boar.

IAR, SIAR, west, a special use of the preposition meaning

behind (the horizon). Iargail, the west, evening, twilight,
remote; iargalta, churlish, inhospitable, turbulent, surly;
iarculta, backward. Iargan, the groans of a dying man, one
“going west.” Iargainn, pain. The Otherworld of the Fomors,
the gods and the Daoine sidh was considered to lie west of
the horizon in the Atlantic. Pagans were buried facing west,

IARNA, a hank of yarn, from the Eng. yarn. Blue-green yarn

was used to ensnare animals and men and to accomplish
prognostication and other forms of magic. Red and black
yarns also had their functions in druidism.

IARUNN. metal, iron, iron tool of any kind, blade of a scythe,

Ir. iarann, OIr. iarn, Cy. haiaran, Corn. hoern, OBr. houaran,
Gaul, iarnodori, OHG. isarn, English iron, all thought to be
borrowed from the Celts, who were the first to smelt iron.
The word iron is Celtic, its original form having been iarn in
the Gaelic dialect. Notice that iron bars were the “gold-
standard” of Gaelic civilization, and the redoubtable Queen
Mebd counted her worth in iarn-lestair, the number of “iron
vessels” she possessed.

The Celts developed the use of iron in the first

millenium B.C. at a time when it was barely known to
classical craftsmen.B y the sixth century B.C. they had
developed formidable weaponry and were militarily superior
to any of their neighbours. their axes and ploughshares
were so good they were able to cut roadways through the
previously impenetrable forests of Europe and open new
farmland. The Gaelic word for a road is still slighe from
the verb sligim, to hew wood. Without their iron swords the
Celts could not have harassed the classical kingdoms. The
iron swords of the Celts enabled them to sweep Europe,
conquering Rome in 390 B.C. Not long after they defeated
Thrace, Macedonia and the other Greek city-states including
Athens. Iron bars of set weights were used as Celtic
currency.

In the story of the Táin, it may be remembered that

when Aillil and Mebd were counting their individual assets
they each listed a number of iarn-lestair, or iron-vessels.
The Anglo-Saxons remembered the importance of this metal
in their goddess Irenasaxa, literally the “Iron-sword.” It
was, however, the Celtic Milesians who first developed the
art of putting an edge to iron weapons, and this enabled
them to overcome the Tuatha daoine, the warrior magicians
of Ireland, who had great skills as druids but nothing more
than bronze swords and spears as practical weapons. Thus
these "gods" lost the land to mortal men. Banished to the
"hollow hills" of Britain and to islands beyond the western
ocean, they became the Daoine sidh, or "little people" and
for ever after were adverse to iron in any form.

The Rev. Robert Kirk has noted that “all uncouth,

unknown Wights are terrified by nothing earthly so much as
cold Iron..” As the sithe were allied with the druids and the
human baobhe, these people are also repulsed by the "magic"
of iron. Thus any of this kind can be bound in place by
driving an iron spike into his, or her, footprint, and they can
be kept from houses by nothing more than a fish-hook driven
into the wood of the doorway.

Notice also that the mythic smith Goibhniu, who we have

also identified as Goban, was known to have had his smithy
at Sliab nan Iairinn, the “Iron Mountain,” east of Lough Allen
in County Litrim. He is perhaps the only Tuathan described
as forging iron.

J.F. Campbell has noted that the iron sword created

great wonder when it first appeared as a weapon of war. He
says that other things made of iron also had magical
attributes transferred to them: “in all popular tales...some
mysterious virtue is attributed to iron; and in many of them
a gun is a waepon which breaks spells.” Thus it was thought
valuable to fire shot over the back of a “bewitched” animal.
To look into the other world, or release an individual from
enchantment, it was thought necessary to aim three times
over the iron barrel of a rifle or shotgun. While these
weapons were the most powerful in frightening the fay a
reaping hook , horseshoe or nail was though to do equal
servfice. Note that the sidhe shot stone arrows being
unable to handle iron.

IBATH. obs. ibh, to drink, A second son of Beothach. One of

the Nemedians who fled to Boetia in Greece after the
Fomorians defeated his people in Ireland. Like Iarbenal he is
often given as an ancestor of the Tuatha daoine.
I Breasil or O Breasil, High Brazil, see Breasil.

IBCAN. A third son of Beothach the Nemedian. See Ibath.

I NA-BEATHA, the “Elevated (place) of Life.” OIr. beathu, see

bith for the root. Hence beathach, an animal, a living thing.
One of the mythic Atlantic islands.

IDATH, IBATH. The Connacht warrior who married Bafinn,

the “sister” of Boann. His son Fraoch was reputed to be the
handsomest warrior in ancient Ireland.
IFRINN, IFRIONN, hell, EIr ifurnn, from Latin infernum, Eng.
infernal. A region unknown to pagan mythology. While the
place was unknown, the Norse goddess Hel who supposedly
supervised this land was not. A cold region of punishment
or, at least, dullness and inactivity. Ifrinneach, hellish,
extremely wicked, a demon.

ILBREG, sometimes ILBHREACH. Son of the sea-god Manann

mac Ler. He was the ruler of the sidh known as Eas Aedha
Ruaidh, now known as the Mound of Mullachshee, located
near Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland. He was one of
five candidates for high-kingship of the Tuatha daoine after
the retirement of the Dagda. During the subsequent quarrel
between the “gods of the earth,” Ilbreg supported the losing
cause of Midir the Proud, who also called upon a contingent
of mortal warriors led by the Fenian Caoilte. This man was
sometimes said to have slain Ler the grandfather of Ilbreg.

ILDÅNACH. the “All-craftsman", a title bestowed on Lugh

after he proved himself at the court of Nuada. It has the
sense of “Doctor of Arts and Sciences.”

ILEACH, il, having plenty, variegated, Ir. ile, showing

diversity, iol-, a prefix suggesting “many.”root pel, the Eng.
full. Having special reference to Hel. the “parti-coloured”
goddess. See I, “She,” who corresponds. The goddess Mhor-
righan.

ILEAGAS NAN DAOINE SITH, contentment with the earthly

state, ile + agas, many + contentments of the "little people."
Unlike the Christians the pagan seers did not threaten
either eternal joy or eternal pain following death. "They
were teaching that it is not meant for children of men to
know anything of what passes after death. They taught that
men should be friendly and kindly to each other, without
distinction, while they dwelt in the world ... They
condemned the creed that held that eternal vengeance or
eternal mercy was the lot of all men at the other edge of
death. They advised mental calmness and promised the
peace that flows there from. This was not to the liking of
the Church which demanded obedience from all and yielding
to Her belief and practise and overlordship and rule." (The
Hebridean Connection, p. 386).

ILLBREG, sometimes Ilbhreach. A son of Manann mac Ler,

ruler of the sidhe at Eas Aedha Ruiadh, Ballyshannon,
Donegal. He was one of five candidates for leadership of the
Tuatha daoine when the Dagda announced that war-injuries
demanded that he step down. During the war between the
Upper World and the side-hill of Midir, he fought
unsuccessfully alongside the Fenians and the Dark Lord.

IMBAS, im, butter, Eir. imb; bas, Death. Jells which provided
druids with their prophetic art. The “buuter” wassaid
derived from the nuts of certain trees.

IMBOLC, IMBOLG, im, + bolc, intensive prefix "about",

"concerned with" + welted. Confers with the English
abolish. The “Quarter-Day,” or “Rent-paying Day,” devoted
to the goddess Bridd. A fire-festival was held on the eve of
February 1, some said to take note of the dropping of the
first lambs. As was usual for such situations, a time for
blood-letting as well tale-telling, ritual sex and
entertainment. The Christian’s termed this day “St. Brigit’s
Day,” and considered that it marked the end of Christmas
Tide.

IMRAMA, IMMRAMA, “ wonder-voyages.” Travels into the

western Atlantic. EIr. emigre, journey, expedition, imrich,
to remove, to flit (from place-to-place). Eirich, to rise,
rach, I go.

In the great list of two hundred Irish romances, itself

dating from the eighth century, six Imrama or “Overseas
Voyages” are listed, and of these “The Voyage of Maelduin”
is given as the first of its class. Of the others that are
mentioned only “The Voyage of the O’Corras,” has come
down to us. Two Imrama not mentioned in this story list
are also known today, and “The Voyage of Snedgus and
Riagla,” and “The Voyage of St. Brendan” are therefore
considered more recent works.“The Voyage of Maelduin”
was probably assembled from various tales of travel by Aed
the Fair, the chief story-teller at the Irish court in the
eighth century. Joseph Jacobs thinks that he created his
work by borrowing his theme of the love of an immortal
maiden for a human hero from “The Voyage of Bran.” Two of
the episodes appear cribbed from Maelduin (“The Isle of
Wailing,” and “The Queen of the Magic Clew”), and
something very near to these tales may also be found in
“The Voyage of Bran.” Aed also borrowed from the mythic
tales of the Tuatha daoine to fashion the story of “The
Queen of the Brazen Gate,” but he also took Christian
legends and worked them into the fabric of this voyage. He
was familiar with the actual travels of his saintly
countrymen as they traveller to evangelize the Northern
seas. It is pretty certain that he borrowed yarns spun from
the tongues of seafarers back from the distant Faeroes or
Iceland. He handled these elements with a singular
preception for their romantic qualities and effect, little
guessing that they would be recast in a work of popular
fiction, the famed Latin Navigatio S. Brendani , which
breathed fresh life into the old legends.

IMRAMM CURAIG MAILE DÚIN the “Coracular Ocean-Voyage of

Maelduin,” was preserved in its oldest form in a manuscript
which comes from the close of the twelfth century, and is
thus later than they tales about Bran and Connla. The
twelfth century manuscript is now lost, but it has been
guessed that this tale dates from the second half of the
eighth century.

The Irish “Voyage of Maelduin” has been printed, with

an English translation, by Dr. Whitney Stokes, in the ninth
and tenth volumes of the Revue Celtique, and the retelling
that follows is based on his version of events: Maelduin was
a very successful explorer, returning after three years and
seven months "driven in his barque to and fro over the
boundless, fathomless ocean."

The son of Ailill Edgebattle, he was fostered to the

King and Queen of Arran at the murder of his father. In
later, years seeking the murderers, Maelduin built a ship
"of wicker work, of eight thwarts (rower's seats) covered
with ox-hides of hard bark-soaked red leather.” On the day
appointed by his druid, the seventeen men and their captain
raised "a many-coloured sail" and put to sea. In one day of
sail and rowing they found land in two small and barren
islands, where they stood off and heard men boasting of
various piratical deeds including the killing of Maelduin's
father. They suspected that the gods had favoured them by
leading them so early to their quarry, but as they prepared
to land a great wind came up which tossed them on the
waves for three days and three nights.

At their next landfall, Maelduin was driven off by a

horde of voracious “ants” and sailed on for an additional
three days and nights. On the next island they found a beast
shaped somewhat like a horse but with long sharp talons.
Thinking it seemed overly pleased to see them, the voyagers
made another narrow escape to the sea. On a third island,
they found men racing horses, but convinced they were an
assembly of demons, did not remain long. A full week
after their departure, they chanced upon a much larger
island on which stood a huge residence, with two doorways
opening on land and a third on the sea. Hoping to find food
and drink, Maelduin put in, but found the place empty.
Fortunately, they found liquor and provisions in four of the
bedrooms but finding no other signs of life departed. Later,
their provisions again ran short, but they came to an island
with high cliffs on all sides. A wood came down at one
place, and here the ship passed beneath apple trees but they
found no fruit to satisfy themselves. The next place had a
stone fence around it but here they were repulsed by the
antics of a monster "whose skin revolved like a mill-wheel
its flesh and bones remaining still." This monster threw
stones at them from the beach and one passed through
Maelduin's shield and lodged in the keel of the boat.

At the next stop they were fortunate to find many

trees bearing fruit, with golden apples on every bough. In
the orchards there were many small animals red in colour
and shaped like pigs. It was observed that these creatures
retreated into caverns at night but joined the birds in
pilfering the apples by day. Two of the crew landed but
were surprised to find that the ground was hot beneath
their feet, so they hastily gathered food working quickly to
preserve the soles of their feet from burning. Before long
their apples were eaten and a great and thirst returned.
Further, their nostrils were bothered by a sulphurous smell
which seemed to arise from the waters.

They were glad to find a new harbour in a island of

white rock surmounted by a fortress. Around the fort were
numerous snow-white houses. They entered the largest and
found no occupants except a small cat which never gave up
its play to consider the men. The wall of the house was
designed in three sections. The top rank carried "gold and
silver brooches fastened in place by pins; the next gold and
silver necklaces as large as vat hoops and the third gold and
silver-hilted swords. These were white quilts on sleeping
pallets and garments of shining cloth. Again they found
roasted meat and flagons of ale but no company. They ate
and took away what was left of the food but Maeldun warned
his crew that it was probably not a good idea to touch any
of the treasure hung on the walls. Against his advice, a
crewman attempted to carry of a necklace but as he walked
toward the door the cat attacked him, its fiery eyes burning
him to a cinder. After that Maelduin soothed the animal
with careful words, put the necklace back in its place,
cleaned the ashes from the floor, and set sail.

