PREFACE

Modern historians assume that their art is truthful. In earlier days,

history was less certain, being identified as "any narrative of events
connected with a real or imaginary object, person, or career." History was
a Norman word introduced into England after the Conquest in 1066. It
springs from the Old French "estoire", borrowed from the Latin "historia".
Story, which is obviously a related word, is now used for fictions; history
being reserved to weightier subjects. In earlier times, the Normans
described a total fiction as a "fable", the equal of the Anglo Saxon "tall
tale", and the Gaelic "naidheachdan fada thall" (a long and tall story, i.e
lengthy as well as implausable). The latter races, assumed that tales that
were not prefixed as being dishonest were essentially true.

The following history is based on myths and legends (two more Old
French words). Legends recount the adventures of people, while myths
examine the doings of gods. The Anglo-Saxons lacked synonymous words
because they thought that gods were simply physically or intellectually
superior men. The Celts and Anglo-Saxons were oral peoples, whose
traditions and histories were passed from one generation to another
through senachies and bards, individuals who used poetic form as a means
of remembering complex stories. In Anglo-Norman times, the written
word supplanted these interpretations of the past. For a very long time
after the Conquest unwritten tales were denigrated as the inferior
superstitions of defeated peoples.

It has only lately been suggested that myths and legends represent
"unverifiable history". As Irish historian Seumas MacManus has said: "The
fact that myths grow around great people must not lead us to conclude
that the people were mythical." Again, Dr. Douglas Hyde has suggested:
"The numerous annals in which the skeleton of Irish history is contained
are valuable and ancient (in spite of the fact that they were verbal hand-
me-downs). We have no outside testimony by which we can verify their
statements, but there is an abundance of internal testimony..." As an
example he speaks of the Annals of Ulster, first recorded in 444, which
refer to dated natural events, eclipses, the passage of comets and
earthquakes, all shown scientifically coincident "to the hour and the day."
Hyde reasons that instances of truth suggest general believability.
MacManus also argues for the veracity of the "senachie", or Gaelic
historian: "We know that the senachie and the poet were honoured next to
the king, because of the tremendous value the people set upon recording
and preserving their history. (Both) took advantage of their artistic
privelege to colour their narratives...but it was with the details that they
were granted this liberty. The big essential facts had to remain
unaltered."
Our use of "hyperborean" revives another Norman word, which
approximates the Anglo-Saxon "treowe nord", the English "true north". We
have preferred to speak of the hyperborean world because it connotates
people rather than a mere place. The Old French confiscated Latin and
Greek forms of the word. The original Greek combined "hyper" with
"boreal", the first indicating "over or beyond"; the second, indicating
Apollo, god of the wind and messenger of the gods. The southern Greeks
understood hyperborean as descriptive of the worshippers of Apollo,
northern Greeks or Macedonian tribesmen. In English, the shortened
boreas, still respresents the north wind personified, while boreal is
anything pertaining to the north.

The Greeks considered the original hyberboreans to be the oldest

race on earth, "joyous and virtuous, free of disease, blessed by peace, and
normally living in excess of one thousand years". Their hyperborea was a
region of "perpetual warmth and sunshine with fields so fertile they yield
double harvests." Nevertheless, both Herodotus and Pliny mentioned that
the atmosphere was sometimes filled with falling "feathers", suggesting
this north-land was within the snow-belt. Such allusions may have led
Virgil to relocate hyerborea in the vicinity of the North Pole. Earlier
writers had noted that the north-lands were inaccessible by land or sea
and this appeared true of the place the Greek geographer Strabo called
Thule. Commenting on the voyages of a countryman named Pythias, who
lived about 300 B.C., Strabo said that the mariner had explored a very
strange place which "neither earth, water nor air" but a substance in
which all seems "suspended".

As European chart-makers had no single word to decribe the North

Atlantic surround they revived hyperborea as a collective for all the
northernly lands of the New World and the Old. Biographers had a tendancy
to limit use of the word to terrestial and mountainous parts of the globe
surrounding the "Mara Glaciale" (Frozen Sea), but geographers redefined it
as "all parts of Europe and America, facing on the Atlantic Ocean, where
the mean temperature never exceeeds 18 deegrees centigrade (64.4 F). A
little later, when the Atlantic lands were more fully explored, this use
fell away and hyperborean was used to name the arctic people of eastern
Siberia, Canada and Greenland. The name Thule was similarly given to less
general use, describing an Innu culture that flourished in the region
between 1000 and 1900 A.D. The fifth Thule Expedition, led by Knud
Rasmussen established a trading and scientific station on the northwest
coast of Greenland in 1910, and that coast has since been called Thule.

The land of "feathers" is usually a place of grim reality, but the

legend of hidden lands of heat has survived since classical times and some
strange observations have been made over the years. Robert E. Peary,
travelling in the Arctic in 1899 spotted a mountainous island laying
northwest of Ellesmere Island. He surveyed and charted it, and named it
after Morris K. Jesup, the New York backer of his expedition. There is
absolutely nothing but ice-pack northwest of Ellesmere.

The American explorer Frederick A. Cooke claimed to have attained

the Pole on April 21, 1908. Once there he saw what he hoped were
mirages: "Peaks of snow were transformed into volcanoes belching smoke;
out of the mist rose marvellous cities with strange castles; in the clouds
waved golden pennants from pinnacles and domes of many-coloured
splendour. Huge creatures, misshapen and grotesque, writhed along the
horizon and performed amusing antics. Beginning now, and rarely absent,
these spectral denizens of the North accompanied us during the entire
journey. Later, when fagged of brain and sapped of bodily strength, I felt
my mind swimming in a sea of half-conciousness, they filled me almost
with horror, impressing me as do the monsters one sees in a nightmare."

This was wind and frost magic, well known to many of our kind.
Thoreau said that snowflakes were surely the chariot wheels which fell
from winter battles in the sky. Much earlier the frost-giants withheld
summer from northern Europe until they were assaulted by Thor, Odin,
Baldur and his kin, and half of the year was assigned to gentler spirits.
There is a similar myth in eastern North America, where Glooscap
arranged a marriage between the giant of winter and the giantess called
summer, creating a gentler season for the people of Earth World.

The control of the north wind was universally credited to giants or

gods, whose seat was often supposed to be the Pole Star, which was noted
to be fixed in the sky, and central to the circular movement of lesser
stars. In both American and European myth this super god-giant has been
referred to as the Great Bear. Known as Balkin, among certain northern
Anglo-Saxon tribesmen, the Great Boar, or Bear, or Borr of the North, was
still an active part of mythology in 1665 when Reginald Scott interviewed
an "authentic" brownie on the Pomonia, the largest island in the Orkney
group. This little man explained that the "Lord of the Northern Mountains"
was "shaped like a satyr and fed upon the air, having wife and children in
the number of twelve thousand, which were the brood of the northern
fairies, inhabiting Sutherland and Catenes (Caithness, Scotland), with the
adjacent islands...these were the companies of spirits that hold continual
wars with the fiery spirits in the mountain Heckla, that vomits fire in
Islandia (Iceland). That their speech was ancient Irish (Gaelic), and their
dwellings the caverns of rocks and mountains, is recorded in the
antiquities of Pomonia." Being one of these, the brownie named Luridan
was one of those involved in the war against the fire spirits. Scot said
that the creatures of the air god often met "in violent troops upon the sea.
And at such times many of the fiery spirits are destroyed (and later
reincarnated) when the enemy hath lured them off the mountains to fight
over the water. On the contrary, when the battle is upon the mountain
itself, the spirits of the air are often worsted, and then great moanings
and doleful noises are heard in Iceland, and Russia, and Norway, for many
days after."1

Earlier still, all of what is now Britain was called Myrddin's Clae
(Enclosure) after a Cymric deity, who the Anglo-Normans referred to as
Merlin. Merlin is now remembered for his part in the medieval romances
concerning King Arthur, but folklore insisted that the megaliths in the
ancient monument called Stonehenge were "flown" from distant parts by
this magician. The Egyptologist W.M. Flinders Petrie noted that the
earliest accounts said nothing of wind-power, but, rather, that the
magician had the "engines" necessary for such heavy work. It would now
appear that Stonehenge was built too early for Merlin to have been the
general contractor. Stonehenge was started about the year 2000 B.C.,
while Merlin was only born "of a daemon and a Welsh princess" during the
fifth century. Even the Celtic Myrddin may have been too late to
participate in raising the inner stones.

