Irish Mythology

Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Chutaburg forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe. So how did Rome begin? With a throne, a triumph, or a murder between brothers? Well according to legend, the mighty city was founded by the twin sons of Mars, Romulus and Remus, abandoned as infants, suckled by a she-wolf, and destined for greatness, until ambition poisoned their bond. I'm Tristan Hughes, and I cannot wait to get into the explosive story of Romulus and Remus on the ancient's live tour in Australia and New Zealand this August. I'm going to be joined by the fantastic Jeremy Armstrong. He's a professor of ancient history at an expert on early Rome, and together we'll follow the myth from divine origins to blood-soaked, founding legend, teasing apart what the Romans believed, what archaeology can actually tell us, and how a city built on stories became one of the greatest powers in history. It's our own sale now. We're coming to Canberra on the 2nd of August, and we're going to be in Auckland on the 8th. The tickets they are selling far, so book yours now at fein.com.au. Can't wait to see you there. Hey guys, I hope you're doing well. Welcome to this episode of The Ancient's. All about the amazing topic that is Irish mythology. This is extraordinary. I love learning about all the stories you're going to hear in the interview and how they're linked to certain ancient Irish prehistoric sites. I also love the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien's Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings may well have been inspired by a particular supernatural creature from Irish mythology called Baylor, and if that doesn't work to your appetite, then I don't know what will. Our guest is a man who's been researching, studying Irish mythology for decades. His brilliant storyteller, his name is Anthony Murphy, such a privilege to get him on the podcast, and I hope you guys enjoy. Let's go. Irish mythology, an incredibly rich corpus of tales written down by Christian monks in medieval times, but with its roots in Ireland's ancient past. It is mythology that includes stories of supernatural beings and creatures, of divine battles and scandals, of sacred rivers and epic heroes. Stories strongly linked to some of Ireland's most important prehistoric monuments and landscapes, like the 5,000 year old passage to much new range and the hill of Tara. Irish mythology is rich and diverse, full of tales that have gripped people for centuries and remain as popular as ever. This is an introduction to the fascinating rich world of Irish mythology and its links to Ireland's prehistoric past, with our guest, Anthony Murphy. Anthony, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Great to see you again, although not in person this time. Yeah, we spent some time together along the boy. It was that last year and it was. Yeah, enjoyed. It was. Very much enjoyed that and enjoyed watching the result of that. Well, you were part of our documentary on prehistoric Ireland on Bruno Boyn, and the links, not only you will discover this extraordinary ancient hens and many other monuments, like Dronehenge, but also the links to Irish mythology of that extraordinary prehistoric site. And I'm sure we'll be covering that in today's chat. But Anthony, with Irish mythology, I had no idea just how rich a corpus of literature of different stories you had available that there was an Irish mythology. We can't cover all of it, but there's so much to explore. Yeah, and I think this is something that even Irish people are only coming to grips with in recent years. Like, you know, a generation ago when I was being educated, we were taught classical studies in secondary school. And, you know, we learned all about what we learned Homer and Virgil and the Iliad and the Odyssey. And we learned about the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. But I suppose in a way, when I left school, I didn't realize that Ireland had a body of mythology that would easily rival the classical world and have spent the intervening years trying to catch up on that serious deficiency in my knowledge. So, you know, it is truly vast. There are stories, you know, from, well, I suppose they've been categorized into different cycles as it were. But we're very lucky because an awful lot of what we have in terms of mythology, the stuff that was written down, it mostly survives because of Christian monks in the Middle Ages. And without that, I think an awful lot of what we have today wouldn't have survived. And then separate to that, there's an enormous body of folklore and folk traditions which have survived orally, not just into the 20th century, but, you know, in parts of Ireland, there are stories still being told in the 21st century that are certainly centuries old, if not a lot longer than that. And just to give a sense of the rich, diverse stories that you have from mythology and some of them no doubt will cover today, Anthony, I mean, so you've got stories of saints, of kings, of warriors, of heroes, of supernatural races and mythological creatures as well. It's a diverse range of topics and stories within this mythology. Yeah, I've often said that if you were to become a mythologist, whether an academic one or like myself, you know, a non-academic scholar, you could choose a specialty. You could specialize in a particular area of Irish myth and devote probably your entire life or your entire career to that one branch of mythology. So for instance, our origin myth is given to us by the monks in a sort of convoluted form a book called Lauergawala, Aaron, the book of the takings of Ireland commonly known as the Book of Invasions. And