The ship chanced next on an island on which there

were double palisades of brass. On one side of this fence
they saw sheep of white and on the other black animals. In
the midst of the flock was a gigantic man who was keeping
the colours separate. When he three black sheep into the
white enclosure they turned white while white sheep
thrown in the other direction turned black. Considering this
ominous, they ignored their stomachs and travelled on.
 On the next isle, which possessed a lofty mountain,
they found, killed, rotated and ate a pig. Following the base
of the mountain was a broad river. When a crew member put
the wooden part of his spear into this body it was
immediately consumed in flames so they went no further in
that direction. Seeing a giant sitting among hornless oxen
on the far bank they decide this was another unsafe place
and moved on.

Next they came close to the swirl of waters which

they attributed to the workings of the miller of the gods.
They came then to a land of people black in body and
clothing who wore "fillets" about their neck and never seem
to rest from wailing. Lots were cast to see who should
approach them and one fell to Maelduin's foster-brother,
who mingling with the crowd found himself caught up in
their strange emotion. Maelduin attempted to rescue him,
but the two men who followed were similarly afflicted.
Four others followed being careful to refrain from breathing
the air within the crowd, and these were able to rescue all
but the foster-brother. In the end the sailors were forced
to leave without him.

On the next western isle they were met by a maiden

"who entertained them and brought them food." She gave
them a rather heady ale the strength of which left them
unconscious so that they awoke three days later at sea, out
of sight of the place and its hospitable lady. The next
landfall was a small island featuring a fortress with brass
doors and a crystal bridge at the approach. This proved as
slick as glass and the crew eventually wearied of trying to
get near the door. While they lay prone, a sidh-woman
moved effortlessly over the bridge, took water from a
nearby fountain and returned to the fortification. The mob
followed but could not force the door. Their hammerings on
the bronze fastenings finally produced a soothing music
that lulled them to sleep. These actions and reactions were
repeated for three days until the sidh-maiden came forth
and greeted Maelduin, naming him and all of his crew and
saying, "It is long since your coming hath been expected."
She then led them into her place and sent some to haul their
ship upon the shore. She brought them a cheese-like food
and liquor, but it was said, "she knew when they had enough
and then ceased to serve them." The men thought that this
woman would make a fit wife for Maelduin so they
approached her on his behalf and she promised her answer
"on the morrow." When dawn came they saw neither island,
nor the sidh-woman, but found themselves adrift upon the
empty sea.

On the next island they met with a man clothed only

in body hair (like the Fomors). This individual said, "I am a
man of Ireland who went on pilgrimage in a small boat. This
split under me so I went back to my native sod built again
and ventured forth. The Lord had given me sod under my foot
in this place which groweth by a foot each year. The birds
of the trees of this place are surely the souls of my
children and the kindred who await time's end. Angels feed
me daily with half a cake, a slice of fish and liquor from a
well. Whey or water is mine on Wednesdays; sweet milk on
Sundays; bright ale and wine on feast days. At noon each of
the souls of the dead receiveth the same, enough for each."
The old man entertained them, provisioned them and
predicted: "All of thee will reach thy desired country
excepting one."

At a new location, the mariners heard the sounds of

smithies, anvils and sledges and saw cockleshell boats
approaching over the sea. They retreated and were
bombarded as they rowed by masses of glowing iron, which
the chief smith threw after them. The sea hissed and boiled
but the warriors fled swiftly to mid-ocean. Next
Maelduin's people saw the undersea world in a place where
the waters seemed so thin , misty and unsubstantial.
Fearing that the surface might not support their craft they
looked downward and saw roofed strongholds, and flocks
and herds guarded by an armed man. Perceiving a beast
attacking the man fled, and the creature fell upon an ox,
devouring it in the twinkling of an eye.
 At the next island they came to a great stream arching
out over the beach and the water, and here the wanderers
passed the ship through the spray without getting wet. At
the falls they pierced the waters with their spears and
brought out salmon in such vast numbers they could not
gather them because of their great numbers. When they
were thus resupplied they cruised on their way. Next they
were faced with a great silver column rising in mid-ocean
where there was no land. It had four sides, each measuring
two oar-strokes in width, so that the compass of a column
was eight strokes. The base could not be seen through the
depth of water. A silver mesh was seen hanging down from
the summit of these towers and as they passed under it
Maelduin warned his folk not to cut it with their spears,
"for what we see is surely the work of mighty men."
However a man named Diuran cut away a sample saying that
he would place it on the high altar at Armagh if he were
lucky enough to return to Ireland. At that a voice issued
from the top of the columns and if the men of Ireland could
not understand the language they understood the mood of the
speaker and hoisted their sails before the wind.

Thereafter, they approached another large island, on

which they found a vast plain, grassy and smooth and nearby
a strong fortress enclosing "a goodly furnished home."
There rode out from this place a woman arrayed in a blue
hood, purple embroidered mantle with gold embroidered
gloves. There were sandals on her feet and the horse
furnishings were finely adorned. She returned to the
fortress without approaching them, but afterwards a maid-
servant came to them inviting them within the walls. They
were, again, royally entertained and as they were about to
depart on the following morning the lady of the house
suggested: “ Stay here for this is a place where old age has
no place; rather you will keep what age you have at present
and long life will follow attended by every joy and delight."

Obviously, the travellers had attained Hy Brazil.

"Why," questioned the sidh-queen, "go wandering longer from
island to island under the western sun?" "How came you
here" asked Maelduin? She replied: "There dwelt a good man
on this isle and I was his wife and these seventeen maidens
his daughters and our children. When he died their was no
heir, so I am queen, and go daily to judge the disputes of
those others who live here." Following her advice they lived
with the sighe for three winter months but it seemed to
them more like three years and they soon talked of nothing
but Ireland. When Maelduin refused to set sail for home the
men murmured that Maelduin had more love for the queen of
this place than his homeland and friends. Convinced by
them, Maelduin once set sail, but the queen threw a clew
and line after them and drew them back to dockside.
Thereafter the group remained hostage for nine more
months. On the next escape attempt, the queen threw the
clew again and it lodged in the arm of a sailor. Seeing this
Maelduin cut the arm off with his sword and thus they
escaped from Tir-nan-Og.

At the next stop, they plucked red berries from trees

which looked like willows or hazel. It fell Maelduin's lot to
sample this fruit, but the juice plunged him into a coma and
they thought he was dead. After twelve hours be became
conscious although hung-over. So his crew gathered the
fruit of the land, moderating its alcoholic effect by
mingling it with water. Thus supplied they rowed eastward.
At another large island overgrown with yew and oak trees,
they found meadows, sheep, a Christian church and a
fortress. Within the church was an ancient cleric, who
declared himself, "the fifteenth man in a community of
blessed monks. We went forth on our pilgrimage upon the
boundless ocean and came to this island. All are dead
except me." Here they lived for another season. In the
spring a huge eagle-like bird came to their island carrying
green leaves and grape-like berries in its talons. It sat
wearily pecking at the fruit as Maelduin and his men
approached, but the bird did not heed them. Later that day,
the first bird was joined by three others and then they flew
off into the quarter from which they had come. The nearby
lake was reddened by the berries the birds carried and
Diurin became convinced that a plunge into the waters
would renew his youth. The others were less certain, but
Diurin did bathe, and fact or fancy, he suffered no weakness
nor infirmity, nor failing of eyesight, nor loss of tooth or
hair throughout a very long life.

Bidding farewell to their host they sailed now to an

island around which was a fiery moving magical circle.
Within it was an open doorway and as it came opposite them
they could briefly see the indwellers, humans who were
beautifully formed and dressed. "Pleasant it was to harken
to their drinking songs and hard to depart, so delightful was
their voices."They now turned the prow southward and found
a man plastered close to a broad rock clothed only in his
own white hair. "I was from Rorach in Ireland," admitted
the man, a cook at a monastery. Is old the food and
treasures of my brethren for treasures and jewels and
became proud and haughty. They rejected me so I set to sea
in a hide boat but I was driven to mid-ocean by contrary
winds and in this place came upon one like myself but
sitting upon a wave. When he asked where I was bound he
said that my only destination would be a land of the damned
for he could see I was surrounded by a crowd of sea-demons.
Then he demanded I throw my treasures overboard or that
my craft would remain motionless on the sea." So I did so
and then landed upon this crag where I have lived for seven
years and now do penance. Here I receive food each day and
neither wind, nor wet, nor cold affects me." Then the
hermit said, "You will all reach home except one man. And
Maelduin you will have your murderer, but slay him not, for
the God has spared you many times from perils at sea.”

So they continued to the next place, an island filled

with sidh playing and laughing without pause. The one who
explored here did not return to the ship just as the two holy
men had predicted. After this they landed on another island
deserted of all but cattle, kine, oxen and sheep. Here they
saw falcons exactly like those found in Ireland, so they
noted their direction when they flew into the southeast and
they rowed after them. Their next landfall was that which
had been first in their voyage. At the door of the fortress on
that island they heard a man muttering that Maelduin was on
their trail. A second said it was more likely he had
drowned, while a third suggested, "Mayhaps he will wake
you from your sleep tonight." "What shall we do when he
comes?" asked a fourth. "Welcome him gladly, " suggested
the chief among them, "for I have waited too long for his
vengeance and he has suffered much in getting it!" At that
Maelduin struck the knocker on the door and entered to tell
his former enemies of the great things seen on the ocean-
sea. Afterwards Maelduin retired to his own district and
Diurin took the silver net he had stolen and laid it on the
altar at Armagh. These adventures were soon carried far
and wide; the high-bard of Ireland remembered them, and
they were afterwards written down “so that men might
appreciate the marvels and the generosity of the Christian
God.”

IMMRAM CORMAC MAC ART. Of all the ancient kings of

Ireland, it is Cormac mac Art who is remembered as the
greatest patron of the senachies and the historians of
Ireland. Lugaid turned out to be a rude, ill-tempered high
king, little mourned at his death. Cormac came and
claimed his father’s throne, but at the investiture, a rival
named Fergus Black-Tooth managed to accidently singe the
young king’s beard giving him a blemish that disbarred him.

The Black-Tooth became king for the year it took for

Cormac’s face to heal, but he returned with an army and
overthrew the usurper at Crionna on the Boyne. The Book of
Ballymote says: “There now came to kingship Cormac, and
the world became replete with good things: food from the
land, gifts from the sea. There were neither woundings nor
robberies in his time.”

Another ancient account adds: “He was a king of great

good judgement and Eirinn was prosperous in his day. Just
judgements were made by him, and no man dare wound
another, during the short jubilee of his seven years.” He did
not always take wise council, and when his high steward
persuaded him that the Munstermen paid too little in taxes
he warred against them and was forced into a humiliating
settlement when they defeated him in Limerick. On a
personal level he was a good man. When he saw that his
wife Ethne was taking advantage of his concubine Ciarnat,
he said nothing in rebuke of his wife but introduced the
first water wheel into Ireland so that the unfortunate girl
could grind the amount of grain that the queen set for her.

A deeply religious man Cormac rebuilt Tara and

reinstated the house of virgins that had charge of the fires
of Beul. Dunlaing mac Edna once broke into this sacred
retreat and killed those in the grove, and for that Leinster
was levied an additional tribute for the support of the
Samhain and Beltane. It is claimed that the connections
that Cormac’s father had with the Otherworld were
maintained and that his court, numbering more than 1000
paid staff members, welcomed visitors from all the lands:
“The Galls, Romans, Franks, Frisians, Albanians, Saxons,
Cruithnians (Picts), for all these men came seeking him, and
he repaid their interest with gold and silver, with steeds,
and with presents of chariots. But they came not for these
prizes but because none was more celebrated, more
dignified, or more wise...”

At his court Cormac entertained the ambassadors of

Manann mac Ler and was himself invited to travel to the
west. It is said that he was approached by an young man
who appeared on the green of Tara, and given a silver branch
heavy with nine red apples. When he asked the use of this
artifact Cormac was told that when the branch was shaken
it had the capacity to easy the pain of wounded men, women
in childbirth and those enfeebled by illness of any kind.
Cormac therefore asked if the branch was for sale, and was
told that it could be available if the king was willing to pay
the price. Without thinking what he said the king admitted
that he would pay any price for such a useful tool. The
youth then claimed the king’;s wife, his daughter and his son
as payment, and Cormac was forced to comply. When the
family members learned that they would be separated from
the father they were sorrowful, but Cormac shook the sigh
branch amidst them causing them to forget all sorrow and
care when the departed with the young man into the west.

