Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/102

60 music of the swans, which caused happiness to all who heard it; and after many sufferings the birds met the sons of Bodb, who spoke to them of the divinities, while Fionnghula sang of her former happiness when she enjoyed the guileless teaching of Manannan, the convocations of Bodb, the voice of Oengus, and the sweetness of his kisses. We have seen how the children, after their disenchantment, died in the Christian faith. This old and touching myth has received a Christian ending: how it originally told the further fate of Ler's children is unknown.

The gods also transformed mortals. Morrígan brought a bull to a cow over which Odrus watched, and which followed the bull when Morrigan went into the cave of Cruachan. Odrus pursued through the cave to the síd within, but there she fell asleep, and the goddess awoke her, sang spells over her, and made of her a pool of water.$14$ This is partly paralleled by another story in which elves, or siabhra, transformed Aige into a fawn and sent her round Ireland. Later she was killed, and nothing remained of her but a bag of water which was thrown into a river, thenceforward named after her.$15$ A more curious transformation is that by which the god Oengus changed his four kisses into as many birds, in order that they might satirize the nobles of Erin, until a Druid by a stratagem stopped them.$16$ As has been seen, the kisses of Oengus were dear to Fionnghula. The souls of the righteous appear sometimes as white birds, and those of the wicked as ravens, in Christian documents—a conception which is probably of pagan origin.$17$

Finally, to show how the memory of the Tuatha Dé Danann and their powers survived into later centuries the story of O'Donnel's Kern may be cited. In this, Manannan appears as a kern, or serving-man, at the houses of historic personages of sixteenth century Ireland. He plays such music as never was heard, bewitching men to slumber; he is a marvellous conjuror, producing out of his bag hound, hare, dog-boy, and lady, who all climb a silken thread which he tosses upward to a