account. The Dindsenchas speaks of seven shapes which the swine-herds took, but describes five only — swine-herds, birds, wolves, trout, and worms and it also tells how a bull-calf of the Donn's was killed by White-Horn.10

A folk-tale analogy to this myth occurs in a West Irish collection. Two heroes at enmity fought until they were old men, then as puppies until they were old dogs, then as young bulls, as stallions, and as birds, until one was slain, his body falling on the other and killing him. The rebirth incident is lacking here."

In the story which narrates how King Mongan recovered his wife from the King of Leinster his feats were originally those of a divine namesake. Taking the form of a cleric, he gave that of another cleric to his attendant and won entrance to the King's fort and to his wife. He kissed her, but when the attendant hag cried out, he sent a magic breath at her, and what she had seen was no longer clear in her mind, after which he shaped a sharp spike on which she fell and was killed. His attempt to recover his wife failed, however, and at a later time he took the guise of Aed, son of the King of Connaught, transforming a hag into the shape of Aed's beautiful wife, Ibhell. The King of Leinster fell in love with her.and exchanged Mongan's wife to the pretended Aed for her; but the pair escaped, and great was the King's disgust to find Ibhell in the form of a hag. Mongan also made a river with a bridge over it, where none had ever been before, and in it he set the two clerics whose shapes he had borrowed.12

The gods could likewise transform each other. Etain was changed by Fuamnach into an insect, as a preliminary to her rebirth, and we have seen how the children of Ler were transformed into swans by their jealous step-mother. Ler heard them singing, yet god though he was, he could not disenchant them, just as Manannan was unable to change Aoife from the shape of a crane into which the jealous Iuchra had turned her. 13 The gods remained for three hundred years listening to the

music of the swans, which caused happiness to all who heard it; and after many sufferings the birds met the sons of Bodb, who spoke to them of the divinities, while Fionnghula sang of her former happiness when she enjoyed the guileless teaching of Manannan, the convocations of Bodb, the voice of Oengus, and the sweetness of his kisses. We have seen how the children, after their disenchantment, died in the Christian faith. This old and touching myth has received a Christian ending: how it originally told the further fate of Ler's children is unknown.

The gods also transformed mortals. Morrígan brought a bull to a cow over which Odrus watched, and which followed the bull when Morrígan went into the cave of Cruachan. Odrus pursued through the cave to the sid within, but there she fell asleep, and the goddess awoke her, sang spells over her, and made of her a pool of water.14 This is partly paralleled by another story in which elves, or siabhra, transformed Aige into a fawn and sent her round Ireland. Later she was killed, and nothing remained of her but a bag of water which was thrown into a river, thenceforward named after her.15 A more curious transformation is that by which the god Oengus changed his four kisses into as many birds, in order that they might satirize the nobles of Erin, until a Druid by a stratagem stopped them.16 As has been seen, the kisses of Oengus were dear to Fionnghula. The souls of the righteous appear sometimes as white birds, and those of the wicked as ravens, in Christian documents a conception which is probably of pagan origin.17

Finally, to show how the memory of the Tuatha Dé Danann and their powers survived into later centuries the story of O'Donnell's Kern may be cited. In this, Manannan appears as a kern, or serving-man, at the houses of historic personages of sixteenth century Ireland. He plays such music as never was heard, bewitching men to slumber; he is a marvellous conjuror, producing out of his bag hound, hare, dog-boy, and lady, who all climb a silken thread which he tosses upward to a

cloud; he performs miracles of healing; he takes off a man's head and puts it on again; and from each place where he goes he suddenly disappears from human sight, none knowing whither he has vanished.18 Folk-memory thus preserved much of the old conception of the gods.

IN

CHAPTER V

GODS HELPING MORTALS

N Greek mythology the gods were represented as coming to man's help, and in Christian legend saints were seen hovering above an army in battle and giving it substantial aid. So in Celtic myth deities were often kindly disposed toward men or assisted them, sometimes for ends of their own.

Such a myth is associated with the historic King Mongan of Ulster in the sixth and seventh centuries. He is shown to be son of the god Manannan by a mortal mother, and as has been seen, he had powers of shape-shifting, and besides being brought up in the divine land, had free access to it. He was also regarded as a rebirth of the hero Fionn; hence the stories told of this king of the Christian historic period must already have been narrated of some far earlier mythic king or god, perhaps possessed of the same name. Two of these legends narrate how the god assisted Mongan's putative father out of desire for his wife. In the shorter story Fiachna, King of Ulster, had gone to help Aedan in Scotland against Saxon hosts who had with them a terrible warrior, and during the fight a noble stranger appeared to Fiachna's wife and asked her love. She refused him with scorn, but later relented in order to save her husband's life, which, said the visitant, was in danger from the terrible warrior. "Our son will be famous, and his name will be Mongan. I shall tell thy husband our adventures, and that thou didst send me to his help." This the stranger did, afterward slaying the warrior and giving victory to Fiachna; and when Mongan was born, he was known as Manannan's son, for Manannan had announced his name when leaving the Queen at dawn.1

In the longer version Fiachna had become security for the exchange of four kine offered by the King of Lochlann to a Black Hag for her cow, the flesh of which alone could cure his disease. Later the hag compelled Fiachna to fight with the King, who had broken his promise to her; but all went well until the King of Lochlann let loose venomous sheep, before which Fiachna's men fell in hundreds. A warrior in a green cloak fastened by a silver brooch, with a circlet of gold on his head and golden sandals on his feet, appeared and asked what reward Fiachna would give him who would drive off the sheep. Fiachna replied that he would give anything he had, whereupon the warrior begged his ring "as a token for me when I go to Ireland to thy wife to sleep with her," to which the complacent Fiachna assented. The stranger- Manannan-announced that he would beget a glorious child, called Mongan Finn, or the "Fair"; "and I shall go there in thy shape, so that thy wife shall not be defiled by it." Fiachna would also become King of Lochlann. Taking a venomous hound from his cloak, Manannan launched it successfully at the sheep and then appeared to the Queen as Fiachna. On the night of Mongan's birth the Queen's attendant had a son, Mac an Daimh, while the wife of Fiachna's opponent, Fiachna the Black, bore a daughter, Dubh Lacha, these possibly also being children of the amorous god. When Mongan was three days old, Manannan took him to the Land of Promise and brought him back when he was sixteen. Meanwhile Fiachna Dub having killed the other Fiachna, the Ulstermen bargained that Mongan should retain half the province, with Dubh Lacha as his wife. One day when he and his Queen were playing together, "a dark, black-tufted little cleric" reproached Mongan for his inactivity and offered to help him to regain his land. Mongan went with him; they slew Fiachna; and all Ulster became Mongan's. The cleric was Manannan, though his transformation, in this as in the other version, is the result of the revision of the story by a Christian scribe. At a later time Mongan