After a year of loneliness Cormac decided to attempt

to trace his lost family. It is said that the king travelled
“through a dark magical mist” on a “wondrous plain.”
Emerging he found men busily erecting a house, whose roof
was being thatched with bird feathers, but as the workmen
rode off to fetch additional feathers, one half of the roof, or
the other, alternately flew away, so that it seemed the
building project might go on forever. In another place
Cormac watched a youth attempting to build a fire, but
before he could fetch a second tree, the first was reduced
to embers, so that he also seemed engaged in unending
labour. Cormac journeyed on into this strange country and
came, at last, two three wells, each covered by an immense
stone head. Nearby he spotted a sheiling and entering found
“a tall couple clad in many-hued garments.” They greeted
the king and asked him to stay for the night. For food the
country-man went hunting and returned with a wild boar,
which he spitted and placed over a log in the floor hearth.
When it came time to start the fire the stranger suggested
that Cormac tell a true story, but the king suggested that
the host tell one of his own, since the first story was by
laws of hospitality the duty of one giving shelter .

Thus the stranger said that the boar was one of seven
similar swine and that these alone could provide enough
flesh to feed the world. “For if a pig is killed and if the
bones are returned to the stye it will be seen to be alive by
morning.” This seemed a fabrication, but the fire burst into
roaring life and the first quarter of the pig was cooked. The
woman of the house was next asked for her story and she
said she possessed seven white cows able to give enough
milk to satisfy all the people of the world. This was also a
true story, and so the third quarter was cooked.

Cormac was now required to tell a story which would

cook his quarter of the animal, and he said that he was on
imrama, a search for his wife, son and daughter who had
been born away from him a year past by a fay-youth. At this
the man of the house smiled as the fire burst into activity a
third time.” Indeed, this is the truth, and now it appears we
need company for this feast” At those words a portal
opened and the family of Cormac entered. “It was I who
was that youth,” said the older man, “and I who led you into
this, my kingdom. Eat now and drink!”

And while they ate Manann mac Ler commented on the

parables to be seen in the western lands: “Those who
thatched the roof with feathers, these were men who in
earlier time sought riches and fame to build their house.
The young men dragging hopelessly upon trees, they are
those who labour for others,; much trouble is their due, but
they are never able to warm themselves at their own fires.
The three heads at the well consist of one which passes
water and gets water; one which gets water but delivers
none, and a third which receives water from the other two
but gives up nothing, and this last is the worst of men.”
When they had feasted Manann spread the table with a fresh
cloth and said, “This covering may be asked for food and it
will deliver to all deserving folk. From his belt he took a
goblet and set it on the palm of his hand saying, “This cup
has virtue in that a false story will shatter it, and a true
story make it whole again, and these shall be thy
recompense for the bother you have had in coming to my
domain.

And when they had eaten and slept, and visited, they
rose in the morning and found themselves transported back
to Tara, and beside them were the promised objects as well
as the silver branch, which was afterwards found to serve
as a eye on the Otherworld, and a key to passage to that
western place. The Fomorian treasures which Cormac
possessed were lost to men after his death.

Cormac’s daughter Gráinne became engaged to Fionn

mac Cumhail with unfortunate consequences for all of
Ireland. One of his sons, Cellach was slain by a Dési
warrior named Aonghas for raping his daughter. In the
process the butt of the man’s spear blighted the king by
putting out one of his eyes. Cormac did not respond in kind,
but exiled that clan to Meath, which was regarded as their
patrimony. These men were not satisfied with old land and
allied themselves with the king of Munster who eventually
settled them in Waterford, a place still associated with the
Dési. Cormac retired to Cleite Acaill, on the Boyne, where
he spent his time writing a book concerning the
requirements of kinship, another dealing with criminal law,
and a third treating ancient historic and genealogic
information. Unfortunately the last book exists only as
fragments quoted by later writers. Although Cormac died in
the year 267, more than 150 years before the coming of
Christianity to Ireland, and had great respect for the old
ways, there is an ancient tract identifying him as the third
Irish monarch converted to the beliefs of Christ before the
coming of missionaries. Tradition says that the great king
of the Irish requested that he should not be buried facing
the gods of the west, as was the fashion with his ancestors
interred at Brugh na Boann, but that he be placed in the
earth of Ros na Riogh, looking east for the “holy light that
would soon make Erinn radiant.” Disregarding this
nonsense, the druids of the court bore his body across the
river to the Brugh but on the way a great wave swept down
the river and carried his corpse to Ros na Riogh, and here
his last wish was respected.

IMMRAM FIONN MAC CUMHAIL, “The Voyage of Finn Mac

Cool.” The “Chase of Gilla Dacar,” sometimes referred
to as the “Gruff Servant,” is one of the Fenian tales in
which the handsome Diarmuid played a starring role.

When the summer service of the Fionn was over, the

army made its fall encampment at Knockany in Munster,
three battalions being encamped here to live off the land by
hunting. In the particular year that is of interest, Fionn
appointed Conan as master of the camp, while Diarmuid was
named the leader of the chase. Once, while the principals of
the hunt awaited the results of a chase by their hounds
they were approached by a churl, “a huge, ugly, misshapen
fellow dragging along by brute force a great raw-boned,
sway- backed mare.” It was noticed that his chest was “as
broad as a door,” and that he was “wide-mouth, gap-
toothed, with a head as shaggy as that of a wolf.” All in all,
a presentable Fomorian giant! He carried an iron-mounted
club, and when it banged against the horse’s side, she
echoed like a hollow kettle. The horse’s ribs showed
through a thoroughly flea-bitten hide. The horse looked so
slight that every blow from the club seemed destined to
cause it to fall sideways. This fellow announced that he
wished to become a servant to Fionn, and said he was called
the Gilla Daccar, or “Hard Gilly,” because he was a stranger
to obedience and service.

The members of the Fionn laughed at this, but Fionn

considered the stranger with a degree of seriousness, and
finally, he was voted into the company. Conan was
instructed to the lead the new servant’s animal to the
common land, but there it raised a commotion with the
other steeds kicking and biting and snarling until there was
total confusion on the grazing field. To ease this matter,
Conan attempted to mount the nag to ride her out of the
field. As he did so she fell to the ground with him in place
and refused to rise. Laughing at this, the gillie suggested
that a few others mount her, “She’s not used to so little
weight my lad!” Getting into the spirit of the moment,
thirteen men mounted themselves behind Conan Baldhead,
and suddenly, to everyone's surprise, the mare sprung to her
feet her bowed back becoming suddenly horizontal. All the
Fionn laughed uproariously at this scene but the gillie took
offense and said,”The humans of Ireland need not mock my
horse. It that’s the way its to be I’ll leave Ireland, and tell
other Fomorians not to hire out to such uncivil men.”

Before there could be any response to this, the gillie

walked off bawling after his horse to follow. At first the
pace was measured, but then it picked up, and the fourteen
unfortunates found themselves unable to detach themselves
from the back of this magical animal. As she ran, the
hollows in her sides filled out, and she became a full-
blooded white animal of majestic appearance. In the
distance Fionn called his men to pursuit, but only Liagin the
Swift made any advance on the galloping animal and her
master.

The chase terminated after the whole party burst into

the ravines of Kerry, with the western ocean standing
directly before them. Here it was thought that the gallop
must end, but the mare galloped directly upon the sea. At
this Liagin made a desperate grasp at the animal’s tail, and
became the fifteenth man lost to the Fionn, for he could not
release his grasp. Soon the seas-horse disappeared over the
horizon, lost in the fabled regions of the west.

Fionn and his warriors now consulted about their next

move, and finally decided to outfit a sea-going craft to go
in search of their abducted comrades. Some say that the
men built a huge ocean-ready raft. “When that was done
they made sails out of their mantles, put on board venison,
took water, and sailed out upon the great sea.” The time
they were at sea varies from a single day to “many days of
voyaging,” the latter seeming a more likely period for any
land not known to these folk.

Their imrama took them, at last, to a cliff-faced

landfall, which was beyond the climbing abilities of most
men. Fionn and most of his men had to pause on the narrow
beaches “to make ladders and hack out footholds.” Diarmuid
being the most agile member of the crew, climbed the
precipitous cliff using natural hand holds, and at the
summit discovered a rough country with woods standing
before a high mountain. Within the woods he discovered a
well-worn path that led to a well. Seeing nobody about, he
took a drinking-horn, dipped it into the well, and drank his
fill.

Almost immediately a warrior pushed his way out

through the woods and challenged Diarmuid for drinking
from his horn. Seeing no retreat from the man’s sword,
Diarmuid pulled his own and began to fight. Although the
Champion of the Well was an experienced fighter he lacked
Diarmuid’s stamina, and finally flung his sword into the
well diving in after it. For two subsequent days, the hero
hunted the nearby woods and returned at dusk for another
draught of water, and an additional battle.

In each case, Diarmuid tried to extend a hand in

friendship, but the knight was always hostile, and on the
third occasion, the Champion got his hands about Diarmuid’s
waist and pulled him down into the deep. As the pair sank
through the water, the human’s senses faded, but he
regained them as he was dragged upward through a water-
soaked passageway ringed with stone, that ended in the
courtyard of a fortress. Armed men stood all about him.
“Keep this one captive,” demanded the Champion of the
Well,”hopefully he may be the only Irish champion of the
Fionn that the King of Sorca has been able to bring into
action against me.”

As for Fionn, he and his men were all this time

climbing the cliff, and at the top they came on signs of
Diarmuid’s movements. They came at last to the well,
where Diarmuid had been captured and here Fionn gave the
cry of the Fionn hoping that Diarmuid might be able to
answer. But he was in no position to respond if he did hear
the rallying cry, and there came instead a sigh-chieftain
who identified himself as Abartach, the “Bold One,” the king
of Sorca , the “Bright Place.” “I am threatened by the King
of Tir Fo Thuinn, the “Land Beneath the Flood,” he explained,
“the one who would take from me the treasures that make
me supreme in this realm, the Great Spear, the Stone and
the Cauldron of the Deep.” Hearing this Fionn said,
“Methinks you are the Gruff Gillie, why should I take sides
against the King of the Undersea World against one who has
stolen my comrades?”

To this the king replied, “Search deep in your memory

for my name, I have a promise from your folks from an
elder day.” Fionn did recall that his father had been one of
those entertained in a distant part of the western world,
and recalled that the host had been Albartach. Thus, like
Cuchullain , Fionn became the reluctant ally of a sigh-
people. This settled, the king of Sorca led men of the Fionn
to a great cavern in the earth, and they entered passages
and after a day’s travel by torchlight came to a fortress.
There they were met with hospitality, but none of the
retainers of Sorcasay anything concerning the fate of
Diarmuid.

In this interval, the hero with the love-spot lay

unguarded but disarmed in courtyard of the king of the Land
Under the Flood. While he slept, Diarmuid was approached in
a dream by Morag (the Mhorrigan), who introduced herself as
the sister of the king of Donn, the ruler of the Land Under
Waves. “She was the one of the three colours - the
whiteness of snow, the redness of blood, and the blackness
of the raven that drinks the blood that has flowed on the
snow. She was graceful in her stature and graceful in all
her movements,” but apparently unaware of Diarmuid’s
beauty-spot for she claimed to be in love with Fionn. “Take
me to Fionn for I can aid your cause!” Diarmuid tended to
believe her, but said he had know knowledge of where his
leader was located. The lady being a boabd of considerable
powers said that he was presently with the king of Sorca,
and she led him by a secret passage from her brother’s
realm to the place where the armies of his opposition were
assembling.

While the men of Sorca prepared for war, Diarmuid

placed Morag within a ring of shields under a magical rowan
tree where she would be safe from her “brother.”In the
battle neither army yielded until Diarmuid’s sword pierced
the shield of Donn. With that done Abartach was declared
the victor, and Fionn was led off to be introduced to Morag:
“When the harps played Morag chanted a poem meant for
Fionn alone, and remembering that he had once been a bard,
Fionn returned the compliment. Then the sigh-wom

an turned to Fionn and said, enigmatically, “I shall be

with you in Ireland!” Considering this promise, Fionn made
no further demand on the king for his services, but Conan
wanted the use of the “mare of the ocean:” “Put fourteen
women of this realm on her back, and let your own mare,
who is queen of this place, bear up in the rear where Liagan
was forced to hold, then return us all to our homeland.” The
other fourteen who had been abducted cheered for this plan.
the king of Sorca merely smiled and turned to Fionn saying,
“Look now upon your men.

When he did as he was told, the Fionn were no longer

in a strange land but on the wide beach below the hills of
Kerry. The people of the west gone. There was no sign of
the fourteen handmaidens, but Fionn found at his side
Morag. “He lifted the woman on his shield so that she could
see her new home. And with shouts and songs they all
marched inland to Fionn’s house which was on the hill at
Alma. The sigh-woman in this tale is sometimes named
Tasgaidh, loosely translated as “Tasha,” but having the
real-meaning of “a treasury,” or “depository for good
things.”

In any instance this story clearly represents another

form of the rape of An Domhain, the treasure which was
carried away being represented in this instance as the
female spirit of the deep. Morag may also confer with
another woman possessed by Fionn, namely Sadb, a daughter
of Boabd Dearg. Her name translates as the “straying-” or
“lounging-one.” She was supposedly shape-changed into a
fawn by the “Dark Druid” for some unspecified offense.

