Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/63

Rh of Celts and aborigines. The Fomorians are, in fact, called gods of the menial Firbolgs, who are undoubtedly an aboriginal race, while Fomorians are described in later Christian times as ungracious and demoniac, unlike the Tuatha Dé Danann; and the pagan Celts must already have regarded them as evil. The gods of a conquering race are often regarded as hostile to those of the aborigines, and vice versa, and now new myths arise. In either case the close relationship in which the groups stand by marriage or descent need not be an Invention of the compiler. Pagan mythology Is Inconsistent, and compromise Is Inevitable. Conquerors and conquered tend to coalesce, and this Is true of their gods; or, as different tribes of one race now intermarry, now fight, so also may their evil and their friendly divinities. Zeus was son of the Titan Kronos, yet hostile to him. Vile, Ve, and Odin, father of the gods, were sons of a giant, and the gods fought with giants. Other parallels might be cited; but what Is certain Is that gods of an orderly world—of growth, craftsmanship, medicine, poetry, and eloquence. If also of magic and war—are opposed to beings envisaged, on the whole, as harmful. In this combat some of the gods are slain. If this were told of them in the old myths, probably It did not affect the continuance of their cult. Pagan gods are mortal and Immortal; their life is a perennial drama, which ever begins and ends, and is ever being renewed—a reflexion of the life of nature itself.

In another story the strife of powers of light and growth with those of darkness and blight Is suggested, though the latter are euhemeristically described as mortals. Three men came from Athens with their mother Carman—Valiant, Black, and Evil, sons of Extinction, who was son of Darkness, and he son of Ailment. By her incantations Carman ruined every place where she came, while her sons destroyed through plundering and dishonesty. They came to Ireland to blight the corn of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who sent against them Ai, a poet, Cridenbel the lampooner, Lugh Laebach, a wizard, and Béchuille, a witch,