File:Myths and legends; the Celtic race (1910) (14596932367).jpg

Identifier: mythslegendscelt00roll (find matches)
Title: Myths and legends ; the Celtic race
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Rolleston, T. W. (Thomas William), 1857-1920
Subjects: Celts Celts Celtic literature Legends, Celtic
Publisher: Boston : Nickerson
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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Text Appearing Before Image:
With the Milesians we begin to come into something
resembling history — they represent, in Irish legend, the
Celtic race ; and from them the ruling families of Ire-
land are supposed to be descended. The People of
Dana are evidently gods. The pre-Danaan settlers or
invaders are huge phantom-like figures, which loom
vaguely through the mists of tradition, and have little
definite characterisatio. The accounts which are given
of them are many and conflicting, and out of these we
can only give here the more ancient narratives.
The Coming of Partholan
The Celts, as we have learned from Caesar, believed
themselves to be descended from the God of the Under-
world, the God of the Dead. Partholan is said to have
come into Ireland from the West, where beyond the
vast, unsailed Atlantic Ocean the Irish Fairyland, the
Land of the Living—/.(?., the land of the Happy Dead—
was placed. His father's name was Sera (? the West).
He came with his queen Dalny¹ and a number of com-
panions of both sexes. Ireland—and this is an imagina-
tive touch intended to suggest extreme antiquity—was
then a different country, physically, from what it is now.
There were then but three lakes in Ireland, nine rivers,
and only one plain. Others were added gradually

¹ Dealgnaid. I have been obliged here, as occasionally elsewhere,
to modify the Irish names so as to make them pronounceable by
English readers.
96
Text Appearing After Image:

St. Finnen and the Pagan Chief 96

THE LEGEND OF TUAN MAC CARELL
during the reign of the Partholanians. One, Lake
Rury, was said to have burst out as a grave was being
dug for Rury, son of Partholan.

The Fomorians
The Partholanians, it is said, had to do battle with a
strange race, called the Fomorians, of whom we shall
hear much in later sections of this book. They were a
huge, misshapen, violent and cruel people, representing,
we may believe, the powers of evil. One of these was
surnamed Cenchos, which means The Footless, and thus
appears to be related to Vitra, the God of Evil in Vedan-
tic mythology, who had neither feet nor hands. With a
host of these demons Partholan fought for the lordship
of Ireland, and drove them out to the northern seas,
whence they occasionally harried the country under its
later rulers. The end of the race of Partholan was that they were
afflicted by pestilence, and having gathered together on
the Old Plain (Senmag) for convenience of burying
their dead, they all perished there ; and Ireland once
more lay empty for reoccupation.

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