“The legendary history of Ireland is based on the events of races that later invaded it and dominated it, coming from a mysterious Northern-Atlantic center, to which they sometimes returned. The Historia britorum often gives to this center the name Hiberia, but in truth such a term is only an imaginative rendering of the Irish names Magh-Mo, Tragh-Mor, or Magh-Mell, designating the “Land of the Dead”, namely, the primordial Northern-Atlantic center. There are many stories surrounding such races: they were in perennial conflict with the Fomors, giants or dark and monstrous beings who, in the Christianized elements of the saga, were significantly assimilated to the antediluvian giants or to savage beings descending from Shem and from Cain. These Fomors are the equivalent of the “elemental natures” or giants who were the mortal foes of the Aesir, the “divine heroes” in the Nordic tradition of the Edda. The Fomors represent the powers of a cycle of a Bronze Age, the obscure telluric forces that were associated with the depths of the waters (in the Ulster cycle), just as the telluric Poseidon previously was. In other words, they correspond to the forces of the original cycle that became materialized and degenerated in a titanic sense. This latter aspect can be derived from Celtic traditions, considering that the king of the Fomors, Tethra, was sometimes believed to be born in the mysterious land beyond the ocean, and that the unconquerable tower of Conaan (another Fomor king), which was located in the “Glass Island in the middle of the sea”, is, after all, an obvious symbol of the primordial center.
In any event, the Fomors, in their essential aspect as an obscure and telluric race, are defeated by a first nucleus of civilizers who came to Ireland from the Atlantic region and from the race of Partholan. Eventually this race became extinct and was followed by a second people of the same origins, the race of Neimheidh. That name, which derives from a Celtic root meaning “heavenly”, but also “ancient”, “venerable”, and “sacred”, allows us to conceive this new cycle as the creation of the representation of the primordial tradition still in a pure, Olympian state.
A symbolic episode during the age of Neimheidh recalls a counterpart in the Edda. In the Edda, the Aesir, or “divine heroes”, turn to the elemental beings to make them rebuild the fortress of the central region, Midgard’s Asgard. As a reward fur such a job, the giants want the divine woman Freya, and also the moon and sun. After they are refused (the Aesir having thwarted this usurpation of the forces from above, brought about by their employment of elemental powers) a struggle ensues, which culminates in the fatal “twilight of the gods”. Likewise, in the Irish cycle, Neimheidh employs the Fomors to build a fortress, but then, fearing that they may occupy it, he exterminates them. This is to no avail, since the descendants of Neimheidh end up being subjected to the Fomors, who inhabit the Tor-Inis, a fortress in an island located northwest of Ireland. In this place, during an attempted rebellion, Neimheidh’s descendants are massacred, just as in the saga of the Edda the struggle against elemental forces ends at first in a defeat of the Aesir. In both cases, we most likely have the figuration of the advent of a “titanic” cycle on the ruins of a civilization that is directly derived from the primordial one.
At this point of the unfolding of the Irish legend, an attempt at heroic restoration occurs. It is the cycle of the Tuatha de Danaan, a name that means “the people of the goddess Anu or Dana”. This race, on the one hand, is believed to have come to Ireland from “heaven” — hence, according to the Leabhar na huidhre (Book of the dun cow), “their wisdom and sublimity of their knowledge.” On the other hand, they are believed to have acquired a supernatural knowledge in the Hyperborean region. [1] These two versions do not contradict each other, but rather shed light on each other, owing both to the more-than-human character of the primordial center, and to the fact that, according to the legend, the race of the Tuatha derived from surviving members of the Neimheidh race. These survivors allegedly traveled to the Hyperborean or Western-Atlantic land in order to acquire supernatural knowledge, which explains a relationship with certain mystical objects, more on which later.
Since the race of Neimheidh was the “heavenly” and “ancient” race that was swept away by a titanic cycle, the overall meaning is probably that this was a reintegrating contact with the original spiritual center (a center that is both heavenly and, in the geographic transposition of the memory, Hyperborean or Western-Atlantic). This contact reanimates and bestows a heroic form to the new stock, the Tuatha de Danaan, who eventually defeat the Fomors and similar races (the Firbolgs) and conquer Ireland. [2] The leader of the Tuatha, Ogme, is a “solar” figure (Grian Ainech), endowed with traits similar to those of the Doric Heracles. Ogme eventually captures the sword of the king of the Fomors.