It is interesting to note that Stonehenge was not considered the

1 Reginald Scott, Deicoverie of Witchcraft, (London, 1665)

b. 2 c.4.
greatest wonder of the medieval age, this honour going, instead, to "a wild
wind that issues from a cavern in the earth at the mountain called Pec."
The mountain and the wind are no longer known but the resident god of
this place may have been Myrddin, or perhaps the Celtic underword deity
called Gwyn, the hunter god, who rode the north wind conducting souls of
the slain from earth to Annwn. In later Welsh tales Gwyn was identified
as the chief king of the Tylwyth Teg (little people) and his underworld as
the home of the home of the dead and these fay-folk.

The wild, wandering winds of hyperborea undoubtedly had a part in

creating the ice which lay on the land. This material was not always
regarded as a source of spiritual or physiacl danger, since it did allow for
the winter transit of heavy loads. It is now known that the central stones
in Stonehenge were not flown in from Ireland, and I suggest that they may
have been slid south from the mountains on river-ice. When the Christian
missionaries arrived in Britain the Nathir of the Gaels, Wyn ab Nudd of
the Welsh and the other wind-gods were supplanted by a new wind-god.
Thus Elihu said to Job: "By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad
waters are frozen fast." By any ordinary consideration of the work-order,
the stones may have seemed to fly to their places.

What the wind carried depended upon air temperature, which has
never been a constant in hyperborea. Snow that falls on the land either
melts in the following summer, or piles up, in which case it compresses
and turns to ice. "Whenever and wherever one year's snowfall doesn't melt
before the next year's snow, a glacier is born. If it goes on long enough,
you have an ice sheet."2

Ice sheets have been a feature of the earths's geographic poles for
the past 2.5 million years. Continental glaciers have waxed and waned, so
that in the past the amount of water tied up as ice has been as much as
three times what it is at present. The most recent peak of accumulation
occurred only 18,000 years ago when ice covered the Hudson Bay and the
Great Lakes, all of the Atlantic Provinces and most of New England north
of Cape Cod. Tongues of ice penetrated the Ohio and Mississippi River

2 Reid Bryson, University of Wisconsin climatologist,

quoted in "Ice on the World", National Geographic Magazine,
January, 1987, p. 79.
valleys, covered the mid-west of the United States and the west coast as
far south as Puget Sound. In Europe a similart situation existed with
Scandinavia, the Baltic Sea, the North SEa and all but southern Britain
completely inundated. There was ice on the Low Countries, nortern
Germany, Poland, Russia and Siberia and parts of Alaska. Clearly, these
were the days when the "frost-giants" held sway.

The so-called Pleistocene glaciers have advanced at least nine times

in the last million years, each push south being followed by interglacial,
or warming, periods. Usually the cold spells took up about 100,000 years,
the interglacial spans being only 10,000 years on the average.

The last withdrawal has been uneven since 16,000 B.C. There was a
noted warming about 13,000 years ago and another 10,000 years in the
past. Legends of world-flooding are sometimes connected with latter
time, but the biggest jump in temperatures came about 6,000 B.C., which
climatologists refer to as the Thermal Maximum or Climatic Optimum.
The removal of the ice cover has always had two effects on the underlying
earth. With this mass removed there has been a tendancy for the surface
to rebound, but this has usually been over-ridden by the fact that melt-
water added to the oceans increased the height of sea-level in most
regions. The net result has been the loss of significant real-estate, so
that much of old Atlantic Canada now lies as much as 200 miles out
beneath the Atlantic. The British Isles were once attached to continental
Europe but they are now isolated. The same flooding has created similar
islands in Atlantic Canada.

In spite of that warming 8,000 years ago there have been returns to
wet, cold conditions notably in 2,000 B.C. and again commencing with the
year 1200 A.D. This last "Little Ice Age" bothered mankind until the
1800s, regenerating glaciers in Alaska and the Alps, and eliminating the
Norse colonies established in Greenland about the year 1000 A.D.

Since then we have had higher temperatures than any seen since the
Optimum, and since 1880 we have had winters warmer than the average
for any time during this particular interglacial period. It has been
suggested that sea-levels have been raised by 360 feet since the last
continental glacier commenced to melt and there is still a reservoir of ice
in the Arctic Ocean. In the past, changes in temperature have been blamed
on alterations in the earth's orbit and spin, but it is suspected that the
current increase is due to increased solar radiation, because of the
pollution of the world's atmosphere.

Men have been present in Hyperborea for hundreds of thousands of

years, but they have had to flee before the ice, and current myths and
legends appear to be limited to the past 18,000 years of interglacial
warming. In remembering the past, it has to be remembered that the
climate of the present is not the norm for our planet, and that the
coastline has varied greatly under different amounts of ice and water.
 THE ANTEDILUVIANS

The concept of a universal flood is as persistent as the idea of

strange worlds in the north. In the Norse tales the frost giants were
called into being by the Allfather before the the earth was created by the
gods. Their kind were spoken of as the decendants of Ymir, or Fortjotnr,
given life among the icebergs of the Ginnunga-gap (Beginning Gap). The
creator-god provided Ymir with a giant-cow, whose milk sustained him.
Unfortunately, the Allfather had a twisted sense of humour and willed the
cow to lick the form of the first god from a block of sea-ice. The giants
and the gods reproduced asexually and warred, the first race representing
the hostile and negative parts of Nature, the last being personifications of
the sun, warmth and civilized life. The antagonists fought to a draw but
the Great Borr of the North, the son of the first god, Buri impregnated a
gaintess and the three sons, Odin, Hoenir and Loki joined the cause of the
gods. As a result, Ymir was cut down and his blood poured out into the Gap
drowning all but one of the giants. The first conservationists, the gods
used Ymir's body parts to construct Middle Earth, in the centre of what had
been the Ginnunga-gap. His eyebrows went to build an enclosure about
that land (later called Denmark), his soild parts became land, his blood,
the oceans, his bones, hills, his teeth, sheer cliffs, and his hair,
vegetation. In all, the gods created Nine Worlds in the north, one occupied
by the only surviving frost-giant, Bergelmeir. He found a mate in a
goddess of Jotunheim (home of the big eaters) and their offspring
restablished the frost giants, who continued to war against the gods.

The Biblical flood described in Genesis is a less colourful than that

of the Northmen, and there is an antidiluvian footnote in Celtic lore:
Although Noah's relatives considered him a harmless crank, most of them
attempted to escape the Great Flood when it actually manifested itself.
Ships were not unknown, and few of the immediate family of Bith, a
grandson of Noah, made an attempt to flee the rising waters, leaving the
Mediterranean for the ancient island now called Ireland. They got away
well enough under the leadership of his daughter, the Lady Cassir.
Unfortunately they sailed with fifty women and only three men. We are
not told the reason for Bith's death, but he was buried in the new land at
the foot of an Irish mountain that carries his name. The legends are more
pointed concerning Ladhra who cohabited with and died from "an excess of
women." Perhaps symbolicaaly, he was buried at the top of a mountain
named after him. By that time the flood-waters caught up with the
colonists, and Lady Cassir was carried to her death by flood waters which
surprised her at "near Boyle's limpis fountain". The remaining forty-nine
women were also swept to their deaths, but in the tradition of the Norse
tale, there was a survivor, who put his energies into building a "tul-tunna"
(flood-barrel) rather than diverting himself with sex.

