Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/66

38 a hundred thousand warriors, while as one went from kingdom to kingdom, the melodious music of the gods was heard. He told of his goddess wife and those of his comrades and of the cauldrons and drinking-horns taken from the fort; for one night of the nights of the síd he would not accept his father's kingdom. With these words he quitted the king for ever and returned to Mag Mell, there to share the sovereignty with Fiachna—a noble divine reward to a mortal.$34$ In the heroic cycle of Fionn other instances of heroes helping gods will be found.

War between different divine groups is also found in the story of Caibell and Etar, Kings of the síde (divine or fairyfolk), each of whom had a beautiful daughter. Two Kings who sought the maidens in marriage were offered battle for them. If, however, the combat was fought in the síd, the síd would be polluted—an idea contrary to that of these other instances of war in the gods' land; and if the síd-folk were seen among men, they would no longer be invisible at will. The fight, therefore, took place at night, lest there should be no distinction between them and men; and the síde took the form of deer. So terrible was the struggle that four hillocks were made of the hoofs and antlers of the slain; and to quell it, water broke forth from a well and formed Loch Riach, into which if white sheep are cast every seventh year at the proper hour, they become crimson. Etar alone of the kings survived.$35$

The Christian scribes were puzzled over the Tuatha Dé Danann. The earliest reference to them says that because of their knowledge they were banished from heaven, arriving in Ireland in clouds and mists—the smoke of their burning ships, says an euhemerizing tradition. Eochaid ua Flainn, in the tenth century, calls them "phantoms" (siabhra) and asks whether they came from heaven or earth; were they demons or men. They were affiliated to Japhet, yet regarded as demons in the Book of Invasions. Another tradition makes them a branch of the descendants of Nemed who, after being in the Northern