in that, we have this sequence of imagined events beginning at an unknown time, you know, beginning in biblical terms with the creation of the world and the great flood and all of that. And there's enough in Lauergawala runs to six volumes, the scholarly translation of it runs to six volumes. So there in that story, it's not a story, it's such a sequence of stories. In that series of stories, one could embed oneself and go down a very, very deep rabbit hole and not emerge for another ten or twenty years. So the scholars, I mean, I'm talking about the academic scholars, have for a long time recognized four distinct cycles. Now, a caveat to trying to put various myths and legends into cycles is that they are not tightly defined, they're not very well defined in time, most of them. And they often stray one into the other so that you get the old gods of what is called the mythological cycle, what is envisioned or imagined to be the first of the cycles. You often get the old gods straining into the later cycles coming back, you know, as it were. So if the mythological cycle, we then have the the ulster cycle of tales, which includes you mentioned the great saga, a toinbou kunga, the cattle rate of kuli, which is one of Ireland's probably greatest stories in terms of its breath and its size. It's not quite Homer's Iliad, but you know, it would be sort of the Irish equivalent. Then we have the fin cycle, the cycle of tales relating to fin and the fiena, the warrior band of Ireland. And then of course we have the kings, the kings cycle. And we know of course from history that there were actual historical high kings and kings of Ireland. But as I say, trying to neatly fit them into boxes is something that academic scholars like to do. But in fact, you find that they're not necessarily neatly constrained in that. So for instance, one example of that is in Thornbow, Kulinger, which were told belongs to the old or cycle of tales, we have some of the two of the d'Anne featured within that story. You know, a very good example of that. It is Coocholin, the great warrior, the hero of the tale, the protagonist of the town, or one of the, he meets his supernatural father, who is Lou Sameldon, a Chorlou McEthlin, and Lou, we would know from the mythological cycle, the two of the d'Anne, and this is something that could become an obsession of sorts, you know, and those who have tried quite admirably, I might add, and I'm talking about, you know, university scholars, professors, and great minds of the 20th and 21st century, they have tried admirably, you know, to pick those apart. But I suppose if you think more generally in terms of mythology and the meaning and purpose of it. I would tend myself to lean towards a youngian and a canbaleska as in Joseph Campbell, a view of some of the functions and interpretations and meaning of myths, and then of course there's the fact that myths which ostensibly look like stories, pure mythology, oftentimes have historical references in them. Right. And some of those historical references, historians have gone back in time and said, "That's actually a fact." You know, so in the myth we get glimpses as it were into a reality, a real lived existence of a people of the past. So just before we carry on, I suppose, a major major caveat and it's something that anybody who tries to study Irish mythology must get a clear view of straight away. Is the fact that nothing was written down in Ireland until Christian monks basically not invented but broad writing to Ireland in around the sixth century AD and in fact in terms of Irish mythology, what survives in manuscripts, about 300 of them in libraries and private collections in Ireland and Britain and on the continent of Europe. What survives is probably a fraction of what was there originally, but our greatest difficulty is, I believe, in the 24th century, is trying to disentangle what is clearly heavily influenced by that ecclesiastical hand and the mindset of the Christian scribe, who is in some cases writing down an incredibly pagan as it were and I put that word in quotes. It's a word I do not use in my own writing because it's such a pejorative word when it's used from a religious standpoint, but they were writing down what were ostensibly pagan myths. And that would have been extremely challenging and testing because remember that an ecclesiastical scribe who professes a faith in one God and his son Jesus Christ and who does his best to honor as it were and obey the ten commandments is in flagrant breach of the first commandment though shall have no other gods before me when he attempts to write, for instance, about the Toad of Dhanan, which is where it gets complicated because, well, complicated nuance might be the word because the scribes tried to demonize the Toad of Dhanan in some cases. They said that there were fallen angels and in some cases they tried to make out that there are mortal human beings who live mortal existences who are born, who live and who die and who pass away and you can see there are quite deliberate and really obvious insertions into the myths where you know the scribe talks about the one true God or where the scribe tries to make out for instance in the famous story connected with Newgrange, Altram-Chiya, Gav-Ather which is the the fostrige of the house of the Toad drinking vessels in which one of the major figures of that myth who is clearly a Toad of Dhanan goddess meets Saint Patrick in the latter part of the story is baptized by Saint Patrick is removed from her old community and basically dies in his arms having professed the faith, you know, and for me it's like that's a tale of two halves. The first part of that is I believe a pure view into the