One day while Fionn was hunting near his home

fortress he came across her in this form and kept her from
being killed by hounds. That night she appeared to her
rescuer in human form, and became his mistress. They lived
happily for a while, but the Dark Druid hearing she had been
released from her spell, pursued her and made certain that
she had no further relations with Fionn. Fionn searched
Ireland attempting to recover her, but at Ben Bulben came
upon a naked boy reputedly raised by a doe. Fionn recognized
him as his own son by Sabd and called him Oisin or “Little
Fawn.” One can guess that the “Dark Druid” was Donn who
tracked the lady for her duplicity in the battles of the Fionn
with the king of the Land Under the Flood.

IMMRAM OISIN, Oisin, the “Cornerstone,” became, in his

day, the most famous bard in Ireland, as well as a
redoubtable warrior.

On a summer morning this champion of the Fionn mac

Cumhail was standing with his father on the shores of Loch
Lena, when they saw riding along the strand a maiden riding
a snow white steed, like those seen in the kingdom of
Manann. It was said that she wore a dark brown mantle that
had the look of silk, and that the material was set with
stars of metallic red gold. She wore a golden crown on her
head and a crest of gold nodded on her horse’s head, while
his hoofs were shod with silver. When she had come near
Fionn asked her name, and she responded saying, “I am
Nèamh (Heaven, the Scared Grove), she of the Golden Hair,
and what brings me here is the love of the man Oisin.”
Turning to Oisin she asked if he was ready to depart with
her to her father’s land in the west, and he replied, “That I
will, and to the ends of the world if thou wish it!” And it
was said that he cared no more for earthly things so vital
was the fairy spell which she projected. Then the two men
stood transfixed as she spoke of Tir Tairnigri, the “Land of
Promise.” Afterwards Fionn tried to recall all that was
said on that breathless morning, and recalled that what had
passed went something like this:

Delightful in promise is this land beyond all

dreams,
Fairer than any thine eyes have ever seen.
There all year about fruit falls from the tree,
And all the year long the bloom is on the flower.

There with wild honey drip the forest trees;

The stores of wine and mead shall never fail.
Nor pain nor sickness known the dweller there,
 Death and decay come near him never more.

The feast cloys not, of chase none tire,

Nor music ceases though forever through the
halls;
The gold and jewels of the Land of Youth
Outshine every treasure of this world of men.

Thou shall have horses of the sigh-breed.

Thou shall have hounds that run down the wind;
A hundred chiefs shall follow thee in war,
A hundred maidens sing thee to thy sleep.

The crown of sovranty thy brow shall bear,

And by thy side a magic blade shall hang,
And thou shalt be lord of all the Land of Youth
And Lord of Neamh who wears the golden crown.

Before any further words could pass,Neamh turned her

sigh-horse in the direction of the setting sun, shook the
bells of the bridle, took up her man with her strong left
arm, and fled down the wind. Although Oisin was never
again seen by his father his association with men was not
at an end. It is written that when the white horse of the sea
reached the western ocean, it ran lightly upon that great
plain away from Ireland. As they approached the distant
sun,, it shone more fiercely, and the riders passed into a
yellow haze in which Oisin lost all sense of time and place.
At that, dream like images floated by on either side:
towers and palace gateways ebbed and flowed, and once a
hornless deer-like animal chased by a white hound with one
red ear was seen. Again, the travellers saw a young maid
ride by on the water upon another white sea-horse, her left
hand bearing a golden apple. After her their came a young
horseman on a third white horse, his purple cloak floating
soundlessly behind him on the wind.

Oisin asked Neamh who these persons were and where

they journeyed, but the golden-haired one warned him that
such questions were dangerous, and that it was better for
passers-by to ignore the phantoms they perceived on the
way to the Land of Youth. In the Land itself Oisin was the
hero in many adventures as his princess had promised: He
once rescued a beautiful maiden from the keep of an evil
Fomor and begat several male children by the princess of
that far land including the far-famed Plur na mBan, the
“Flower of Women.” After what seemed to him to be three
weeks of intensive sensual delights, Oisin expressed his
wish to be returned to Ireland so that he could visit his
father and his old comrades. Neamh agreed on the promise
that he would eventually return to the west, but she
cautioned him that things might not be exactly as he had
left them. With that she made him the loan of a white
horse, suggesting that he remain mounted while in the land
of men.

In that country he found nothing of the Feinn or the

world he had known and at last came to the suspicion that
several hundred years of time had elapsed in the east in
what had seemed to him less than a month. There, seeking
to help some workers remove a stone from a field, he fell
upon the earth, and immediately aged. In Christian versions
of the tale it was said that Oisin met and was entertained
by Saint Patrick but he was never converted to the new
religion, and presumably returned to Tir Tairnigri when he
died.

IMMRAM SNEDGUSS AGUS MEIC RIAGLA, “The Voyage of

Snedgus and mac Riagla.” which has been preserved in the
Yellow Book of Lecan dating from the fourteenth century but
is considered to date at least to the second half of the ninth
century.

In it, the men of Ross successful killed Fiacha mac

Domnaill righ “for his intolerable tyrannies.” All were
found guilty before the law and sixty couples were
sentenced to banishment as ringleaders of the uprising.
Two Christian monks, Snedgus and mac Riagla , sat as
judges but they were sympathetic to the cause of the men
whose fate was left “to the Great Ocean.”
 Afterwards they set out on a voluntary pilgrimage
following in the wake of the earlier curraghs. It is said that
they drifted north-west “in the outer ocean” and after three
days their thirst became almost intolerable. Christ took
pity on them and brought them into “a river within the sea,”
where the water had the taste and sustaining qualities of
tepid milk. Afterwards they visited many other islands, at
last reaching a landfall where they met people who spoke
Irish Gaelic.

Their first encounter was with a group of women who

sang to them and told them that many generations of Irish
considered this land home. They were eventually taken to
the court of the king of that place, and he received them
well asking their origin and mission. It was obvious that the
king had knowledge of the earlier civil war in Ireland for he
asked, “How goes it in Ireland, and how many of Domnaill’s
sons still live?” They answered that three remained, “but
Fiacha mac Domnaill fell by the men of Ross, and for that
deed sixty couples were banished to the seas.” The king
smiled and responded, “That is a true story: I am he who
killed the King of Tara’s son (i.e. Fiacha) and we are partly
those who were sent to sea. This action was well for us, for
we will stay here until Judgement Day, and be none the
worse for it, for this is a land without sin, without evil,
and without sinful desires. This island we live on has been
good to us, for it is the birthright of Elijah and Enoch.”
Thinking this place suited their needs the two clerics
remained presumably enjoying immortality in this western
retreat.

INA SPREACHAIBH NIMHE, “venomous sparks.” The effect of

a gisreag or fiery spell.

IN CATTAIB, among the Cats. The ancient people of

Sutherlandshire and modern Caithness. Shortened to
Cataibh, “Cat-devil.” This word is analogous to the Irish
Cat-raige, a “Cat-villain.” There are also references in
Irish literature to Inse Catt, an “Island of Cats,” which is
not geographically identified. Prior to the Norse invasions
the northeastern tip of Scotland was termed Cat-cape. The
modern Caith-ness shows the Norse influence in using ness,
a “neck” of land. In addition to Sutherlandshire and
Caithness there was also the district between the Ord of
Caithness and Dunrobin, once known as Machair Chat, the
“Lowlands of the Cats.” The high ground was Braigh Chat,
the “Upland of Cats,” and was described as lying on the two
sides of the River Shin. The Parish of Kildonan used to be
Dithreabh Chat, the “Wilderness of the Cats.” It is
sometimes said that the Cats entered Sutherland from
Caithness occupying all but Strathnaver and Assynt. They
are supposed to have been of Teutonic origin and to have
landed first in Moray where they served as mercenaries to
the folk in those parts. Notice that the Earls of Sutherland
accepted the title Morair Chat and portrayed a cat in
fighting posture above their arms. Notice also that the Kyle
of Sutherland was Caol Catach. The Norsemen regarded the
mainland Cats as a tribe of Picts and they referred to the
narrow sea north of their territory as Pettaland-fjorthr ,
the Pictland Firth, now called Pentland Firth. See catt.

IN ORCAIB, among the Orcs, or “Boars.” Having reference to

the Orkney Islands north of mailnad Scotland. Similarly
shortened to Orcaib and presently represented as Arcaibh.
The Latin Orcas was a name applied to the islands before
300 B.C so a Celtic boar-people must have been a presence
by that time. There is also Denork in Fife which derives
from Dun-orc, the “Fortress of the Boars.”

INDECH MAC DOMNANN. INDECH MAC DE DOMMNAND. A

Fomorian warrior, the son of the god Don, killed by Ogma at
the second Battle of Magh Tuireadh. As he lay wounded he
called for his personal poet Leat Glas, but the man could not
help him for Mhorrigan acted against the Fomorians, This
goddess of battle had promised to favour the Tuatha daoine
and it is said that she took Indech’s blood from him and gave
it to the enemy armies “from the full of her two hands.”
“She gave it all to those at the ford of Unius, which was
afterwards renamed the Ford of Destruction. “Indech son of
the goddess Domnu” has been described as “a man possessed
or arts and accomplishments.” These were undoubtedly of a
magical nature. His residence was the Western Islres of
Scotland, His mother was the tutelary divinity of these
islands and is distinct from, but parallel to, the land-
goddess Danu.

INGCÉL CÅECH The one-eyed son of the king of Britain.

Exiled by his father he joined Conaire Mor’s dissident foster
brothers and the Maines, who were the sons of Aillil and
Mebd. Together they raided and plundered both Britain and
Ireland. Their final raid was the totally illegal destruction
of Da Derga’s Hostel, where Conaire Mor ard-righ was slain.

INNE, genius, bowel, entrail, sewer, kennel, cf English

innards. Also those who dissected animals and men seeking
knowledge or omens from the condition of their innards.
Innrach, to curse.

INNIS, an island, sheltered valley, pasture land, a headland;

Ir. inis, pl. inisi, Cy. ynys, Cor. enys, Bry. enes, Lat. insula,
the Celt en-sti, “in-standing,” “standing in the sea.”

INNIS CATT, “The Isle of Cats. The ancient name given the
Shetlands. See cattaib.

INNIS CENN-FHINNE, the “Island of Caer of the Fair-hair.”

located somewhere in the western Atlantic. The undersea
“island” where the “Fair-Haired Women” sat doing
embroidery and borders when they were approached by Brian
the eldest son of Clann Tuireann. “He put on his water dress
and after a long time walking in the sea looking for the
island he came upon them. And among the other things they
possessed was a cooking spit which was part of his quest/
And when Brian saw it he took it up in his hand and he was
going to bring it with him to the door of the place. But the
women began laughing when they saw him doing that, and
here is what they said: “It is a brave deed you are
attempting; for even if your brothers were with you, the
least of these three times fifty women could wrestle that
spit from you. But for all that, take the spit of all spits
with you, since you had the daring to try in spite of what we
can do.”

INNIS EIGG, egg or ygg, conferring with eige, a web, the root
of figh, to weave, a word corresponding exactly with the
English witch. Notice also that Ygg is the Old Norse as well
as the Anglo-Saxon form for egg, and this was an eddaic
name for the god Odin, the chief of the wics and viks
(witches and wizards). "The "long theine" (tall fire) is
regularly seen off the Isle of Eigg (the inner Hebridean
island which must never be mentioned by name at sea; it
should be called (instead) Nem-Ban-More (The Island of
Great Women)." It is never wise to mention the name of any
god aloud as this brings his attention to the "petitioner."
Odin, in particular, was known to have a short temper with
men who called him without good reason.

INNIS FION, the Wine Island, Ir. fíon, Bry, gwin, the Lat.
vinum, from which vineyard, wine, winery etc., a mythic
Atlantic landfall encountered by most of the early Gaelic
explorers:

In the Imrama Maelduin it is mentioned that his

mariners came upon “an island where there were many
trees, very like willow or hazel, with a wonderful fruit on
them, much like apples or a wine-fruit, all having a large
thick shell; its juice was so intoxicating that Maelduin, who
sampled it, slept for a day and a night, and when he awoke,
advised his companions to gather all of this fruit they
could, for the world possessed no better drink.” The
soporific effect was so strong the juice had to be mixed
with water to adulterate its power over the mind.

Wine has a prominent place in other tales of

adventure, thus the mic Ua Corrae brothers (12th century)
arrived at an island where they were surprised to find a
stream of wine wandering through an oak forest. They drank
only a little of these dark waters but did consume “apples”
found growing on the banks of the stream, and afterwards
reported “feeling no war wounds, sickness, nor weariness
from travel.” Saint Brendan also came upon Lat. Insula
Uvarum, another “Wine Island,” where the hero intoxicated
himself by eating fruit and drinking from a dark-stained
stream. Fridtjof Nansen thought that classical tales of
similar places influenced the Irish, but the reverse is just
as probable. In any instance, he was also convinced that
the Gaelic island had to be related to the Old Norse Vinland
hit Gótha , which is now largely identified with costal
North America: “As Norway, and still more Iceland, were
closely connected in ancient days with Ireland, and as the
Norse literature in many ways shows traces of Irish
influence, one is disposed to think that idea of Wineland
may have first reached Iceland from that quarter.”

