Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/184

176 attention vouchsafed it. The mingled dulness and absurdity of the euhemerising chroniclers of the eleventh and following centuries, with their portentous lists of kings stretching well-nigh up to the Flood, the obvious artificiality of the whole system, may explain why up to now this portion of Irish literature has escaped searching and critical study. The materials are plentiful, and as old, diplomatically, as any other branch of Irish literature. It is from the two great vellums, the Leabhar na hUidhre (L. n. H.), and the Book of Leinster (L. L.), written down, the one at the beginning, the other towards the middle of the twelfth century, that we derive our information. From the latter we get the fullest text of what seems to be the earliest systematic attempt to euhemerise the entire Irish mythology, and to present it in pseudo-historical shape, the Lebar Gabhala, or Book of Invasions (L. G.); in it, too, we chiefly find the poems of Eochaid hua Flainn (+ 984), representing an earlier stage in the development of the legends, and those of Flainn Manistrech (+ 1056), and of Gilla Coemain (+ 1072), which seem to be the foundation upon which the L. G. is built.

It has long been remarked, and by many writers, that the major portion of these elaborate annals must be simply rationalised mythology; the mythic character of the Tuatha de Danann, for instance, is apparent to every educated student. But M. d'Arbois de Jubainville has been the first to deal with this literature as a whole, and to attempt to resolve it in its entirety into mythological elements. I will try and state as concisely as possible the main points of his argument.

Irish mythology is, in its essence, dualistic. It conceives of a perpetually recurring strife between a good and an evil principle, the former of which proceeds from and is antagonistic to the latter. The father, god of night, and that counterpart of night, death, is overcome by the son, god of the bright day and the clear heaven, patron of art and poesy. But he retains his sway in the land of death, and the heroes who depart thither after this life dwell in his kingdom. Even so Hesiod represents Kronos, father of the sky-god Zeus, but dethroned by him, reigning over the happy shades of dead heroes in the isles of ocean. This kingdom of the dead, known to the Irish Celts as Mag