Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/109

Rh age of nine months, that I did not watch thee and carefully keep thee against thy foes, until last night, O Diarmaid; and alas for the treachery that Fionn hath done thee, for all that thou wast at peace with him." Then he sang a lament, and bearing the body to his Brug, he said, " Since I cannot restore him to life, I will send a soul into him, so that he may talk to me each day."$11$ Oengus has less power than savage medicinemen or gods in myth, who bring the dead back to life, or than Demeter, who gave life to Dionysos after he was dismembered by the Titans. But the story is an almost unparalleled example of a god's love for a mortal. Fionn himself bears witness to the love which Oengus had for Diarmaid as a child in his Brug, and how when spells were put upon a boar that it should have the same length of life as he, the god conjured him never to hunt a boar.$12$

Another interesting instance is found in the story of Fraoch, whose mother was a goddess. When he killed a dragon, women of the síd came and carried him there, curing him of his wounds; and so, too, when he was slain at a ford by Cuchulainn, those divine women, clad in green, came and lamented over him and carried his body into the síd. Fraoch should not have gone near water, for this was dangerous for him, and his mother's sister, the goddess Boann, had said, "Let him not swim Black Water, for in it he will shed his blood."$13$ In another story the goddess Morrígan helped Tulchainde, Conaire's Druid, who wished Dil, daughter of Lugmannair, to elope with him from the Isle of Falga—the Isle of Man regarded as the divine land. Dil loved an ox born at the same time as herself and insisted that Tulchainde should take it with her; and the Morrígan was friendly to him and at his wish brought it to Mag mBreg.$14$ The Morrígan was both hostile and friendly to Cúchulainn, thus resembling that supernatural but ambiguous personage, the Lady of the Lake in Arthurian tradition, now helping, now opposing.