Early Irish Myths and Sagas Read Free Page B

received rent of the land, perhaps some stock, and some protection from enemies; in return, they surrendered a portion of what the land yielded and did some kind of service for their landlord. The upper class of these tenant farmers took possession of the rented stock after seven years; the lower classes did not and were in effect serfs. At the bottom of the social scale were the slaves; these were often people captured from neighbouring tribes, but they do not appear to have been numerous.
    Irish society, especially that of the historical tales, was an aristocratic one. The strongholds of the Ulster Cycle – Crúachu and Emuin Machae – are not cities but rather compounds where the king lives with his household and where he regales his chieftains with feasts and entertainments: poets, singers, musicians, jugglers. These strongholds may also have been centres for rounding up stock in autumn and for the holding of annual fairs, such as the one described at the beginning of ‘The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind’: ‘Each year the Ulaid held an assembly: the three days before Samuin and the three days after Samuin and Samuin itself. They would gather at Mag Muirthemni, and during these seven days there would be nothing but meetings and games and amusements and entertainments and eating and feasting.’ And drinking. Such a lifestyle dictated an expansionist policy towards one’s neighbours, since, in order to distribute wealth to their clients, kings and chieftains first had to accumulate it. Even in the mythological stories, the importance of land and possessions is patent: in ‘The Wooing of Étaín’, Óengus asserts his right to land from his father, the Dagdae, and it is the wealth of Bruig na Bóinde that enables him to compensate his foster-father, Mider, when the latter is injured.
    The Irish year was divided into two parts: winter and summer. The first day of November, called Samuin, was both the first day of winter and the first day of the new year; the feast has since given rise to Hallowe’en/All Saints’ Day and contributed the bonfire to Guy Fawkes celebrations. Samuin was a day of changes, of births and deaths; it was an open door between the real world and the otherworld. Óengus (in ‘The Wooing of Étaín’) dispossesses Elcmar of Bruig na Bóinde at Samuin, and he finds his beloved (in ‘The Dream of Óengus’) at Samuin. It is at Samuin that Da Derga’s hostel is destroyed and Conare Már is slain (the death of a king atSamuin is so common as to suggest regeneration myths and ritual slaying); it is at Samuin that, in ‘The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind’, beautiful birds appear at Mag Muirthemni and Cú Chulaind is entranced by Fand; it is at Samuin that, in ‘The Intoxication of the Ulaid’, the Ulaid charge off to the south-west of Ireland and are nearly burnt inside an iron house. Proinsias Mac Cana has called Samuin ‘a partial return to primordial chaos… the appropriate setting for myths which symbolise the dissolution of established order as a prelude to its recreation in a new period of time’; 6 and there can be no doubt that Samuin was the most important day of re-creation and rebirth in Ireland.
    The first day of May, called Beltene, marked the beginning of summer; this feast has since given rise to May Eve/Walpurgisnacht and May Day. Beltene was a less important day, and, consequently, less information about it has survived; the name seems to mean ‘fire of Bel’ (Bel presumably being the Irish descendant of the continental god Belenos) or ‘bright fire’, and there is a tradition that cattle were driven between two fires on this day so that the smoke would purify them. In any case, the rites of Beltene were probably directed towards ensuring the fertility of land and stock. The Welsh hero Pryderi is born on the first of May, and this fact coupled with the unusual circumstances of his birth (the concurrent birth of colts, the otherworld visitor) suggests that Beltene