This enterprising lad was named Finntan. He anchored his barrel to

the summit of the mountain still called Tul-tunna, "and slept for a year,
while waters encumbered the earth". In those days it was a rule of the
game, that no one would be subjected to double jeopardy. Having missed
his proper fate, Finntann was afterwards overlooked by the gods becoming
a virtual immortal. He settled quietly in Dun Tulcha, southwestern Kerry,
reappearing at several points in Irish history to settle land claims. In the
reign of Diarmund Maccarroll, in the sixth century after Christ, he was
still avaliable to give testimony concerning a dispute over the royal land
boundaries. When he arrived at the palace this aged gentleman was
accompanied by eighty-one clans of his descendants. Asked about his age
Fintaan said he had once brought home a red berry from a yew tree, planted
it and watched it grow until it was so large one hundred people could
shelter beneath it. Eventually it fell from old age and he used the wood to
construct vats, pitchers and yew-kegs. The latter he filled with mead and
kept until they fell apart of old age. He refashioned a few utensils out of
bits of salvaged wood and kept these until time finished them. He
continued : "These all are dust, and I leave it to Almighty God that I do not
know where that dust lies now, but I remain as you see me!"

The flood struck Scandinavia, Ireland and the Middle East, but the
most severe damage was done to the legendary Atlantis. It has been
guessed that Atlantis was based on an obscure tradition of a continent, or
islands, far to the west in the Atlantic Ocean. The Athenian sage and
lawgiver named Solon (639 B.C.) had come across legends of this land
while visiting the libraries at Sais, Egypt. An old priest is supposed to
have deciphered an ancient papyrus for him describing the rise and decline
of an island empire. Solon returned to his homeland, and told the story of
Atlantis to his relatives and friends, the information being held by a man
named Critias in the fifth century B.C. Transcribing what he heard from
Solon by way of Critias, Plato wrote about the sunken continent in a book
entitled Timaeus. Speaking from the point of view of the Egyptian priest,
Plato wrote:

"Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state (Athens)
in our histories. But one exceeds all these in greatness and valour. For
these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an
expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city
put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those
days the Atlantic was navigable (like a lake); and there were islands
situated in front of (on the seaward side of)the pillars of Hercules
(Straits of Messina). This island was larger than Libya and Asia Minor put
together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass
to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean."

This island he described as: "a vast power, gathered into one, which
endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country (Egypt) and yours (Greece) and
the whole of the region within the straits (the Mediterranean Sea).
Fortunately, Solon, your country shone forth with superior couargae and
military skill. Athens was the leader of the Hellenes, and when the others
were defeated she stood alone, defeated and triumphed over the Atlantean
invaders, and preserved all from slavery, liberating those who had been
defeated. Afterwards, there occured violent earthquakes and floods; and
in a single day and night of terror all of that war-like race was swallowed
by cracks in the earth, and the island of Atlantis, likewise, disappeared
into the depths of the sea. For this reason, the ocean in those parts is yet
impassable and impenetrable because of shoals of mud, left by the
subsidence of the island."

In a second book, the Critias, Plato described the island itself. In

the middle of it there was a fertile agricultural region, surrounded by
mountains. Here stood the capital city, built on a circular plan, with
radiating roads. The royal palace was supposedly "a marvel to behold for
size and beauty." It was well equipped with running water and hot and
cold baths. There were temples there to the sea-gods and these were
decorated with gold, silver and ivory. Atlantis was rich in minerals,
metrals and timber and possessed the animals and plants usually found in
Africa. The coast-line was faced with steep cliffs, but there were many
fine protected harbours, which were always crowded with shipping.

Plato suggested that there were ten kings governing Atlantis, all
descendants of ancient unions between gods of the sea and a mortal
ancestress named Cleito. The laws of their empire requiored that they
meet every five years to administer the laws and make new judgements,
but first they were required to hunt down one of the bulls which ranged
freely on their island. This they captured alive using staves and nooses.
The gods of the sea required that a bull be sacrificed yearly and the blood
let so that it flooded over their bronze pillar of laws.

Richard Cavendish has said: "Speculation about Atlantis has occupied

every generation since the Renaissance. (It) grew during the eighteenth
century with the type of antiquarianism which delighted in discovering
the religion of the druids from three or four classical references..." 3

In summary, it would appear that the Atlanteans may correpond with

the Hespirides, Although the Hesperides were land dwellers said to live in
"The Fortunate Isles", they are classed as nymphs, or sea-maidens,
daughters the Triton giant Atlas, who gave his name to Atlantas. Atlas
was supposed to have been among giants who warred against the Olympian
gods, having been subdued he was magically bound to Mount Atlas in
northern Africa, where he was forced to support the weight of the heavens
on his back. One of the labours of Hercules was to obtain the golden
apples of youth from the Atlanteans, who guarded them for the goddess
Hera. The seeds for these apples had been proivided by the earth-goddess
as a wedding present to Hera. They were grown in a grove tended by the
nympha nd guarded by a dragon. Not knowing where the Fortunate Isles
were located, Hercules went to Atlas, promising him time off in exchange
for the apples. Atlas obtained the apples and was tricked into taking the
weight of the heavens from Hercules.

In Bory de Saint Vincent's "Essais sur les Isles Fortunees" he

3Richard Cavendish, Encyclopedia of the Unexplained,

(London, 1974). See pp. 45-46 for dissertation concerning the
connection between Atlantis and the occult, particularly as it
touches on the Nazi movement known as the "Volkische."
inserted a conjectural map of Atlantis, indicating that the Amazons,
Gorgons and Tritons were citizens, but most authorities place the
Amazons in the Middle East, and there are not enough references to the
snake-headed Gorgons to say where they lived. The fact that Atlas was a
Triton who warred against the gods and that he fathered the "Atlantides"
helps that connection. Oceanus and Tethys were the origianl rulers of the
deep sea. When Zeus (or Jove) overcame this pair, Neptune and his wife
Amphitriute replaced them as sea deities. The impiety of the Atlanteans
was their preference for the older sea-gods, and the Greeks imagined that
the destruction of Atlantis was arranged by the Olmpian gods.

Geologists and oceanographers have agreed that no part of the

Atlantic Ocean floor has been subject to a calamity which caused it to
subside. Further, the mid-Atlantic ridge is not treated as the remnant of
a sunken continent. It is true that this submarine rift and ridge, lying at
an average depth of one mile, comes to the surface as Iceland and minor
islands such as Heimsay, Surtsey, the Azores and the Ascensions, but
these have been raised from the floor by vulcanism, rather than the floor
depressed.

Geologists also agree that there were no vast earth convulsions in

the year 10,000 B.C., when Atlantis is supposed to have submerged.
Several alternatives have been suggested, including the idea of a tsunmi
generated by the loss of a small earth moon as it plunged into the
Atlantic, the crater now being hidden by the waters of the ocean.
Unfortunately these waters have been plumbed with modern gear and
nothing showing the expected configuration has been found. This leaves
the possibilty that the location was at fault, pushing the legend to other
parts of the world. Some, starting with K. T. Frost, of Qieen's University,
Belfast, have suggested that Atlantis was actually Crete, which was
devastated about that time, but this seems implausible considering the
supposed size of Atlantis. In his book, The Voices of Africa, (1913), L.
Frobenius theorized that the lost continent was once a attached to Nigeria.
When J. Spanuth wrote, Atlantis, The Mystery Unravelled in 1956, he was
certain that he had seen the walls of the island kingdom on a submarine
reef near the Danish Heligoland. In 1964 Sprague and Catherine de Camp
associated it with the ancient Spanish city of Tarteusse (or Tarhish as the
Greeks called it) which was decidedly beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Like
Atlantis it had precipitous sea-cliffs and an interior plain. It vanished,
but in 500, rather than 10,000 B.C.
 The old Celtic peninsula of Bres, in Brittany was one of the
traditional locations given for the sea-giants, who were supposed to
maintain underwater residences just offshore. A similar story is
recorded for Tory Island, northwest of Ireland was said to be the land base
of Fomorian sea-giants, who had their underwater castles in waters near
the Isle of Man. In the race of waters separating Denmark and Sweden,
men have located the sea-dwelling Vanas.