However, the rule of the Tuatha also ended. The Leabhar gabhala (Book of invasions) mentions the advent in Ireland of a new race, that of the “sons of Mileadh”, whose physiognomy is not clear. In this race the warrior element predominates — it seems that Mileadh has the same root as miles (soldier) — yet it is not distinct from residues of the highest tradition proper to the previous cycle of the Tuatha. Thus even in the civilization of Mileadh (or what was known as the culture of the Milesians — Galactica Editor) we find the symbolism of the “central seat”. The constitution of this people is feudal, with a supreme regality established in Tara, in the “Land of the Middle” (Meadhon), which already had been a sacred center of the Tuatha. Their king used to be consecrated by the “stone of destiny” (lia-fail) , more on which later. This too belonged to the tradition of the Tuatha. As for the Tuatha themselves, according to some texts they allegedly left the country, assuming an invisible form as the inhabitants of marvelous “subterranean” palaces or of mountainous caves inaccessible to mortal men, among whom they appear only in exceptional cases. According to other texts, they returned to their original home in Avalon. [3]
According to what has been said, the two versions are equivalent, since they are two different figurations of the primordial center that became hidden (“subterranean”) and inaccessible. In Celtic traditions, images of the Atlantic “island” of Avalon continued to be applied to it. Such an island was mainly conceived, in later times, as a place inhabited by women who attract heroes there to make them immortal. The name Avalon was explained on the basis of the Cymric term afal, which means “apple”, or “Island of Apples.” [4] This is naturally reminiscent of the island of the Hesperides, “beyond the ocean”, with the symbolic golden apples that Heracles captured in yet another of the labors that won him Olympian immortality. (This is also reminiscent of the Norse myth of Idunna and her golden apples, known to bestow “immortal youth” to any who ate them — Rory Dubhdara, Galactica Editor) The supernatural women of the island of Avalon apparently possess the gift of health: in the legend of Tir na Nog they declare that in their land “there is no death nor dissolution of the body”, and that in it the hero Oisin will be crowned “King of Eternal Youth.” [5]
At the same time, Avalon, the “White Island”, [6] has also the value of a “polar” and “solar” island. Avalon, according to another possible etymology, is none other than the island of Apollo, the Greek god who was called by the Celts Ablun or Belen ; thus this island represents the solar land and the Hyperborean region, since Apollo had also been considered a solar king of the Golden Age and of the Hyperborean region. [7] The frequent confusion of this island with the “Glass Island” must be due to a general symbolism of glass walls and even of walls of air, signifying an invisible defense surrounding some places, blocking their entrance, and also, according to yet another symbol, of a fiery revolving wall around this island. These are variations on the theme of inviolability, which was always attributed to the Supreme Center.
The text known as the Battle of Magh-Tured (sections 3-6) relates that the Tuatha brought with them from the Northern-Atlantic seat four objects that were strictly related to the teaching they received there: a stone, a spear, a sword, and a bowl. The stone is the “fatidic stone” or “royal stone”, so called because, acting as a sort of oracle, it allows one to recognize the legitimate king among various pretenders to the throne. The spear is the spear of Lug, the god of thunder, of which it is said that “never was a battle lost by him who brandished it.” The sword is the invincible and inexorable sword of Nuada. Finally, the bowl of Dagde is able to magically satiate with its contents any number of warriors. These objects of the Tuatha will reappear in corresponding objects of the Grail cycle, just as the Grail’s seat will shown to be in close relation to the very island of Avalon, or “White Island.”
In the traditions gathered in the Annals of the Four Teachers we find very visibly the theme of the struggle and of the victory as a test. An ever-recurring formula is: “King X fell to Y, who became king instead.” Its deepest meaning reminds us of the legend of the King of the Woods of Nemi, which I have discussed in my Revolt Against the Modern World. In this legend, to defeat and kill a given person appears to introduce one directly to the regal and priestly function held by that person, and also to the quality of becoming the bridegroom of the “divine woman.”[8] Medieval chivalric romance is filled with variations on this theme: the test of arms introduces, often almost automatically, the possession of a woman, who goes from one hero to another. On the basis of the so-called love right, according to the ethics of this literature, it was regarded almost as a natural thing for a knight to desire his own lord’s wife, provided he believed to be and could prove to be better than he in the test of arms.[9] The peculiar character that all this presents, if taken literally, and its scarce correspondence with the effective customs of the time, should already induce us to suppose a hidden content as the true meaning of such adventures.[10] In these adventures, moreover, one finds distant echoes of the theme of the selection of that virile quality which is most fit to qualify one to obtain possession of the “woman”.
