Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/89

Rh fluenced by the view that some of the Tuatha Dé Danann had died as mortals, Dagda has long since passed away, and the mounds are places of sepulture, perhaps a reflection of the fact that kings were interred there. Yet they are apportioned by the chief survivors, Bodb Dearg and Manannan, the latter having the task of selecting concealed dwellings. These he found in beautiful hills and valleys, and drew round them an invisible and impenetrable wall, though the Tuatha Dé Danann themselves could see and pass through it. He gave them Goibniu's ale, which preserved them from old age, disease, and death, and his own swine, which, killed and eaten one day, were alive the next and fit again for use. Thus even from this euhemeristic narrative the real divinity of its personages appears.$5$

In this account Bodb Dearg is made sovereign of the Tuatha Dé Danann, as he is also in the story of The Children of Ler (Aided Chlainne Lir). Ler, disgusted at the choice, retired, whereupon the others resolved to punish him, but were overruled by Bodb, who gave Ler his daughter Aobh as wife, provided he would pay allegiance to him. Aobh bore him two daughters and two sons before her death, and to comfort him Bodb now gave him her sister Aoife who, jealous of her stepchildren, transformed them into swans—a shape which they must keep for nine hundred years, though they retained speech and reason and the power of exquisite song. As a punishment Bodb changed Aoife into a "demon of the air." Not till the time of St. Patrick and St. Mochaomhog did Ler's children resume their own form. Withered and old, they now accepted the Christian faith and died, after having found their father's palace a roofless ruin.$6$

In the version given in the Book of Fermoy Elemar, fosterfather of Oengus, received the Brug na Boinne, and Manannan advised Oengus to ask it from him. Through Manannan's magic power Elcmar was expelled, and Oengus gained the síd, where he dwells invisibly, eating the swine and drinking the ale of immortality. In still another version a curious account of the