I.W. Cornwall, a lecturer at London University in 1964 suggested that

Europe at the extreme of the latest glaciation might have had a sea-level
depressed by as much as 600 feet. While this does not seem like a great
height, it means that the sea-water was, 18,000 years ago, below the
level of the underwater banks which now constitute the continental shelf.
He notes that "even at maximum regression there were no land bridges
between Europe and Africa save at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
That Sea is very deep, the only major land gains being north east of Italy.
The North Sea shelf is a different matter. All of Ireland was once under
ice, but the south of England was never beneath the ice. The exposed
continental shelf between there and France, and from there westward
comprised an area of dry land equal to all of the British Isles then under
ice. Perhaps by coincidence this was the region later identified with the
sea-giants who lived west of France.

To help our argument Cornwall notes that islands may be classified

as continental or oceanic, England belonging to the former and the Azores
to the latter. He sees continental islands as essentially part of the main
land-masses of the world, separated from them by shallow seas. Oceanic
islands on the other hand, are always small and volcanic and completely
independent of other lands. In the region where Atlantis is mapped by
Saint Vincent there is nothing but oceanic islands, but if Atlantis was on
the shelf, a little to the north, of the charted position (but still west of
the Gates of Hercules) it becomes plausable as a huge principality.

While the distribution of land and water hasn't changed much in the
last few thousand years it is apparent from our map that many continental
islands have not always been isolated. As the glacier melted, the shelf
flooded, but even at a reduced estimate of 360 feet of lowered sea level
as the extreme, it was entirely possible for men to cross the English
Channel without water-wings. As flooding increased, the worst that
stood in the way were a few shallow lakes. Cornwall thinks this situation
persisted until 10,000 years in the past, which is coincident with the loss
of Atlantis. For many years the uplift of land as the ice mass was reduced
probably kept the waters from gaining on the land. The situation for the
Irish Channel must have been different, for there were, "only two narrow
land bridges between Anglesey and Dublin and Lleyn Peninsula and Wicklow
Head which would have emerged briefly at the last glacial maximum." 4
The old topography can only be guessed at, but the development of Atlantic
islands, which were finally lost to the sea was inevitable. Whether the
loss was catastrophic or not, the legend of Atlantis and habitations below
the sea is not an impossibilty.
The Atlantic coastline was once similarly exposed with huge areas,
inluding all of the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine and the extensive Nova
Scotian, Newfoundland and Labrador shelves exposed in 10,000 B.C. We
know that men and animals lived there at exactly this time as their
remains, their weapons and camp-fire debris have been accidentally
dredged from places like Gerorges Bank, where the depth of the sea, many
miles from the coast is still no more than thirty feet. Islands have
disappeared from submergence and erosion on this coast, and if "Atlantis"
was not on the European shelf, it must be remembered that America lies
due west of the Pillars of Hercules.

4 I.W. Cornwall, The World of Ancient Man, (Toronto, 1966),

p. 117.
 THE POSTDILUVIAN WORLD

In point of fact, the forerrunners of modern men were in England as

long as 500,000 years ago and Homo sapiens has been in the British Isles
for 50,000 years. Since glaciation buried the relics of these first men,
and melt waters inundated relics from 10,000 years in the past, most of
what we know of men in this part of the world pertains to the relatively
"modern" culture, termed Aurignacian. These people are thought to have
originated in the Near East settled in France and pursued game across the
land bridge to England some 30,000 years ago. These nomads were
sometime residents of southern England; Scotland and Ireland still being
under the ice. It is suspected that they may have been driven out by the
final advance of glaciation sinces the caves they inhabited have been
found blocked by glacial till.

After the Aurignacians came the Gravettians, a culture of herdsmen

who came out of southern Russia by way of Spain. THey may have been
associated with the Solutreans, who also came to England from France and
Spain. These people lived in a time when bison, horses, wild oxen,
mammoths, reindeer and the woolly rhinoceros were the chief game
animals of the region. At that, few humans preferred Britain and it has
been estimated that the winter population was no more than 250 people.

As the cold and the ice receded, some of these hunters settled the
far west. By 10,000 B.C., the Magdalenian culture had come to the
Continent. These people were a highly advanced stone-age culture, but
there equal was not found in Britain. Some archaeologists have suggested
that the islands were too cold to attract the newcomers, but otherrs
suggest that by then the North Sea had developed out of melt-water
separating the ancient islanders from the advantages of commerce with
the rest of Europe.

After the North Sea separation other immigrants began to arrive,

presumably by boat, although the first "sea voyages" involved nothing more
than crossing what would now be considered a wide river. The earliest
arrivals were the Tardenoisians, users of flint tools, who brought with
them the first dogs and either assimilated or were incorporated into other
tribes already on the islands. The oceans were better established when
the shore-loving Azilians arrived. "They hunted with dogs, fished and
rarely pushed inland from the coast. Some of them survived into the
bronze age."

In legend, a similar people are recalled as the Fomors (Gaelic

fo+mor, under+the sea). They are remembered by their numerous enemies
as "gloomy sea-giants...warlike and very troublesome to the world." Some
said that they were "sea-demons...creatures of darkness and ill." It was
generally agreed that all of their kind were huge, deformed in some way,
often with a single eye (and sometimes a single arm and leg to match), or
with the heads of animals. The malignant giants of fairy-tales and nursery
rhymes were invariably sea-giants, the land-giants being regarded as a
separate race, who damaged through bumbling misadventure rather than
with purpose. Aside from their "wild, unsociable, behaviour", the Fomors
had the nasty habits of shape-changing and anthrophagy (i.e.they ate
people). The Fomors were supposedly led by an immortal sea-god named
Ler (Gaelic) or Llyr (Cymric), who was singular among their kind.

It was guessed that the Fomorians originally lived far out in the
depths of the Atlantic Ocean in caverns where they were able to breathe
the oxygen of the water. Although they could remain beneath ordinary
water for long periods, it was agreed that they could drown like ordinary
men when deprived of their "sea-suits". These took various forms
including that of seals and large ocean-going fish. Sometimes the sea-
people travelled as creatures that appeared to be men from the waist up
and fish from their down. It was noticed that giants who were deprived of
their ocean-gear were unable to return to the sea.

Most historians argue that the Fomors were "African" sea-rovers, in

which case they might have been surviving descendants of the sea-
peoples worshipped by the Atlanteans. The animal heads could have been
masks, and shape-changing a primitive misconception. The first men
mounted on horseback were sometimes mistaken as unusual four-footed
creatures who might also appear in two-footed form. The Innu in his kayak
apppears to walk waist high in the water. Taking events at face value, he
removes his "tail" on land, and cannot satisfactorily re-enter the water
without it. Since primitive people knew nothing of the curvature of the
earth ships coming to shore seemed to rise out of the water; while those
departing, went to some subterraneran kingdom. The accusations of
cannibalism have to be taken in context, since the Fomors were rarely
allowed to characterize themselves. It was later maintained that witches
feasted off roast babies (and) the same charge was levelled at the Jews in
the Middle Ages and in Nazi Germany. At one time the Roman Catholics
made a similar criticism of the Protestant Clergy, while they charged
monks, nuns and priests with the same vice.

