Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/93

Rh to guard the tree—a savage, one-eyed giant, Searbhan Lochlannach, who could not be slain until struck with three blows of his iron club; and around the tree he made a wilderness, sleeping in it by night, and watching at its foot by day. Fionn demanded as eric, or fine, from two warriors either the head of Diarmaid or a handful of these berries; but Diarmaid overcame them, and then asked the giant for the berries. Searbhan refused them, but by skill and strength the hero seized his club and slew him.$5$

Yet, even in their own immortal land, gods are slain. Perhaps this was not altogether the result of the annalistic view of the gods, for myth may have told of their death, as it did of gods elsewhere—Dionysus, Attis, Balder, Osiris. The analistic view did not hinder the continuance of myths, and divinities whose death is recorded in the Annals are found to be alive long after, while gods and goddesses born in pagan times appear thousands of years later to persons living in the Christian period. In spite of this perennial duration, they remained youthful and beautiful. Yet while the gods' land was pictured as a deathless, peaceful place, men still gave it certain of the traits of human life. War, wounds, and death were there, according to some stories; gods might even be slain by men; and as gods have human passions, so they may also have human weaknesses. Such is always the inconsistency of myth.

Invisibility was another divine power, innate, or acquired by donning a mantle, or from Manannan's spell, Féth Fiada, which was known also to Druids, poets, and Christian saints, who by it became unseen or took other forms. When the sons of Midir, assisted by the Féinn, fought against Bodb, Midir's son and Caoilte went to the síd of Oengus for a physician to heal Oscar's wounds; and then "there arose a Féth Fiada around us, so that we were invisible." In one passage Dagda is invisible, and Midir said, "We behold and are not beheld." When Manannan came to fetch his consort Fand, none saw him but the goddess, and when Lug arrived to assist Cuchulainn, he was unseen by