Nansen notes that one of the oldest source for a

comment on Vinland “the Good,” is Hauk’s Landnámabók
which relates the voyage of Are Mársson to Hvitramannaland
(White man’s land). Interestingly, he picked up the tale from
Ravn “Hlymreks-farer,” by way of Thorfinn, the Earl of
Orkney (1064), who in turn told some unidentified
Icelanders, who told Thorkel Gellison, who was,
coincidentally, Are’s uncle. This note says that Ravn was a
wanderer “who had long been at Limerick in Ireland.” As
for Hvitramannaland “which some call “Irland hit Mikla,”
(i.e. Ireland the Great) it was said to lie “westward in the
Atlantic close by “Vindland” the Good. It is reckoned to be
six “doegr’s” sail from Iceland.” In the Sturlubók, a similar
Atlantic island is alluded to as “Irland et Goda.” (Ireland
the Good). This has confused generations of readers as
“Irland et Mikla” appears directly before it. This seeming
repetition has been ascribed to “a copyists error,” but
Nansen thinks it more probable that two places are
indicated, the latter corresponding with “White man’s
land,” the former with “Vinland the Good:” so “Irland et
Gotha” may be a corresponding name for Wineland. (If so) we
should again be led to Ireland as the home of the name.”
Nansen has noted that “a combination of “hit gótha” with a
proper name is otherwise unknown (in Old Norse literature),
and points to Landit Gótha (Land of the Good or the Gods) as
the original form.”

The Gaelic equivalent would be Tir nan Uath, the “Land

of Dread,” which seems to fall back on the old Celtic god
named Heuz or Ugh. The Old Norse form is more comfortably
remote, and does not directly beg any unwanted attention
from this westerner. A similar line is followed in England
and Scotland where the fay-folk are openly called the “good
people,” the “good neighbours,” or “the people of peace.”

INNIS FLEODRADH, a floating island. Fleodradh, floating, is

peculiar to the Hebrides, fleodruinn, a float or buoy from
the Norse fljöta, the Eng. to float. Mythic western islands
which were unapproachable unless visited by fire or “cold
steel.” “On the coast of the English Channel sailors have
stories of floating islands, which many of them have seen
with their own eyes.” The most famous of these in the
western Atlantic was Hy Breasil. See Tir-fo-Tonn, the
“Land under the Waves.”.

According to the Eyrbyggja Saga the “White man’s

Land” was a forbidden place, like the island retreats of the
morganu, the occasionally virginal druidic priestesses. We
are reminded also of Mannann mac Ler’s Tir-nan-Og which
was hidden from all but the most persistent men. Manann’s
land was personally guarded by him and his sea-steeds and
was cloaked in fog, or was magically submerged, or floated
away when men attempted to approach. Remember that
Glith the “glittering island” of the Anglo-Saxons was also
seen only after men penetrated “a great darkness and mist.”
The islands possessed by the Daoine sidh were very
unstable places and some are referred to as the Innis
fleodradhe or “floating islands,” because of their un-rooted
condition.

These islands are represented in the Swedish island

of Sjóhaj or Flåjgland, which is also given as Smörland, and
is located near Gotland. The first word suggests a mirage at
sea, while the second comes from fluga, the English “to
fly,” in other words, that which drifts about, a floating land
or island. Today the second word has the reduced sense of
“looming from fog,” but it was probably once taken
literally. Smörland also has a counterpart in Gaelic in Tir
nan Smior, and the Norse form harks back to smör, grease ,
in particular butter, hence a fertile land. Many Scandinavian
place names tack this on as a laudatory prefix, and it is
seen in many Shetland names, for example Smeerin , the
“fertile pasture;” Smernadal, the “valley with the fat
pasture;” and Smeer-meadow. These all accentuate the
valuable qualities of the place or the property. Thus in one
of the sagas it is said of ancient Iceland that “it dripped
butter from every blade of grass.” Legends of islands or
even countries that disappeared or moved are widely
diffused and numerous.

In classical lore there is Delos, which was magically

fixed among the Cycades. The Baleric islands and the
Gorgades were of the same class as were the Hespirides.
There was also Perditia. The are obviously different from
the Spanish kingdom of Tartessos and oceanic Atlantis,
which sank below the waves never to reappear. Ireland
itself had an unstable reputation in ancient times and it
was said to have floated on the Atlantic during the World
Flood. At various times a floating island has been observed
rafting about among the Faroes, and no one has yet been able
to land on it.

There are many such islands about the coast of

Britain, and the English Channel is famous for these places
that “always fly away before ships,” on which men are
apparently not allowed to land. In Spanish folklore the best
known floating island is San Morondon. Sailors have said
that this islands are towed by the Devil, and that they host
“the souls of dead men who are damned and must stay there
until Judgement Day. One some of them terrible roars are
heard, and the meeting with such an island is considered a
sinister warning.” The concept of the vanishing island is
sometimes embodied in the Old Norse villulland, which
derives from Vili , the elemental god whose name means
“water.” The related villa has the sense of a mirage,
illusion or glamour. The fabulous island of Frisland is called
Villi-Skotland in one manuscript.

Nansen thinks this makes it Irland it Mikla since

“Scotland” was anciently the northern fraction of Ireland.
Are Mársson was one of the visitors to this illusive place,
which is apropos considering that his half-brother Kar was
the result of his mother’s four-night stand with an elf-man.
There are many such islands on the coast of Norway, and it
was often said that they only arose from the depths or
drifted into human sea-lanes at night or in thick fog. By the
light of day they always vanished. It was said that they
could made stable and visible by bringing fire upon them
(this element was antagonistic to water) or by bringing
man-made steel or iron upon them.

The huldrafolk disliked losing their undersea property

and often drowned the individual responsible for such an
act. To avoid direct responsibility men often tied some
metal object to an animal and then threw it from a boat so
that it was forced to seek out the mirage. This supposedly
explains why so many islands along the European coast bear
the names of animals. Remember that Ireland itself was
once named “Sow Island?” The animal chosen to do the deed
was quite often a pig, the sow being preferred over the boar.
This animal was of course symbolic of the sun-god, and its
landing on a fay-island was the equivalent of sending fire
ashore. There is also the point that the pig was the most
compact animal carried on long sea voyages. Where no
animal was available to act as a courier, a fiery arrow was
sometimes shot ashore, it being difficult for the fay-folk to
deduce who the archer had been. There are many Irish and
Scottish Innis Mucce and the same holds for Scandinavia,
where these “good-isles,” are seen bearing the designation
svinöi, “swine.” Thus it is confidently said that Svinöi (in
Nordland, Norway) came up, as well as Svinöi in the Faeroes,
and doubtless it was the same with Svinöi or Landegode in
Sunnmör. It was also through a sow that Tautra in
Trondhjemsfjord was raised...and even Oland in Limfjord
(Jutland) became visible through a sow with steel bound on
it.” Other islands were thought to have been brought to the
surface, or out of the mist, through the co-operation of a
horse, a cow or an ox. Gotland itself was said to have been a
fairyland raised by some such mechanism.

It is said that some fairy lands remain submerged

because they are beyond the swimming abilities of domestic
animals. The idea that animals may home in on the unseen
world or fertile land is also found in English and Scottish
mythology: The Macleods came upon their ancestral
homeland by following a black bull. Then there was the
Anglo-Saxon gentlemen named Glasteing “who went in
search of his dream-sow and followed her from Wellis by a
difficult and boggy path,” which is still known as “The
Sow’s Way.” Eventually he found her suckling her young
under an apple tree on a small island. Glasteing knew that
this was a fay-place and brought his family there to settle.
This island was later termed Glasteing’s town or
Glastynbury, and is sometimes said to be the site of the
mysterious land of Avallonia. The Somerset sow is equally
well known, and it is remembered for having eight legs like
Odin’s horse. The fact of its fouling upon elf-lands led to
their recovery by men. The sacred nature of the Anglo-
Saxon sow is shown in the fact that it was termed asa-
soge, literally, “Asa’s sow,” or “Odin’s sow.” These female
creatures obviously confer with the Walkyra or Nornr, who
are the Celtic Bafinne.

The lakes of Britain are even yet filled with sunken

fairylands, whose bustle is heard, even where they are not
seen. Giraldus Cambrensis (twelfth century) said that an
ocean island was always seen on especially clear days off
the west coast of Ireland, but vanished when people
attempted to reach it. At last a boat load of men came
within bowshot, put fire upon it and fixed the island in
space and time.

The most famous Gaelic island of this kind was Hy

Breasil which, we are told, “appears above the sea once in
every seventh year, resting there on the edge
 of the azure sea...it would stay up if one could but cast
fire on its strand.” Unapproachable islands are a part of
North American Indian mythology and some of the Great
Lakes tribes mention encountering mist enshrouded places
where they could hear the birds signing but could not make a
landfall no matter how hard they paddled. Again in Iroquois
myth it was said that the creator-god operated from “a
great island which floats in space.” Like all the “good-
lands,” this was a place of “eternal peace, where abundance
is such there are nor burdens to bear, where there is great
fertility so that every want is precluded.” This was a land
where there was “no desire, no sorrow, no pain to disturb
the unending peace.”

The suggestion is always made that this mythology

must depend on European models but there is absolutely no
evidence against exactly the opposite line of influence. In
the Bay of Fundy Isle Haut appears to be one of the floating
islands brought to some semblance of rest. At that, many
local mariners contend that it drifts with the tide, shows
magnetic anomalies, and even disappears in stormy weather.
Sebillot (1886) noted the presence of another such place:
“At Boston, in America, there is found a myth of an
enchanted green land (Green Isle invariable confers with Hy
Breasil) out in the sea to the east; it flies when anyone
approaches, and no white man can reach this island, which
is called “the island that flies.” An Indian, the last of his
tribe, saw it a few times before his death, and set out to
row to it, as he said to join the happy spirits. He
disappeared in a storm the like of which has never been
known, and after this the enchanted island was never seen
again.” Clearly some of these islands are true villuland or
“mirages” in the current sense of that word.

Donald S. Johnson thinks that the mythical island of

Buss, “discovered” by the Franklin Expedition, is in this
category, a part of Greenland or Iceland refracted into the
empty waters south east of these places. He notes that “the
thermal inversions (due to differing air and water
temperatures) which make low-lying islands and even
islands beyond the horizon appear as high mountains are not
limited to Arctic regions.” The Bay of Fundy, for example,
gets most of its water by way of the Labrador Current and
there are sometimes substantial differences between water
and air temperature. Johnson says he has seen “phantom
islands” while sailing in Maine waters.

The islands which are supposed to have been

“rescued” by men pose a different question, and we have
already suggested a partial answer earlier on: There has
been general oceanic flooding, there has been subsidence of
the ocean floor and there has been uplift and deposition. The
loss of Buss Island can hardly be blamed on recent flooding
as its charted place in the ocean is now almost a mile
below sea level. Further, there has been no known seismic
activity in that region to account for such massive
subsidence. On the other hand, Sable Island, south-east of
Nova Scotia, is very nearly a floating-island because of
weathering and erosion. As noted earlier, land can be
gained as well as lost, and the various “pig-islands” may
not be fabulous but represent depositional ridges in the
estuaries of rivers.

INNIS EUN, EUNLAITH “Bird Island,” the “Island of Birds.”

Celtic root pet, to fly. Latin. penna, wing, Eng. feather, Skr.
patati, to fly. EIr. enlaith. May confer with the personal
name Iain, Ian, Ion or Eoin, the last being the earliest form
of the name; the equivalent of the Eng. John. One of mythic
islands of the western Atlantic mentioned in virtually every
tale of travel in that direction.

INNIS FADA, FHADA. See earlier entry.

INNIS IAIN, IAN, ION, EÔIN, “John’s Island,” probably a

contraction of Eôghann, “sprung from Eô or Æsus (the god
Aod or Hu). His name is also seen in Eochaid, “Eô the
Traveller.” Conferring with ion, fit, not also ion- a prefix,
fit, almost perfect, god-like, thus iongantach, wonderful
and ionmhas, treasure. The name confers with Ewan,
Joanna, Joan and Jane. Cy. Jone, Fr. Jean, Jacques, It.
Giovanni, Sp. Juan, Port. João, Germ. Johann, Johannes, Hans,
Dan. Jan, Russ. Ivan. Diminished in Eng. as Johnny, Jack,
Jock, the latter used in a humorous or contemptuous
context. Used to indicate commonality thus a possible
connection with eunlaith, birds. Note the now uncommon
Eng. expressions: jack-of-all-trades, jack trot, a ne’er do
well, johnny raw, an inexperienced recruit, jack tar, jack-
o’-lanthorn, jack-o’-wisp, jack sauce, an impudent fellow,
jack’s island, no man’s land, also a mean fellow, jack
stripper, a card cheat; all indicating individuals, or things,
of low social worth or monetary value. Note the further
connection with the Roman god Jove whose L.L. gen. is
Djovis, which can be shown to compare with the
northwestern European god Deus, another form of the
continental Æsus. Obviously, a discredited deity although
his name is still seen regularly in Tues-day. Elsewhere this
god is shown to confer with the ON. Thor and with Tyrr, who
may be his dialectic double. Note that the Jove, or Jupiter,
resembled Thor in having charge of lightning and thunder.
From the European standpoint the Atlantic is often seen as
the source of thunder. Additionally, it was observed that the
sun-gods all sank into the western waters at dusk, thus it
was assumed that these deities must have had retreats
somewhere near, or perhaps below, the horizon.