The Irish historian, Katherine Scherman has noted: "This race

surfaces time and again through The Book of Invasions, always uncouth and
vicious, always seeping in from the shore and being driven back again by
the more civilized and better equipped newcomers." The first
protagonists were the Partholans (whose descendants are called the
Macfarlanes). They landed on the ancient land, now called Ireland, with
nine thousand settlers. The Fomors seemed to have favoured the western
coast of that island, a major stronghold being located on Tory Island, to
the northwest, with others of their kind located on the Isle of Man and inb
the Hebrides. The Fomors built towers on the plains of Sligo in Connaught
County and it is presumed they were herders since, "they made sheep land".
They were apparently not an agricultural people, and Partholon, the
patriarch of the opposing race, noted that they had no control of fire and
"ate poorly". He was the first to note that they possessed only "one foot,
one hand and one eye", but nevertheless he found them worthy antagonists.

Scherman supects that the Fomors "represent a faint memory of

mesolithic man, who crept about the edges of the country catching what
food he could with his rude stone weapons...presenting his infelicitous
countenance and his paltry resistence to more progressive successors." 5
Other scholars surmised that the Fomorians represented older sea-gods

5Katherine Scherman, The Flowering of Ireland, p. 255.

worshipped throughout Ireland before the Celtic deities arrived. There is
even blood of this race in the Celtic Cailleach Bheur, who has been
described as a one-eyed giantess, who sometimes shape-changed into a
gray mare. The "winter hag" had charge of the "geamhradh" (season of
thunter), and had care and charge of the animals of the wilderness. Celts
who harvested these animals were careful to propitiate this spirit, who
strode from mountain to mountain carrying a staff which showered snow
and could blast men with lightning.

The creature known as the fachan (creature with the "false" or

strangling hand) still occupies the western coastline of Scotland.
Unipods killed one of the leaders of a Norse expedition to North America
shortly after 1,000 A.D. They also attracted the attention of the early
European explorers of Africa and were supposedly seen by Jacques Cartier
in Atlantic Canada. The kookwees, or giants were an important part of
Abenaki legend and a similar race was known to the Innuktituut as the
Tornit. The latter were said to have lived among the residents of the
central Canadaian Arctic, and were considered kin-folk of men, "but much
taller and stronger". They lived with the Innuktituut in stone houses of
large size, and these ruins are still pointed out as conclusive evidence of
their former existence. This group seemed more advanced than their
Irish-based relatives as they carried "lamps with which to cook the meat
of seals" under their long deerskin coats. They were inferior to their
smaller cousins in being unable to make stone implements. They also had
to steal bows and arrows and kaiaks from the eskimos, since they lacked
the skill to make these useful tools. The Innuktituut were at first afraid
to defend their property until a young man drilled a hole in the skull of
one while he slept. This ruined a general supposition that the Tornit were
invincible, and the "giants" fled to the polar ice cap. After that they were
rarely seen hunting at the head of fjords.

These descriptions of pre stone-age peoples do not correspond with

the Fomorians that Nemed encountered when he sailed his thirty-four
ships out of the Caspian Sea into the boundless Atlantic: "There appeared
to them a golden tower in the sea close at hand. Thus also it was: when
the sea was in ebb the tower appeared above it and when it flowed the
water rose above the tower. Nemed went with his people towards it for
greed of gold."6 Their first sorties were ineffectual and they were forced
to retreat to Ireland. There they dammed the rivers to create new lakes
and cleared plains for farming. They were harassed by the Fomorians who
demanded two-thirds of their milk, corn and children as "crop insurance".
The Nemedians sent word to their Greecian allies that they were being
oppressed. Their plea must have been persuasive for soon help came in the
form of "an immense host of warriors, along with druids and druidesses,
all accompanied by venomous animals, hurtful, strange creatures."
Whatever the nature of this beast, it helped them take the sea-towers of
the Fomorians. They lived in prosperity until "a great wave" swept in from
the sea and "drowned an annihilated" both men and giants. Some Nemedians
surviver this catastrophe but "downcast and fearful of the plague" these
neolithic farmers abandoned Ireland for England and ultimately returned to
the Near East. The sea-islands presumably returned to the control of the
Fomors while "the land of Ireland was desert for the space of two hundred
years."

The Firbolgs and roving Firgallians

Came next like the waves in their flow;
The Firdonnans arrived in battalions.
And landed in Erris - Mayo. 7

Not much can be said of the Firgallions and Firdonnans except to note
that the Gaelic word "fir" is the plural of "fear" (a man). The modifying
words that follow indicate "yellow" and "brown", respectively. The
Firbolgs have had a larger part in hyperborean legend, which claims that
they were industrious and competent peasnt-farmers, whose ancestors
worked the Greecian peninsula. Gerald S. Hawkins interprets "bolg" as
"bag" and explains that these people created fertile fields through the
labour-intensive practise of carrying sub-soil to their land in leather
bags: "They made clovery plains of the rough-headed hills with clay from
elsewhere." These "people of the bags" found the work tedious and their

6 Padraic Colum, A Treasury of Irish Folklore, New York,

1962, p. 43.

7Padraic Colum, Ibid. Taken by the author from an

anonymous 1913 street-ballad which listed the successive
conquests of Ireland in poetic form. p. 54.
masters, "the well-greaved Acheans", increasingly demanding. In the end,
they grew "tired, weary and despondent", and threw off their "intolerable
bondage." Creating "fair vessels of the skins of animals" they quit the
Mediterranean for the lands of northwestern Europe. 8

Hartley Alexander, a one-time professor of philsophy at the

University of Nebraska, has identified these Firbolg races as "a dark
population of short stature, believed to have Iberian (Spanish) affinities.
He equated them with the Silures, another pre-Celtic people who occupied
southern Wales. His translation of Firbolg was "people of the goddess
Bolg".The Irish historian Catherine Scherman considers them to have been
"an offshoot ofd the continental tribe known as the Belgae." This is
tenuous since the Belgae were first recorded in Caesar's time as
"residents of northern France and Belgium." The Firbolgs, on the other
hand, were in position in Ireland before the arrival of the Celts in 1,000
B.C.

The argument that they were people of Bolg is more likely, this
goddess having given her name to the waterway known as the River Boyne
in Ireland. "Boyne" is a combination word, the latest spelling variation in
a long line of phoenetic interpretations of local dialects. The Gaelic "bo"
indicates cow, while the obsolete "ann" corresponds with both the Cymric
"tan" and the Gaelic "teine" (fire). Bolg, or Boann, was in fact a fire-
goddess corresponding closely with the Teutonic god Donar, or Thor,
master of the north wind, lightning and thunder. It is also noteworthy
that the prosperity of the Firbolgs ultimately depended herding cattle,
explaining their choice of deity. This fact also explains the erection of
their capital on the eastern side of the Island, at a place later called Tara,
the site of the best pastures in Ireland. The Scottish clans bearing the
Gaelic prefix "mhac" (son of) or "mhic" (sons of), or "O'" (grandsons of)
frequently claim descent from the Firbolgs, although this ancestory is far
from certain.

Scherman says they held their own against the Fomorian sea-giants
because of "their war like aristocracy". They brought other novelties to
the Island; a system of monarchy and bronze weapons. This last marked
the end of the stone-age. "They did not disappear from the story like

8 Gerald S. Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded, New York, 1965,

p. 29.
those that had gone before, but left descendants. Patrician as they were
in their time the remnants of this race was enslaved by Irelands last pre-
Christian conquerors." 9

Scherman has identified the Firbolg tribes with the Picts, who were
displaced from Ireland to northern Scotland. The Scottish historian
MacNeill also feels the Picts were in Ireland ahead of the Gaels and
inhabited portions of Scotland at the same time. On the other hand,
Seumas MacManus thinks that the Picts arrived well after the Firbolg
settlement, landing in the southwest where they assisted Gaelic
tribesmen in driving off a tribe of marauding Britons. Afterwards they
had quarrels with Crimthann, the chief of that quarter of the land, and he
arranged their resettlement in Alba (Scotland).

