Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/110

 CHAPTER VI DIVINE ENMITY AND PUNISHMENT

HE gods were sometimes hostile to men, not always for obvious reasons, as is curiously illustrated in the Echtra Nerai, or Adventures of Nera, an introductory tale to the Táin Bó Cúalnge. Here the gods are regarded as demons appearing with great power on Samhain Eve (Hallowe'en). King Ailill offered a reward to anyone who on that night would tie a withe round the foot of a captive hanged the previous day; and several tried, but were afraid. Nera was bolder, but his withe kept springing off the corpse until it told him to put a peg in it, after which the dead body asked him to carry it on his back to the nearest house for a drink, because "I was thirsty when I was hanged." The house was surrounded by a fiery lake, and into it and a second, surrounded by a lake of water, they could not enter. In a third house the corpse found water and squirted it on the faces of the sleepers so that they died, after which Nera carried the dead body to the gallows. This part of the story is connected with the vampire belief. Nera returned to Ailill's fort, but found it burnt, and a heap of human heads lay near it. He followed a company leaving it and thus came to the síd of Cruachan, where its king sent him to a woman in one of its dwellings, bidding him bring firewood daily to the royal house. At this task he noticed a lame man carrying a blind man to a well, and daily the blind man asked, "Is it there.?" to which the lame man answered, "It is indeed; let us go away." The woman told Nera that they were guardians of the king's crown in the well, and when he described his adventures and the destruction of Ailill's fort, she explained that this was merely the