We have seen “Jove’s Island” in a mid-Atlantic

position on at least one medieval map, but it seems to have
been pushed into a crook of the mainland of Maritime Canada
by 1525 when Wolfenbuttel charted this coast. There it is
given as Y. des: Juhan . Two years later the island has
drifted southward and is shown by Maggiola as sanctified
and feminized as Ia de. S. Joan. The Santa Cruz map shows it
south of Nova Scotia and represents it as Isl de S. Ivan. In
1555 La Testu has it as Ille sainct Jehan. For a very long
time it was located alternately north and south of Cape
Breton, which was then pictured as part of the mainland
rather than as an island. Finally the designation settled on
Prince Edward Island, until it was renamed after the
French-English wars. This place fits well with Gaelic myth
since the aboriginals regarded it as a “beginning place” and
said that a fountain of youth was located near
Charlottetown. See Tir nan Og, the “Land of Youth.”

INNIS MANNANN, the Isle of Manann or Isle of Man, in the

Irish Sea; note also Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy,
between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada. Manann
once carried the treasures of his sea-kingdom in a bag made
of crane-skin, and three of these birds guarded his land
retreats crying out to mariners: “Do not enter? keep away?
Pass by!” See Granda.

INNIS MUC, Island of the Pig, Scotland. Earlier in this

century the Rev. Alexander Fraser told of two local boys
who found a tin on the beach and were trying to break it
open when approached by two small boys wearing green
vests. They appeared to have landed from a tiny boat in
which the lads saw a sith woman and a dog “the size of a
rat.” She invited them aboard for a sail, but they refused
although they did accept samples of her “fairy-bread,”
which were walnut-sized. After making small-talk, the
little folk left by sea but promised to return at a later date.
The two boys were found by their sister sitting rock-still
gazing out to sea and were difficult to arouse from the
“trances” into which they seem to have fallen. See innis
mucce, muc.

INNIS OISGE, the Island of Sheep.; oisg, a sheep, a yearling

ewe. From EIr. oi, sheep + seasg, unproductive, sexually
immature, barren; relates to the Latin ovi-s. Almost all of
the Celtic ocean-going explorers touched down at a mythic
Atlantic island bearing this name. In the case of Maelduin it
is recorded that he came to a place which had a bronze wall
dividing one side of the island from the other. The sheep to
the left of the wall were all seen to be black in colour,
while those to the right were white. “Between them was a
big man who tended the flocks, and sometimes he put a
white sheep among the black, where it became black at
once, or a black sheep among the white, where it
immediately turned white.” Experimentally inclined,
Maelduin peeled the bark from a known magical tree and
used the white wand to touch a black sheep. Immediately
the wand turned black. and seeing that some arcane magical
spirits were loose on the island the mariners all fled back
to the ocean.

INNIS TILE. The Mir form of the Latinate Thule. Sometimes

identified with one of the Shetlands or with Iceland.
Dicuil, who was almost certainly speaking of the latter
island, said there once 300 Irish hermits there but added
that it was noew “empty of anchorites.” The soil of this
place had magical properties; if a man strood too long upon
it his feet became anchored in place. Three druidic kings
supposedly ruled Tile. Monach mor, who lived there, was the
son of Balbuadh and appears in literature as a founder of
Clan MacLeod

INNIS UAINE, uaine, green, cf. feur, In classical circles the

Atlantic Ocean was termed the “Circumambient Ocean.”
Later it became attached to the sea-giant named Atlas and
the Atlas Mountains which were thought to be his African
base. The Arab travellers termed it al-Bahr al-Atlasai . the
“Sea of the Atlas Mountains,” which is found contracted in
the English “Atlantic.” Metaphorically, it was Mare
Tenebrosum in the Latin language and Bahr al-Zulamat, in
Arabic, both indicating “The Sea of Darkness.” Anyone
observing the piled thunder-clouds on the horizon at the
mouth of the Mediterranean would think these designation
appropriate, but for European Christians tenebrosum
suggested evil and possibly invoked the infamous Prince of
Darkness. The Circumambient Ambient Ocean or All-
Encompassing Ocean seemed less threatening than its
analogue, “The Dark Sea,” or al Bahr al-Muzlim but the
expression “Green Sea” was far less propitious than some
writers have suggested. The Anglo-Saxon grene , confers
with growan, to “grow” and with the English words “grass”
” and “graze.” It therefore suggests productivity and good
things. Not so the Gaelic counterpart, uaine. The Celtic
root here is thought to be veg, to be wet, conferring with
the Gaelic feur, “grass,” the Latin vegeo , to “quicken,” and
the English words “vigour” and “vegetation.” This is also
close to the Latin uvidus, moist the Norse vekja, to be”
awake” and the English “wake” and “waken.” It can also be
show to have attachments to the English “vigil,” “wait,”
and “watch.”

None of this seems particularly dangerous, but wait a

bit: underlying all, is a deity whose name is best left
unspoken: She is Ur, Urie, Er or Ara who is obviously a
Fomorian sea-goddess. Her name continues in modern Gaelic
in ùr, fresh, new, “pure,” or green, in eur, refuse or waste,
and in àra a kidney. Her name is only tabooed in the
personal form and is seen in the combined form Mo-urie
which has given rise to such family names as Murray and
Mauray. The province of Moray, in northeastern Scotland,
which was formerly a seat of the Scottish kings, is named
for her and the male for is Mordunon which is “Merlin” in
English. Anciently she was a moon-goddess with a male
consort named a, the “Bald red-one,” the sun god Lugh.
Bull sacrifices, in his name, were made on Saint Mourie’s
Isle in Loch Maree, Scotland. It takes little genius to see
that Mo-urie is a form of Mhorrigan, the sometime virgin
goddess of the triad known as the Bafinn. It is a continuing
peculiarity of the Gaels that they will not openly use the
word uaine but substitute for it words having the sense
of ”grey” or “blue-grey” or “blue.” The Green Ocean is not
directly mentioned in their chronicles but on medieval
charts we see it identifying the ocean south of the
temperate zone or substituted for the Caledonian Ocean in
more northern waters. It is usually represented, in these
cases, in Romance languages which derive from Latin. Here
the root is perhaps ver, the “spring or spring time,” from
which the French vert, green or “verdant.” The word also
implies unseasoned, unripe, callow, raw, sour, sharp, hale
and hearty, indecorous, fresh and free. On Italian maps of
the period it is given as ye verd and something very like
this appears with other nationalities. In Celtic societies
green was the fay colour. In the Arthurian tales we are
introduced to Queen Guinevere, who is the May Queen or
Mebd, the mature form of the Mhorrigan. When she went “a-
maying,” she invariably advised her knights of the Round
Table to appear on the morning of the Beltane “well horsed
and dressed in green.”

For the pagans this colour symbolized recurrent youth

and resurrection or rebirth of the earth, the gods, men and
their kine. Nancy Arrowsmith has noted that a Dorset male-
witch state authoritatively in 1566, that “there be three
kinds of fairies, the black, the white, and the green, of
which the black be the worst.” Earlier on it is noted that
the druidic Mysteries the neophyte was elevated to full
status after he entered a trance state in which he
supposedly gained full consciousness of the world and all
its sub states. When he emerged in the world of men, this
attainment of full spirituality was symbolized when his
white linen albus was replaced with one of green. This
symbolized the spring of his rebirth into Mysteries in which
he is said to have experienced death and emerged from it as
a druidic initiate on the lowest rung of understanding.

In Masonry, which preserves some of these rites,

initiation used to be performed using green “as the symbol
of immutable nature, of truth and of victory (over death).”
The connection between this colour and the “unlucky”
Daoine sidh, who some say bartered away their befinne for
demons when they signed on with the Fomorian sea-gods,
appears in

various modern superstitions and taboos which are

associated with the colour: In Pubnico, Nova Scotia, it is
recorded that a local witch interfered with a dye-pot
making it impossible for a local woman to dry her wool
green. In each case when she dipped it the wool came out
red. She was told to place a white hot horse she in the next
pot-full to “singe the witch,” and after she tried this “a
great noise was heard rising to a great height,” and
afterwards her wool dyed properly without exception. No
distinction was made ever made between the human boabhe
, or “witch,” and the sithe. The chief tool of the witch was
the “green clew,” which is often referred to obliquely as
the “blue clew of witchcraft,” These were balls of thread,
and F. Marian McNeill speaks of having handled the
buineagean, “which once belonged to a Highland “wizard”
and were said to have been “worked” by him with dire
effect between the two World Wars. Though green in colour,
these are the “blew clews” of Lowland tradition. Again, the
fact that the colour was considered inimitable to human
interests in seen in this old saw: “Green Christmas, full
graveyard.” There is also the matter of homosexuality: In
the American they are often referred to as “fairies,” and
their “secret uniform,” in days past was coloured green. In
the Middle Ages green was considered the colour of
unrestrained sexuality. Thus, “to wear a green mantle,” as
Guinivere suggested, meant that one was bent on losing (or
re-losing) one’s virginity. This was particularly true at the
Beltane, or the May Day, or “Jack-O-Green” time in general.
The lady of the old ballad “Greensleeves,” was obviously of
easy virtue, and for the sleeve was considered a love-pledge
in medieval times and virginal white was preferred over
green.

The first banshee, or bean sith was Mhorrigan, who

became a tutelary spirit of the dead for her clan after she
died. As such, she was often referred to as the “Washer
Woman,” from her habit of washing the blood from the
shrouds of the men of her clan who were destined to die in
battle. She serves the Clan Mackay or Morgan by sometimes
appearing in this, or some totem form, to announce a pre-
destined death. Other less potent spirits hover about the
great families of the Firbolgs. The banshee is sometimes
said to stand in a middle position between the sithe and
mortal men, since she is often said to have been “a mortal
placed under an enchantment that gives her a fairy nature.”
In the Highlands she is sometimes called the glaistig, or
“grey-green-monster,” and here she is observed as a pan-
like creature, beautifully human from the waist up, a
female goat from there down. To hide this deformity she
wears a long green shift and is thus known as the
maighdeann uaine, or “Green Maiden.” In life the Green Lady,
or banshee, was usually a woman of high scruples and
honourable position if less than perfect morality. After
death she haunted the house, or castle, that she supervised
in life, and in death wandered the corridors and by-ways,
often putting things in order. When any great fortune or
misadventure was about to befall a household she let forth
cries of joy or lamentation. This was the torman mulaid, a
cry which could be of unearthly sweetness and melancholy.
Hugh Miller speaks of the Green Lady of Banffshire, “tall and
slim and wholly attired in green, with her face wrapped up
in the hood of her mantle, who haunted the grounds of the
castle where she had once been mistress.” Another of this
kind is tied to Ardblair, “a property given to the Blairs by
William of Lyon.” Stonehaven also has a Green Lady, in fact
“Green Ladies are so common that people (in Scotland) have
become quite accustomed to them, remarking only, “There
she goes again.”

The Green Island of Mhorrigan is common in Irish and

Gaelic waters and has been spotted in every latitude from
Cape Wrath to the southernmost tip of Cornwall. In Irish
tradition, Emain Albach is sometimes identified with Arran
and with Manann mac Ler and the Mhorrigan. In this case it
is a rescued isle, the forecourt to the Otherworld, a
gateway to the earthly paradises over the brink of the
horizon in the western ocean. McNeil has noted that “the
island paradise is confined to Celtic, and more particularly
to Gaelic mythology; whereas the subterranean Otherworld
is common to practically all European lands and races...One
theory is that the island is the early conception (for the
Gaels) and that after the introduction of Christianity the
gods retreated to the hollow hills.” The other recovered
green island is the huge mass of land now known as
Greenland. In the Historia Norwegiæ (thirteenth century) is
noted that the inhabitants were somewhat uncanny: “When
they are struck with weapons their wounds are white and do
not bleed, but when they fall dead the blood pours
unceasingly.” The Dane, Claudius Clavis (fifteenth century),
referred to the Greenlanders as “pygmies,” and said that
they were only a little more than two feet in height. This
same oddity was reported to Pope Nicholas V in 1450, it
being additionally noted that the residents were
underground beings “who hide themselves in the caves of
the country like ants. This mythical representation of the
Greenlanders, reminding us of tales of the Gaelic Tuatha
daoine, or “Northern people, is also forewarded by Olaus
Magnus (sixteenth century).” These incidents are
reminiscent of Maelduin’s troubles with mythic beings who
carried off three of his companions. Again in the Imraam
Brenaind mention is made of Brendon’s run-in with a
luchrupán who filled a beach of one island they visited and
took a particular interest in the crospan, the deformed
individual in their crew. Nansen has interpreted luchrupán
as “monkeys” but that is not the most direct translation,
more accurately it is luch+rá+bann, the “bullying crowd of
mice,” also called the “leprachauns,” or the “folk of Lugh.”
The designation “Greenland” has troubled historians who
note that land mass is not particularly verdant, but
climatologists have noted that the place was more
temperate when the Norse settled there. On the other hand
there is a minority opinion that the name derives from Old
Germanic models and ”comes from the inhabitants being
bluish-green in colour.” This is interesting because of
reports suggesting that some of the Daoine sidh were of
exactly this complexion. Nansen has said that “the
Skraelings (natives) of Greenland are called troll or
trollknour in the Icelandic narratives.” These are the trows
of northern Scotland, corresponding in most details with
the sithe. Professor Torp, a consultant to Nansen noticed
that the trolls, like the black elfs, were spoken of as svart ,
or “black” in complexion and character. But the word svart
really implies something which is “blue-black,” and this is
“an uncanny colour, a common Germanic trait; cf. Rolf Blue-
beard (an infamous murderer and magician).”