Whatever their origin and lines of descent, the Firbolgs

were notably mismatched with the next arrivals who were called the
Tuatha daoine (northern people). Pronounced "tootha dannan" ("tootha
doonu" in Scottish Gaelic) , this race was "notably skilled in the crafts if
not the arts". It was said of them: "(they) lived in the northern islands of
the world learning lore and magic and druidism and wizardry and cunning,
until they surpassed the sages of the arts of heathendom. There were four
cities in which they learned their crafts and sciences and the diabolic
arts: Falias and Gorias, Murias and Findias.

Out of Falias was brought the Stone of Fal (now called the Lia Fal, or
Coronation Stone). Anciently this magic stone legitimized the king of the
country by "singing" aloud when he placed his foot on it. Common folk
were judged by changes in their appearance when they stood upon this
"centre stone": the innocent blanched white, but those guilty of a crime
turned beet red. A woman approaching the stone knew she was destined
not to give birth if the Lia Fail oozed blood. If it exuded milk the
supplicant was known to be pregnant. This "stone of destiny" rested at
first with the Tuathan kings of Tara. One historian notes that the Lia Fail
"was moved from its original place and now stands to commemorate the
spot where insurgents died in a skirmish with the English in 1798." 10

9 Katherine Scherman, Ibid, p. 255.

10 Katherine Scherman, Ibid, p. 62.

 Out of Gorias was brought "the spear that Lugh had. No battle was
ever won against it or him who held it in his hand." The sword of Nuada
came from the city of Findias, and when drawn would magically seek
blood; "no one ever escaped from it, it was irresitible." Finally from
Murias came the Dagda's cauldron; "no company departed from it
unthankful". since it was perpetually full of food and drink.

The exact lands from which the Tuatha daoine came is unknown but
they had no intention of returning there. Once they beached their vessels
on the strands of ancient Ireland, they burned them so that they could not
be used by the Firbolgs, or tempt them to retreat. This done they wrapped
their host in an impenetrible black cloud and marched inland. When the
Firbolgs became aware of their peril the Tuathans were entrenched on a
mountain near the Plains of Sligo in the western province later called
Connaught. The Firbolgs were conscious of their own numerical
superiority, but disliked the tales of irrestible weapons, and did not
immediately respond to demands for battle or capitulation. When the two
armies were drawn up at Mag Tured (Moytura, on the Mayo-Galway border),
the Firbolgs insisted that the etiquette of war be observed. While the
Tuathans shuffled impatiently, emissaries explained that time would be
needed to sharpen swords and spears. On another day it was found that
armour needed refurbishing, and weeks later, the Firbolgs insisted on time
to refurbish their helmets. Not to be rushed into warfre, the dark curly-
haired clansmen insisted on the perfection of their last wickerwork shield
before they would march. In fairness, they observed that the Tuathans
lacked the heavy spears that they carried and insisted that their enemies
have time to equip themselves. On the other hand, the Firbolgs noted that
they needed a few weeks to forge the light-weight swords preferrred by
the Tuathans. Altogether, the Firbolgs managed tom keep the Tuatha
daoine fuming and freting and impotent for a hundred and five days before
any conflict took place.

While the Tuathans were technologically superior it seemed that

they lost the war known as trickery, but they did manage one point: As the
Firbolgs had obvious numerical superiority, the Tuthans suggested that the
armies should fight one-on-one, excluding the majority of Firbolgs. The
latter were reluctant to go this far with the ethics of battle, but
recognized the justice of the argument and agreed.
 When the battle came, it raged for four days. The Firbolgs seeing
themselves cut down, arranged a truce and suggested that casulties be
restricted by pitting 300 hundred men from each side against one another
in the concluding fray. Some reporters said that the Firbolgs were
absolutely "routed to the outermost isles of the sea," but it appears that
the Tuathans gained a pyrrhic victory: "So bravely had the losing ones
fought, and so sorely exhausted the De Dannan, that the latter, to end the
struggle, were glad to leave to the Firbolgs that quarter of the Island
wherein they fought (Connaught)."11

Scherman has another version of the fate of the Firbolgs: "The

subordinate people retreated to the wild places of the south and east, the
provinces of Munster and Leinster, to pursue a style of life simpler and
rougher than that of the new aristocracy..." 12

Where they went is unimportant. A major event of the battle at

southern Moytura was the slaying of the High King Eochaid, the Horseman
of Heaven. He fought so notably he was incorporated as a god-spirit of the
Tuatha daoine. Sreng, a fierce warrior of the Firbolg side had cut off the
hand of the Tuathan king called Nuada. This was not an irreplacable
member since the new race included Creidne a master of mechanical
magic, who created a new articulated hand made of silver. Unfortunately,
one of the laws of the Tuatha daoine excluded men with physical
blemishes from holding leadership, any defect being seen as a weakening
of the god-spirit of the king. Nuada was therefore forced into retirement
with consequences which we will outline in the next chapter. As for the
Firbolgs, those banished to the outer islands (presumably the Hebrides of
Scotland) returned to the larger Island in the second century of the
Christian era. Their chief was Angus, a leader of Clann Umor. They were
given an unpleasant welcome in Ulster and eventually took the side of
southerners under Queen Maeve of Connaught. For this, they were granted
the seaboard of Galway and Clare and the Arran Isles. On Inishmore, one of
these islands, they built Dun Angus, a notable redoubt whose dry-stone
walls were up to twelve feet in thickness. The seaward wall of this
fortress once overlooked a sheer cliff two hundred feet above the water,

11 Macmanus, Ibid., p. 3.

12 Katherine Scherman, Ibid, p. 260.

but much has eroded away. Nevertheless, it is still obvious that this
holding place of the ancient Firbolgs once covered eleven acres of the
Island.
Among the Gaels the Pictii (Latin, painted ones) were termed the
Cruithnians (wheat-eaters). They became confounded with the Firbolgs
because they occupied common lands, were equally obscure in origins, and
shared a matriarchal system of government, with descent in the royal line
according to female succession. According to legend, Crimthann in the
interest of resettling these violent folk gave them Irish wives to take to
Alba with them. This was done on condition that inheritance favour these
women, and this became a hereditary condition among the Scottish Picts.
 The Tuatha Daoine

The Tuatha Daoine (sometimes written Tuatha Danann or Tuatha De

Danann) were also a matriarchal people, and it has been suggested that the
origin of "daoine" (still retained in Gaelic to describe people) was Don,
Dan, or Danu, the name given their progenitor. This earth-mother was
later adopted as a deity by Celtic tribesmen, although she continued to be
recognized as the ancestress of the Tuatha daoine.

Gerald Hawkins has identified their original "northern isles" as

belonging to the Greecian landfall, rather than the far north of
Scandinavia. In addition to their lore, magic, druidism, wisdom and
cunning, the Tuathans came to Ireland as possessors of "the diabolic arts"
and were practitioners of "every sort of paganism". Their magic included
arts of conciliation, for it is recorded that they "travelled between the
Athenians and Philistines", apparently as mediators.

According to one legend, the Tuatha daoine were descendants of a

few Nemedians who had returned to Greece after their abortive settlement
of Ireland. The old homeland was not forgotten and they sailed away "in
great speckled ships" to reclaim the land of their forefathers. It is said
that they came specifically "to take the land from the Firbolg". They
landed on the first day of May, which they perceived as the annual time for
the final battle between winter and summer. They equated themselves
with the gods of light and the Firbolgs with those of darkness, thus this
augured well for the beginning of combat.

In putting down the Firbolgs, the Tuathans had assistance from the
Fomorians, the alliance being firmed up by marriage between the two
tribes. Among their champions, the warrior-magicians numbered Breas,
whose mother was a Tuathan princess, while his father Elatha was
chieftain of Fomorian sea-pirates from the Hebrides. Unlike most of his
Fomorian kin, Breas was a handsome youth and completely without
blemish. When King Nuada lost his hand and throne, the Tuathans
assembled and elected this young man as his successor.