According to the Historia regum britanniae, Britain was originally inhabited by giants. The main one among them was called Goemagot. Brute, conceived as one of the descendants of the Trojans who founded Rome, exterminated these giants and established the Britannic tradition. Goemagot visibly corresponds to Gog and Magog; this is indeed a significant biblical echo. Gog and Magog were demonic populations that will play an important role in the imperial myth. They correspond to the Fomors, to the “elemental beings” or rinthursi, to whom the “divine heroes” of the Edda (i.e., the Aesir) block the path with a wall, thus preventing them from occupying the “Seat of the Center”, the Midgard, which is a particular representation of the primordial center. In a certain sense they represent the demonic character of the world of the masses.
The Annals of the Four Teachers mentions several revolts against the sacred dynasty of the Tuatha de Danaan and against the later warrior dynasty of the sons of the Mileadh. These insurrections were sparked by the race of the Fir-Domhnain or “race of the abyss”, a telluric race associated with degenerated residues of previous inhabitants of Ireland, such as the Firbolgs. Finally, we find mention of a “plebeian race” (aithe-ach-tuatha), which during a feast day massacres the nobility and induces the Four Lords to rebel against the supreme lord of the Seat of the Center. As a punishment for such violence the land is stricken by a widespread sterility, accompanied by all sorts of plagues: the kingdom will remain in this state of desolation until the son of the last king, who had been defeated and killed, will return to his father’s land. In the Eastern saga of Alexander, the devastation and the sterility of “all the waters, so severe that it left no potable water”, are referred to the time of the advent of the people of Gog and Magog. This is the same condition that affects the kingdom of the Grail, which became the gaste Terre, the land ravaged because of the Dolorous Stroke, a condition that will last until the arrival of the avenging and restoring hero. This body of ancient tradition and Celtic pre-Christian symbols presents the principal themes that will be embodied again in the Grail cycle. The next link in the chain is the legend of King Arthur. “
Notes:
[1] Battle of the Magh-Tured, 1-3.
[2] To this we may relate the tradition referred by Plutarch, according to whom in the Boreal land Heracles’ stock (the heroic cycle) allegedly mixed with that of Kronos (primordial cycle), bringing about a civilization “similar to the Hellenic one” (the Olympian-heroic civilization of which Heracles was the symbol): “Thus Heracles is attributed the highest honor, and after him, Kronos” (De facie in orbe lunae, 26).
[3] C. Squire, The Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland (London, 1909). The tradition of the Tuatha continues somewhat in the heroic cycle of the Ulster, who were regarded as their descendants, with a solar character analogous to that of Greek heroes.
[4] From the woman of the faraway island Condla receives an apple that, no matter how much one eats of it, always grows back and reawakens in him an invincible nostalgia. This is the theme of the cornucopia, which will appear also in the Grail, together with the nostalgia that the latter induces in those who have once seen it. [5] The term avallach means apple, the apple that bestows immortality.
[6] The names Albion, referring to England, and Albania, referring to a part of it, come from an application to these lands of this ancient image of the White Island or Island of Splendor. In Hindu tradition the seat of Vishnu, the solar god who carries the Hyperborean cross or swastika, is called Sveta dvipa.
[7] One of the figurations of the land I am talking about is the so-called ten-magh-trogaigi, which includes the following symbols characteristic of the central seat: regal women; the silver tree with the sun at the top; the tree of victory; a fountain; a bowl containing a beverage that never runs out. All of these symbols will appear again in the knightly sagas.
[8] Revolt Against the Modern World, trans. Guido Stucco (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 1995), chapter 2.
[9] In Le Chevalier de la charrette, Arthur’s wife will be taken away by an armed knight who challenges Arthur, provided he can win the duel.
[10] Note the peculiar character of the knightly law (if taken literally) according to which the winner automatically inherited the vanquished’s lady or “regal woman” and had to possess her, more as a duty than as a right.