Here again the blue means green. The fate of the

“green people” of Greenland is not known but possibly they
moved westward in the face of Norse occupation of their
lands. In the mid- sixteenth century, Green Island
(sometimes entitled Grass Island) started to appear on
charts and maps. Several historians suggest that the
designation is interchangeable with Hy Breasil, in which
case it may confer ultimately with present-day Cape Breton
Island or mainland Nova Scotia. On the Gestaldi map of 1548
it is represented as ye verdi and is positioned due south of
or bellandi and the Labrador coast, somewhat west of a
scattering of islands which seem to represent a fragmented
Newfoundland. In 1564 we see it as y da grasa and this
time it is southwest of Newfoundland on the Grand Banks.
Eleven years later, Zalterrius has it as verde and has
tucked it into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence between
Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island. By the following
century this mythological island was a non-entity.

INNIS NA’ OIGHE, “Island of Virgins,” Ir. óigh, EIr. óg, uag,
from the root aug, capable of increase, pure and fresh,
unused. Oigheam, obedience, homage. Mariners who
journeyed into the western Atlantic frequently found
islands entirely peopled by virgin females. Notice that the
novitiates of the goddess Mhorrigan lived alone on sea
islands and it was claimed that their prophetic powers
were directly linked to their physical state.

Maleduin failed in his ambition to seduce one of these

sea-maidens, but they were not beyond blandishments since
their virginity was renewable on an annual basis at the time
of the Beltane. When Maelduin and his men finally arrived at
Eilean ma’ Ban, the “Island of Women,” he was more
enthusiastically received at a feast where “each man had a
maiden sitting over against him.” In this instance the queen
of the island explained that the seventeen virgins were her
daughters by her husband, who had formerly been king of the
island. The voyagers remained on this Atlantic island
“through the four months of winter, but at the end of that
time it seemed to them they had been in one place for four
years, and they wearied of it and wanted to journey on.” The
former virgins were not so anxious to have their lovers
depart and the queen used magical tricks to prevent their
escape when they first attempted to leave the country. On a
second try the queen threw a magical rope at the ship as it
left its mooring. A crewman could not help but catch it and
they might have been reeled in a second time but Maelduin
reacted quickly and cut off the man’s hand so that they
could make their escape from this land of eternal youth and
boredom.

The story of islands populated by virginal ladies

carried over into the medieval romances. In the mid fifth
century Europe was troubled by the Mongols led by Atilla
and his Huns. A writer of the period said they appeared
“more hideous than demons,” and were “licentious to some
degree.” The Huns were ejected from Italy by 450 A.D., and
soon after some of them set about the conquest of Gaul.
They were again defeated by a combined army of Goths,
Visgoths and Franks operating under the expertise of a
Roman named Aetius. The Huns were forced to retreat
through Belgium, and crossed at last into Thuringia,
Germany by way of Cologne, on the river Rhine. The Britons
chasing a band of these same people from the islands
chanced on the Huns at this place in 451. The collision of
the Celts and the Mongols resulted in a massacre of
innocent citizens that is almost certainly the basis for the
legend of Saint Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins.
Ursula is supposed to have been the daughter of Maurus a
Gaullish king of France.

The fame of this lady as a beauty, a wit and a devoted

Christian had spread to the realm of the Brythonic court in
England. The English king wanted Ursula to marry his son,
who happened to be a thorough pagan. The young woman
would have rejected the betrothal except that she and her
father feared reprisals from the British Celts. At last
Ursula agreed to a union in which the dowry was to be “ten
fair and noble companions of like age to myself,
accompanied each by a thousand virgin handmaidens, They
will travel to Gaul in eleven ships, and if my terms are met
I will wed three years hence.” Ursula was certain that
these terms could not be met, but assured her father it
mattered little since ”none on earth can change the will of
the Divine goodness which has marked my lot.” Her father
was uncertain what she meant by this, but was glad of the
delay, hoping that the groom-to-be might convert to
Christianity or lose interest in Ursula during the three year
cooling-off period. As it happened the dowry was paid
almost immediately and Ursula decided to spend her time
of respite on a holy pilgrimage and to this end learned the
crafts of seamanship.

Travelling first into the Atlantic, the fleet was

scattered by storms so that Ursula and her companions were
forced to spend time “on strange islands amidst barbarous
people.” We are not told how the women protected their
virtue, but it was intact when storms travelling out of the
southwest blew them to the port of Tiel at the mouth of the
Rhine. From here, they sailed up the river to Cologne and
here an angel advised Ursula to travel to Rome for a meeting
with the Pope. The fleet proceeded upriver into the Alps,
and the maidens disembarked travelling on foot to the
Eternal City. After making a tour of the tombs of the
apostles, the girls went back to Cologne, their entourage
now including Pope Cyriacus. The Emperor at Rome had been
ambivalent about the visit of Ursula to his state fearing
that her advocacy of Christianity might dislodge the pagan
religion. He therefore hired the retreating Huns to slaughter
the pesky virgins. When the virgins re-entered Cologne they
were met by these mercenaries who came upon them “like
wolves raging among sheep.” The eleven thousand were all
slain without yielding to rapine but the huns spared Ursula
hoping she might espouse their chief. When she proved
unreceptive to his sexual advances, Atilla shot an arrow
into her heart.

After the heathens were exhausted from their bloody

work angels appeared and routed them. The bodies of the
martyred virgins were buried near the gates of Cologne and
a small basilica erected in their memory. Ursula herself
became a full-fledged saint and was received directly into
heaven. The story was generally taken as a fable until
excavations at Colonia Agrippina turned up human bones in
the year 1183. Since these were recovered near the gates
of Cologne they satisfied a lust for holy relics, and a brisk
trade in bone fragments lasted well into the fourteenth
century.

The veneration of St. Ursula continued and then

plunged in the sixteenth century. Ursuline convents were
established but the legend was rejected by Protestants, and
the Catholic Church dropped her feast day in 1969. The
tales of St. Ursula’s unintended voyages into the western
Atlantic travelled with Christopher Columbus when he first
wandered among the islands of the West Indies. On his
second voyage he named fifty islands, among them San Juan
Batista (now Puerto Rico) and the more easterly islands
which he called Sta. Ursula y los xi mil Virgines, which we
now know as the Virgin Islands. Columbus had a strong link
with the legend since his home town of Genoa was also the
abode of Jacobus de Voragine, the author of The Golden
Legend, one of the earliest books to immortalize the travels
of this Celtic heroine. References to winter weather in the
pagan tales of the Island or Islands of the Virgins make it
clear that it must actually have been sited somewhat north
of Puerto Rico!

Later map makers placed it close in against the

shoreline of what we now known as Newfoundland. In the
Reinel map of 1521 these islands appear a little northwest
of Cape Race, scattered along the south and west shore of
the larger island. Here they are entitled as Omze myll
virgês. On the Maggiola map of 1527 we see them referred
to as Onze Mil Virgines and on the Rotz map (1535) as.
Virges, presumably an abbreviated form for the “Isles of
the sainted Virgins.” Santa Cruz (1541) has them as Xj
Vrvirgines, but they have the more pagan assignment of I:
de plaisance within the Morgan Atlas (1542). They are
represented as islands within an atoll by Gulierrez in 1550,
and named onze myl virgenes. La Testu has varied the
spelling as les Vierges in 1555 and they are still charted by
Plancius as late as 1593. It is our view that they now
represented in the offshore islands of St, Pierre and
Miquelon, names which appeared in the following century.
IOBA, pl. IOBANNAN, tricks, incantations, similar to ubag, a
charm. Ir. uptha or upadh, a sorcerer, OIr. upta, to fascinate
or hold in thrall, Manx obec, sorcery, from ob+ba+t, from ba,
to speak, hurt, touch. G. ud+bad, to “out-speak.”

IOBAIRT, an offering, a sacrifice. an act of sorcery. Cf. ioba.

IOC (eechk), medicine, pay, remedy, iocshlaint, cure, salve,

remedy, EIr. icaim, to heal for pay. Note that the Gaels held
that a spell was ineffectual unless paid for in kind or with
silver.

IODHAL, image of a god, from Latin idolum, the Eng. idol. The
Celtic gods have been represented in bronze, stone and
wood, and it is now known that pre-Roman wooden
statuettes were commonplace. Lucan mentioned a forest-
sanctuary near Massalia, violated and destroyed by Julius
Caesar: “There are dark springs running there, and grim-
faced gods uncouthly hewn by the axe from untrimmed tree-
trunks, rotted to a startling whiteness.” Similarly Gildas,
writing of sixth century Britain deplored the “grotesque,
stiff and savage” wooden sculptures he found in similar
quiet groves.

IODRAMACHD, the transmutation of matter, enchantment, to

switch one idea for another, the black school of magic. See
sgoil dubh.

IOLLAN. The son of Fergus mac Roth, He carried Conchobhar

mac Nessa’s pardon to Deirdre and the sons of Usna. While
Iollan was guarding them in the Red Branch hostel at Emain
Macha, Conchobhar went against his promise and sent out
assassins. He was thus killed by “friendly fire.”

IOLP, possession of the sixth sense, iolp. many. Having

many senses. The ability to perceive the past, the future or
distant events was thought of as a "sixth" sense. Iolp-
phosadh, having many wives, polygamy, and needing all one’s
senses.
IONN DRAIN CUAIN, sea-longing; ionn, a negative prefix
against, denoting an unalterable condition or situation. Thus
Scottish islanders divorced to the mainland pined “for one
glimpse of the Western Ocean.” It was considered that the
clans of the coasts and islands had sea-blood which they did
ill to ignore. “The sea invites acquaintence, out out of it
comes friendship, and thid friendship is much stronger than
fear of the spirits of death. The sea for its part can be
generous, but rough.” Many Barra fisherman entitle the
Ocean cuile Mhoire, Virgin Mary’s Treasury. But the sea is
known to have custody of those dead within her, and the
Gael always buried those washed ashore as close to the
high-water mark as they dared. In fact it was prayed that
the Ocean should “recover her own.” The failure to observe
this nicety is supposed to have led to a memorable flood of
the Hebrides, when Cailleach bheurr rushed ashore to claim
her own. The people of North Uist claim to have seen the
death barge come into their waters, approaching the Temple
of the Trinity, where the sea-dead are interred. They claim
to have seen crews from the Otherworld unearth newly-
made graves and carry off the bodies of men who have died
at sea. It is said that the gifted can read the sounds of the
ocean. “The Western Ocean alone speaks the Gaelic tongue.
To an Islesman the German Ocean seems cold and dumb; it
has no mermaids and no second sight; and if it has seals
they are not the children of the king of Lochlann... deep ever
calleth unto deep.”

IORUAIDHE. A kingdom whose ruler kept the whelp-hound

named Fáil Inis, who was invincible in battle. In reparation
for killing Lugh’s father the Tuireen brothers were given the
hard task of bringing this animal alive to Ireland. The King
of the Island of Pillars (Manann mac Ler) went an extra mile
behalf of the Tureens, accompanying them to the Island of
the Dog, where he promised to persuade this brother-
monarch, the king of Ioruiadh to surrender the black dog
that guarded his keep. He noted that his daughter was
married to this king and would probably prove agreeable.
This was not to be, the owner struck down his “insolent”
father-in-law, and fought the Turenns. Again they
triumphed, made peace with this monarch of that far land
and took the dog. This creature has to be Coinn Iothair, the
“weasel-dog of the high corn yard,” a creature otherwise
known as Aog, the “guest,” a seeker after the souls of the
dead. He was the gate-guard of Cromm the Crooked, the
alter-ego of the sun-god Lugh. There is also little doubt
that he corresponds with the Norse dog-god named Garm,
the constant companion of the death-goddess Hel. “Beside
Hel-gate, stood the fierce, blood-stained dog, cowering at
times in a dark hole known as the Gnipa cave. This
monster’s rage could only be appeased by offering a Hel-
cake, which never failed those (of the dead) who had given
bread (in life) to the needy.” As Nifhelheim traditionally
located near Baffin Island, in the Canadian arctic, it may be
presumed that Coinn Iothair was borrowed from this realm.