Breas managed to keep Ireland for seven years. The Tuatha daoine
expected him to show favouritism toward his fathers race, but were
incensed when he refused to take action against the Fomorians who raided
their villages. He was not, however, deposed for mismanagement as much
as meaness. In those days an open hand was more important than a open
heart, patronage being expected of the high king. "The knives of his
people", it was noted, "were not greased at his table, nor did their breath
smell of ale at the banquet. Neither their poets, nor their bards, nor their
satirists, nor their harpers, nor their pipers, nor their trumpeters, nor
their jugglers, nor their buffons, were ever seen engaged in amusing them
in assembly at his court." As a consequence there was constant grumbling
among his retainers for the king represented the collective spirit of his
people and meaness was considered a disgrace. To compound his
niggarliness, Breas committed the unforgivable sin of insulting Cairbre,
the greatest poet and songsmith in the land.

The poets required a minimum of twelve years of apprenticeship.

The lowest grade of bard had mastery of sixteen of the three hundred and
fifty different metres of poetry. The king-bard had mastered all of these
forms and could compose impromtu shorter poems on any subject which
happened to be suggested. The poet-ollam was, additionally, a master of
history, the antiquities and genealogies of the leading families of the
land, and could recount them on request.

Although poets were attached to certain principalities, they

frequently went on circuit, visiting minor and major kings, chanting their
praises in direct proportion to the patronage they received. Every poet
travelled with a retinue of from ten to twenty-four attendants, but the
most famous travelled with three or four times this prescribed number.
All courts and residences were thrown open to a visit from the ollam
which was usually restricted to a single night. In later days, poets
sometimes imposed themselves on a particular prince for days, weeks,
months or even years, his company being supported by the host. The
tongues of the poets were feared because of their ability with satire, and
the fees they received were usually voluntary and generous.

Breas may have been unfamiliar with the customs of the Tuatha
daoine respecting their poets. Cairbre expected a lavish banquet and
quarters, but the King placed him in a bare cold apartment and presented
him with a few dried oat-cakes on a small platter. The ollam said nothing
but departed with unusual haste and composed a withering satire, which
was repeated throughout the land. Incensed by this final evidence of
avarice, the people rose and drove this boorish Fomorian from the throne
of Tara. They recalled King Nuada Airgead Lam (of the Silver Hand) and
restated him as king in spite of his "blemish".

Breas fled to the Hebrides, where he complained to his father Elatha.

The latter collected a mighty sea-fleet and soon filled the ocean from
Scotland to Eirinn with a host of Fomorians. Among these was Balor
Beimann, a chieftain whose people occupied Tory Island, off the
northwestern coast of the Tuathan island.

Balor was reputed to live in a "crystal" palace which had the ability
to collect, focus and direct sunlight with devastating effect against
distant targets. It may be relevant that the Gaelic verb "bailim" still
means "to gather or collect". This "bal-or", or "god of the sun" has been
represented not as a technologist but as "Balor of the Evil Eye" or "Balor of
the Piercing Eye" in Celtic myth: "His one eye was never opened but on the
battlefield, when four men thrust a polished handle throught the lid to lift
it. Then men died by the thousands from the venomous fumed that
emanated from it."13

The palace of Balor was constructed by the Goban Saor (Gaelic,

"mouthy sawyer, or carpenter). He and his son finished their construction
for the this Fomorian but, "he did not wish to let them go back (to Eirinn),
for fear they should make for another man a palace as good as his." While
the builders were on the topmost scaffolds, Balor ordered the lower parts
taken away, "for he wanted to let them die on the top of the building."
This might have been the end of both carpenters, but the younger sawyer
had developed a friendship with a girl of the clan, and passing, she
suggested, "...It is easier to throw seven stones down than to put one up..."
The young man was able to reasonthis out, and soon he and his father
began throwing stones to the ground. Hearing their fall, Balor rushed out
and ordered the scaffolding replaced.

Knowing they were not out of danger, the Goban Saor noted, "there is
a crookedness in your work, and had I three tools left at home, I would
straighten this wall, so that their would be no palace in the world
comparable with this! My tools are: Crooked against crooked; corner

13 Scherman, Ibid, p. 56.

against corner; and engine against deceit, and no man can bring them back
but your son!"

Hearing this, Balor allowed his son to voyage to Eirinn where he

approached the wife of Goban Saor with the key-words. She immediately
recognized them as a plea for help and led the Fomorian lad to a deep
carpenter's chest. She asked the boy to retrieve the tools, and while he
was bent over, pushed him in and locked the chest. She then sent word to
Balor that his son was a hostage until young Goban and old Goban arrived
safely home.

The two sawyers were released with full pay, and Balor's son
returned. Surprisingly, the Fomorian asked his departing guests to
recommend a blacksmith "for putting irons on his palace, except the Gloss
(champion cow)." 14

The two departing "guests" suggested Gavidjeen Go. When they

arrived back in Eirinn, the Saors strongly urged Gavidjeen Go to be careful
in contracting with Balor Beimann and accept nothing less than the Gloss
as compensation for his work. It was generally known that this cow could
fill twenty barrels with milk in a single day, so the man who possessed
her would be wealthy. Balor consented to this agreement, knowing that
the Gloss would only follow where the magical bye-rope was given. Since
he did not give the rope to Mr. Go, Balor knew that the champion would
eventually return to his own barns.

Gavidjen Go was a practised blacksmith so he was able to promise

swords to those who minded his new cow. One of these was Kian, son of
Contje, who pledged his head against the loss of the animal. Kian managed
this for the full day, but that evening, on returning her, was met by the
Laughing Knight, who ran out to Kian and said, "The smith is about to
temper your sword, and unless you are there to hold it, there will be no
power with it when you weild it."

Hearing this, Kian complied, but inside the smithery he was asked,
"Where is the Gloss?" Kian thought she stood just outside the door, but
rushing there he found the "Knight" and the Gloss gone.

14 Colum, Ibid, p. 535.

 "Then you have forfeited your head! Lay it upon the anvil that I may
cut it off," demanded Go.

"Give me three days and it will be returned."

"I will allow that," said his adversary.

Kian afterwrds tracked the Gloss to the northwestern corner of the

land. Losing the trail at the edge of the ocean, "he wandered up and down
the shore, plucking his hair from his head, in trouble after the Gloss." 15

Entirely at a loss, he noticed a man travelling on the sea in a

currach (half spherical hide-covered boat). Kian called to him, and was
soon confronted by Manaun MacLir, one of the gods of the sea. Manaun was
one of two immortals in the Fomorian host, the other his father Ler, the
supreme god of the sea. The former god lived in the deeps off the shores
of the Isle of Man, but also had a land residence on the island itself. It
was said that he sometimes harassed the Irish countryside, coming
ashore on foggy nights in the form of an animated triskelion. The
triskelion was three bent legs radiating from a common centre; it became
a three-armed swastika, the current symbol of the Isle of Man.

Fortunately for Kian, Manaun was allied with the Tuathans and had
little sympathy for Balor. When the quest was explained, the sea-god
offered transportation to Tory Island in return for half of anything taken
from the island, excepting the Gavidjeen Gloss. Although he travelled in a
simple currach Kian found himself instantly transported to his
destination.

On the far shore he found the Fomorians eating raw food, and being a
culinary expert he welcomed them to his fire and a new taste experience.
These individuals went to Balor Beimann, who hired Kian as tender of fire,
cook and story-teller to his court.
The two sons of Balor, in training as druid on another island, had
warned his father that his destiny was to be killed by a son of his own
daughter. As a consequence, Balor had isolated her, and personally
attended to providing her with food. Since she was always in the presence
of a guardian woman, the Fomorian chieftain felt certain she would never

15 Colum, Ibid, p. 536.

become impregnated. In his own interest, Manaun had gifted Kian with an
enchantment that allowed him to open locks and shut them behind himself,
knowing this would give him access to the hidden treasure of his rival.
Noticing Balors unusal food delivery schedule, Kian followed him and
unlocked a door in the inner keep where he found the two woman. He
introduced them to his cookery and even if the elder woman had not been
mute, she afterwards favoured the stranger. This was even more true of
Balor's daughter for in nine months "a child happened to her." Discovering
this Kian thought it might be wise to resign from service. When asked
why he was leaving Kian would only admit: "It is because accidents have
happened to me since I came to this island." Not content with this, Balor
consulted one of his sons who was home on leave. The lad was not certain
what Kian meant but suggested, "your story-teller, cook and fireman will
give you sufficiency of trouble."

Overhearing them, Kian decided on an early departure and went to his

girl-friend, who agreed that he had little choice. As a parting gift she
gave him the byre-rope which magically drew the Gloss after it as well as
charge of their infant son. THe Tuathan went immediately to the place
where Manaun had deposited him on the shoreline and whistled down the
wind, after which the god came "in an instant". Balor was not far behind
and Manaun advised, "Make haste for Balor will try to drown us.
Nevertheless, have little fear for my magic is greater than his!"
Kian jumped into the currach, and the gloss followed the rope. Bal;or
used his eye to raise the sea behind them, but Manaun countered by raising
a hand which immedistely calmed the sea before them. In his wrath Balor
set fire to the sea, but Manuaun threw asingle magical stone into the
waters and the fires went out.

On the Irish shore the sea god turned to Kian son of Contje for half
of the "treasure" of Tory Island. "I have nothing but this boy," admitted
the Tuathan, "and him I will not divide but give to you entirely." "For this,
thanks," returned Manaun, "this is a prize. Here is the champion who will
be known as Dul Dauna (Gaelic, the one who will cause another to fall), and
he will defeat Balor of the Evil Eye. Among the Tuathans, this god-giant
was later called Lugh. Presumably he was about sixteen feet at maturity
for this was a later meaning of the word "lug". This word also described a
powerful but clumsy individual but the godson of Manaun MacLir was
hardly a clumsy oaf, this connotation having arisen after the worshippers
of Lugh were defeated by a race known as the Anglo-Saxons.
 These events seem to have occurred while Kian was spying in Ireland
on behalf of the Tuatha daoine. Lugh was not only the foster-son of a god,
but possessed many of the "mortal powers", or magic, of his birth-father's
people. Because of this he was also named Sab Ildanach (Gaelic, the stem
of all arts). When the Tuatha daoine contemplated an actual invasion they
sent Lugh ahead as a scout. He went the court of KIng Eochais at Tara,
supposedly seeking employment. In those days foreigners were not
excluded, but no one was admitted membership in the inner circle unless
he could add a unique skill to the court. The doorkeeper, who barred Lugh's
way asked the ground for his admission. Lugh noted that he was a saer
(Gaelic, sawyer or carpenter), but the guardian assured him they had one in
residence. Well, suggested Lugh "I am a very good goban (smith)." They
also had an able goban. "A champion?" That post was also filled. In turn
Lugh offered to serve as a filid (bard), baobh (magician), cupbearer,
goldsmith, or cupbearer. Told that the Firbolgs had an expert in all these
formsa of magic, Lugh responded finallyu with these words: "Go then,
warden to your king. Ask him if any stands within these walls who is
master of all these arts, for they are my profession. If there is my equal,
I will not insist on admittance to Tara."

King Eochaid was overjoyed to add this well-favoured man-god to

his court, and afterwards created the post of ard-ollam (chief poet) for
him, declaring Lugh the chief professor of all arts and sciences.
Unfortunately, Lugh afterwards abandoned this tribe and assisted the
Tuatha daoine.

In the legends, Lugh has been particularly noted as a builder of

chariots, a worker in metals, a medicine-man, a poet and a composer of
novel magical spells. He was later declared the god of music since he was
able to charm people into sleep when he played on his harp. Among
warriors he was termed Lugh of the Long Arm because of his proficiency
with the spear and the sling, and it was rumoured that he could defeat an
entire army without assistance. He was named the father of the moretal
gods, in particular Cuchulain, who shared this last attribute. It may be
recalled that it was Lugh who carried a flesh-seeking magic spear with
him to Ireland from the islands of the north.

These abilities were useful in the conquest of the Firbolgs and their
confrontation with the Fomorians. The latter situation seemed to have
been regarded very seriously, for legend says that the Tuatha daoine
"summoned every man, from the chief sorcerer and the cupbearer to the
smith and the charioteer, to contribute his special talent to the
confounding of the enemy." The druids assured the chieftains that they
would cast the twelve mountains of Ireland against the enemy "and roll
their summits against the ground." Others of their profession said they
would arrange "three showers of sky-fire to rain upon the faces of the
Fomorian host," an act guaranteed to rob them of "two-thirds of their
strength". This battle also marked the first use of the witch-bottle,
which is still a tool of that craft. This required obtaining urine, hair and
nail-parings from the enemy. These were placed in bottles and heated to
cause evaporation of the liquid. All during the process it was considered
that this act would "bind urine in their own bodies" and terminate in the
death of the giants when the substance was entirely gone. The druids
arranged a similar fate for the horses of the enemy.

The first meeting of the Tuatha daoine and the Fomorians was in the
western sea off Ireland. The Dul Dauna and his mentor, Manaun MacLir
were at sea when they saw the fleet of Balor Beimann sailing in their
direction. Lugh put a "ring" (the precursor of the telescope) to his eye and
saw his grandfather pacing the deck of his ship. According to some
accounts, Balor was killed on this occassion when Lugh shot a "dart" into
his eye.16

Others say he survived to participate in the lands battle at Sligo.

This is probably the case, as he is known to have felled King Nuada with
his venomous eye. This effective weapon of war was in part matched by
the magic "cauldron of the deep" which the Tuatha daoine had stolen from
Ler himself. It was employed by the "leech", or medicine-man, named
Diancecht who was said to have used it to make fighting men of the dead,
provided their heads were intact and their spinal cords unsevered.
Unfortunately this process did not restore the souls of men, and thousands
were lost before Balor confronted Lugh. Challenged by "the light and
fearless one" Beimann opened his single gigantic eye, "to look upon this
babbler who converses with me." In that instant a stone entered his eye
with such force it carried the organ through the back of Balor's skull."
Lugh seems to have been unaware that this act killed his grandfather and
fulfilled a druidic prophecy.

16 Padraic Colum, Ibid, p. 538.

 After that, the slaying of the giants was likened to the fall of stars
"as many as are in the heaven...as flakes of snow, as the blades of grass
beneath the herds."17 THe Fomorians were then beaten back into the sea,
"from which they never again emerged." In truth, they never did return in
force, and their passing is marked on the plain of Sligo by numerous rock
cairns and pillars. The plain itself is even now referred to in Gaelic as
"the Plain of the Pillars of the Fomorians."

The masters of Ogygia (Greek,the most ancient place) were decidely

the warrior-magicians. Since Nuada had passed on to some future
reincarnation the high-kingship went to Lugh who established the
Lugnasad or Lunastain (August 1) in honour of his foster-mother, Taillte.
This consort of Manaun MacLir had a town in Ulster named after her (now
renamed Telltown). Here a yearly fair was instituted noted particularly
for its athletic contests. In time, Taillte also became famous as a
marriage mart. While The Lugnasad had religious and political rites
attached to it, the Tailltean Games embraced the entire first week of
August. The last fair at this place was celebrated in 1169, the year when
the first Anglo-Saxons invaded Ireland. At that time the crowd thronging
the roads between Taillte and Kells extended over a distance of six miles.

In spite of his reputation as an immortal, Lugh seems to have

"passed on" leaving the throne to the Dagda. If Lugh was the stem of the
crafts and sciences, Dagda was styled "the Lord of All Knowledge and the
Sun of All Sciences." In comon with Lugh, he was a great harpist

17Katherine Scherman,Ibid, p. 56 quoting The Second Battle

of Mag Tured from Ancient Irish Tales.