IOLLAN MAC FERGHAS, the Fair. He accompanied his father

Ferghas mac Roth and his brother Buinne the Ruthless to
Alba tendering Conchobhar mac Nessa’s promise of clemency
to Deirdre and the sons of Usna. Bach in Ireland these two
brothers guarded the former exiles at the Red Branch hostel
at Emain Macha. Conchobhar had no intention of forgiving
Naoise for his elopment with the girl who might have been
his bride and ordered them killed. At first Buinne and Iollan
defended them, but the former was bribed to cease fighting.
Iollan continued the battle rushing out to meet, and wound,
Fiachra mac Conchobhar. Fiachra carried his fathers shield
which moaned when the bearer was in mortal danger and
Conall Cearnach, hearing it, rushed up and mortally wounded
Iollan. The latter survived long enough to tell Conall of the
high-king’s treachery and enraged the latter slew Fiachra. It
is noteworthy that Iollan and Fiachra were magically bound
by the fact that they shared the same birth-date.

IOMADAN, a concurrence of disasters.lamentation, mourning.

Ill luck was said to come in triads. This idea probably
related to the fact that the deities were tri-partite.

IOMADH CUR. “many turns.” A means of determining the sex

of a curser or spell-caster. Experts claimed that it was
always possible to determine whether the evil eye
originated with a man or a woman by seeking the
significant imoadh cur, the many turns in the evil-doer’s
dark wily heart. As we note elsewhere antidotes to the evil
eye could only be passed from male to female, and female to
male, in following generations. To initiate a cure some
healers took water from a stream “where the dead and the
living both pass.” When the medicine man returned to his
patient a gold ring, a bit of silver and copper was
sometimes placed within a wooden ladle and water drawn. A
pagan or Christian incantation was then recited in a
measured voice, the name of the sufferer and the effect
expected being mentioned somewhere near the conclusion of
words. After this the ladle was turned over and if the
copper in it adhered to the wood the party responsible for
the evil eye was known to be a man. If the precious metals
adhered the evil one was observed as a woman. Female
baobhe insisted that if men’s hearts were laid bare they
would be seen to have more convolutions, and evil twists
and turns than those of women.

ION, obs. Image, The Sun, A Circle. Note several following.

IONA, ionad, place, room, abode, sanctuary, an island in the

West Isles of Scotland. Shave guessed that it was named
after the Hebrew Iona, a “Dove,” since St. Columba who
installed a Christian monastery there was nicknamed
Colum, a “Dove.” His birth-name Crimmhann, a “Wolf” being
thought inappropriateas a name for his mission.

The island was always a religious shrine, but the

earliest form for it was Ioua, and this was the name used
in pre-Christain times when the island wasalso identified
identified as Innis nan Druinidh, the “Island of the Druids.”
The exact meaning of iona is lost but it may refer to the
feminine genitive plural of the Irish Gaelicionadh, which is
given as ionai, “her wonder; her surprise.” conferring with
ionad, a “place.” The word may be broken down into roots
which suggest something on the line of “not commonplace.”
 At the northern end of Iona there are ruins of a dun
just north of the Ridge of Courcil. “The Well of Eternal
Youth is on the north slope and it is said that if a woman
bathes her face and hands in it before sunrise she will
become young again...This is an interesting remnant of the
days before Columba when the people worshipped the sun
(Aod or Lugh) and an unknown God. It is often supposed that
this god lived in water (since he went into the western
ocean each night), so that fountains and wells were
considered sacred, and thought to contain magical powers...”
A quarter of a mile north-east there is a similar well which
was formerly approached by sailors seeking to buy winds to
move their ships.

ION-GOR, ion, almost perfect, god-like, a prefix denoting

fitness, iongnadh, a wonder, that which is in-gnath, “not
wont,” unusual, out of the ordinary. Gorm, blue-green (the
fay colour) from the root gor, warm (colour), goir, a crow,
the cry of a crow, Eng. garrulous, also gar, warm, and gàir,
to laugh, Skr. has, to laugh. The god of “laughter in the
sky,” conferring with Tar or Tor, the ON. Thor. He is related
with the G. Iubhair, the “tall stately woman,” whose spirit
rested at the summit of the yew-tree. Ion matches Eo as
seen in Eogan, and this is the Celtic Æsu-gen, “born of
Æsus, the Gaelic god Huisdean, or Old Hugh. Ion-Gor
therefore disassembles into Thor-Hugh, the Gaelic Tor-Aod.
See Iubhair.

ION-MHAS, treasure. Perhaps connected with indbas,

wealth. Treasure was protected by the cowalker of an
individual who has agreed (implicitly or explicitly) to his
own death. This created the lambent light which used to be
seen about the tomb of dead heroes, who were buried with
their valuables. The cowalker usually became discouraged
by the dreary work of chasing off treasure-seekers and
often sought liberation by giving living men clues to its
location through visions or dreams. At that, his contract
demanded that he do everything possible to protect the
horde. He had no power over treasure-seekers unless they
spoke, or made loud sounds. All such acts enabled him to
materialize a body which could do physical damage.

IOL. many

IOLDANA. a philosopher, iol + dan, many + fates. The latter

word has connections with the pagan goddess Danu.

IOL-DANNSA, a ball, promiscuous, country-dance.

IOLNUALL, Juulvater, the Father of the Yule (Yell). iol,

many; nuall, a howling cry; Irish nuaill; Anglo-Norman,
noel; the Skr. nu, a cry. Old High German, niumo, a cry of
praise and rejoicing aimed at the Allfather. The original
father of the Yule was Thor. Also, a steward of Quarter-Day
activities.

IORRAM, the "at oar song", a boat-song. While easing the

tedium of rowing this song was also thought to
supernaturally speed the craft. Thus Manann mac Ler was
often pictured as singing his ship forward even without the
use of oars.

IOSA, Jesus Christ. Ios, up from below, resurrected,

reincarnated.

IR, squirrel, obs. anger, satire, a druidic lampoon.

IR, obs. “Gift,” one of the children of Mil, lost at sea in the
Milesian invasion of Ireland. His people were deeded the
northeastern corner of Ireland which came to be called
Ulster. They were the Scots, who later migrated to Dalriada
and created Scotland. When the Norse first invaded Ireland
they encountered these Ir-landers, and thus the name
became attached to the entire island. Even after the Scots
were pushed out of Lat. Scotia Major they were referred to
as the Irelanders and their langauge is still termed "Irse" or
"Erse," the Scottish variant of Gaelic.

IR-CHIULLACH, a monster, ir, angry + cullach, a boar, a male

cat, stallion, polecat.
IRE, state of maturity, The Earth personified.

IREANN, IRNAN, patriarchal woman, mother of a race of

people; ire, obs. The Ground, The Earth, field, soil, also
ravage, plunder, pull out by the roots. This word combines
ire with ann, a circle or revolution, within, therein. Confers
with the goddess Anu. See next.

IRIRE, obs. a curse, a malediction, rage, anger.

IRIÉL FÅITH, an alternate name for the god Nuada. Possibly

iris, lover of faith, heat, warmth.

IRIS, obs. Friend, lover, assignation of lovers, law, faith,

rterligion, epoch, era, brass.

IRNAN, one of three sorceresses who dwelt within Dún

Conaran. It was she who spun a magic web that entangled
some of the Feinn. When Goll mac Morna arrived on site he
killed two of the sisters and threatened the third, who
agreed to release her hostages. As they were being released
this beansith managed to chant a geis which demanded that
a warrior meet her in single combat before the agreement
could be consummated. Goll fought and killed the witch and
was rewarded by being given Fionn’s daughter in marriage.
This lady and her sisters confer with the Anglo-Saxon
goddess Irenasaxa and with the Gaelic Bafinn. See Tri
Peathraichean coimbeac.

IRT, Death

IRUSAN. A giant cat that dwelt in the underworld near

Knowth on Boyne. See cat.

ITEODH, poison hemlock, opium, ite + odhar, feather + dark.

One of the plants favoured in the creation of black magical
potions. Others were the nightshade and foxglove.

ITH, Eat, the “Hungry-one,” or possibly the “Fat One,” the

son of Bregan and uncle of Mil, the latter the namesake of
the “Milesian” race. Ith was the first of the modern "Irish"
to visit Ireland, "that lofty isle far away," which he
perceived in a dream-trance from the towers of his redoubt
in “Spain.” The three kings of the Tuatha daoine had him put
to death for publicizing their kingdom, a fact that led to the
Tuathan-Milesian war.

IUBHAN, the king of Faylinn. Visiting Ulster “the land of

giants,” he was made hostage, but was released when he
used his magic to inconvenience his host. Eboudai. this
word is considered pre-Celtic and of uncertain meaning,
but is thought to correspond with the later Irish, Ibdaig,
“men of Ibda.” note that the early Ebudognaos was the
personal name Iubdan,
“borne by the king of an overseas Country of dwarfs, whose
adventures in Ireland are told in the tale of “the Death of
Fergus” in Silva Gadelica.”” (William Watson, p. 38).
Ptolmey suggsted that these islands were five in number:
“The furtherest west is called Ebouda (or Aibiouda). The
next to it is also Ebouda. After Rhicina then Malaios, then
Epidion.” Pliny said they were “two days sail from the
promontory of Caledonis and seven days and nights from the
Orchades.” Since we are not sure what promontory was
referred to, this not a large help in locating the isles.
Malaois is theough to be Mull. This being true, Epidion is
probably Islay but the others atre very problematic.

IUBHAR, IUBARHRAICH, yew, "the service tree." See I +

bharr, “she who is on the topmost branch, the Summer-
goddess.” Bârr, top, OIr. barr, ON. barr, pine needles, AS.
byrst, Eng. burst. Lat. fastiguim, top, Skr. bhrshti, coming to
a point. Hence G. barrachd, over-blown. I confers with iolair,
the high eagle, who is Lugh the sometime mate of Mhorrigan
the summer-goddess. Note also ion, “almost perfect,” god-
like. A cult of the yew was said to have been situated at
Iona. Macbain does not believe that the word can be tied to
the English “yew” in any linguistic way. Similar, however
to the Gaelic iubrach, the mythic boat of Fergus mac Ro in
the Deirdre story. It was made of yew wood. This same
word used to describe a stately woman. St. Columba is said
to have put the run to the druids who worshipped the trees
of Iona. Note that the anti-cancer drug known as Taxol
derives from the twigs and needles of the European yew
(Taxus baccata). It was first isolated from the Pacific yew
when the National Cancer Institute at Bethesda, Maryland,
when thousands of plants were evaluated as anti-cancer
agents in the years 1950-1980. The extract was found to be
cytotoxic against a broad range of tumours including some
of the leukemias, carcinosarcoma, sarcoma and lung
cancers. See Ion-gor.

IUCHAR, (chuch-ar), July, a key, opening, to spawn, whence

the Lat. pecu, cattle and the Eng. fee. EIr. euchuir, opening.
This is the lightly disguised name of the Old Norse god
Lokki, (whose name may also be translated as Key) the god
of underground fire,patron of the south wind and heat-
lighting. Iuchar na seachdain, a name for di-luain, “Monday,”
the “key of the week,” and a very lucky day for the
activities of men. Also note Iuchar, the second “son” of
Tuireann (Thor). See Brian. Note also iuchar, the “Dog
Days,” a period of from four to six weeks, variously placed
between early July and early September. Classically called
the canicular days, and anciently reckoned by the
appearance of the Dog Star (Sirius) and the sun in the same
quarter of the sky. Popularly, the period of "dead" sultry
weather at the end of summer. The phenomena does not
occur at the same time in all latitudes, and changes in a
given region, over time, due to the progression of the stars.
In Britain it was marked at July 6 in the year 1660, but by
1752 had to be put forward to July 30. Since then, the Dog
Days have been counted as an event taking place in the fall.
It was held that iuchar was the time when dogs were likely
to go mad as their spiritual namesake was too close to the
sun-god. This was also observed to be a period of plague
and general unrest. When the Dog Days occur after the
Samhain (Nov. 1) they were frequently referred to as "Luke's
(i.e. Lokki's) Summer;" this being the equivalent of our own
"Indian Summer." In Norse mythology note that wolf-dogs
are in constant pursuit of the sun and the moon, and their
attempts to swallow it were thought to produce eclipses.
Nevertheless, notice the Gaelic saying: “Saturday’s flitting
by North, but Monday is by South; Had I but lamb to move,
“tis on Monday I would go.”

IUCHARBA. The third son of Tuireann (Thor) and hence Lokki.

See above note.

IUL. IUIL, an arrow, obs. July, the month. Now: a land mark
at sea, a guide or course. Iulaigh, obs. a leader of men.

IULG, any physical quantity characterized as having motion

and direction. Druidical analyses of scalar and vector
quantities.

IUTHARN, hell; a side-form of ifhern, described in Christian

mythology but having no place in pagan theology.