past. The second is sort of a contrivance made to as it were to baptize this. A Christian edition of it yes, exactly. So it sounds like yes although the medieval link is so clear in the fact that these myths as you say they're written down in medieval times and not all at the same time and guessing it's over different centuries and you've got different Christian writers writing down these stories and these figures you know trying to you know reconcile you know their beliefs but also to bringing the stories the Toad did Dhanan and you mentioned Saint Patrick there so the the Christian angle that you need to understand and you can see with some elements of certain myths but Anthony how we get the ancient prehistoric island link here is it clear then that actually much of this mythology is older than medieval times and may well have a historical basis in Ireland's prehistoric past. That's a very good question and the major answer from my point of view is yes. So I suppose one of the advantages of not being an academically trained scholar in this discipline is having a sort of a wider a wider view and a more holistic view having studied you know archaeology and prehistory and then you know looking at the detail of the stories I'll give you what I believe to be the best example of that of the fact that yes there is information about the ancient past I could give you several but I'll try to give you a quick yeah I know we could be here all day I'll give you a quick example in the stories of Bruno Bonia for instance which I know we're going to talk about in more detail and there are references to Incess there are references to a king at Douth who makes love with his sister and this causes a spell that she has cast on the sun to make it stand still in the sky to fail the they spoil the magic by committing Incess five years ago in 2020 genetic scientists who've been studying ancient DNA from Trinity College and Dublin revealed that a man buried inside the chamber of migraine which is the sister monument of Douth was the product of first degree in Sestius Union that his parents were probably brother and sister most likely brother and sister if not father and daughter or mother and son but most likely brother and sister and so right there in the myth of Bruno Bonia we have something that 24th century science has actually proven to be true and then consider the solar event at newgrange which many of your viewers will know about but some of the may not new range a little bit like stone hinge stone hinge is famous for its summer solstice alignment new range here in the point Valley is famous for its winter solstice sunrise alignment newgrange was blocked up for four thousand years and nobody knew for four thousand years or they may have known but nobody could see an entrance because the Karen had collapsed as it were had slipped out over the edge and buried everything and that entrance was not revealed again until the late 17th century 1699 actually and it was only in 1967 when the roof box was finally cleared out and restored that the sun was able to shine into newgrange again and archaeologists who've anybody with an expertise on newgrange archaeologically who have studied it will all say the same thing that newgrange had been blocked up since about the late neolithic or the early Bronze Age for around about four thousand years and yet in the 20th century in the 60s before the roof box was cleared out the archaeologist Michael J. O. Kelly who's excavating newgrange is being told by the locals do you know that the sun shines in there once a year even though they couldn't have witnessed it it was impossible for them to have seen it and according to archaeologists it hadn't been seen for four thousand years and then look at the d'Anhianicus and look at the stories pertaining to Brunabonia and in there you will see that the Dougda who's the builder of newgrange the king of the two at the time and the chief of the gods the one who controls the weather and the harvest he's like a sky god or a sun god he desires bow in the god S and by the way Brunabonia is named after her as is the boy in river he desires her and they make love inside newgrange but in order to do so and this is the exact translation of the Irish they make the sun stand still in the sky and so in that and I've written about this there's a lengthy article about it on the mythical eroded website you have basically the sun god meeting with the earth god S and it's all very sort of organic and symbolic in that newgrange is very wound like and swollen belly like you know you know you you've got the sun that shouts of light, you know, entering that monument. And in that process, the new son God is born, Angus Ogg, the child, the divine child, who when his mother was asked, why is he called Angus the young, Angus Ogg? She said, well, because young is the son who was conceived and born in the same day because of the magic that they had wrought at the time of his conception that Doug Da and Boin slept together inside Newgrange, the child was conceived and he was born before nightfall on the same day. And so I just believe that, remember that story, that story was written down in the Middle Ages, most of what survives in terms of Irish mythological material, not, you know, there's plenty of ecclesiastical material, you know, prayer books and the gospels and all of that. But in terms of just the Irish mythological material, most of that was written between the 12th and the 15th centuries, 80. So I mean, we're not even talking a thousand years ago, we're talking between 500 and 800 years ago. Now, the critical thing here is that as those stories were being written down, nobody knew that Newgrange had a chamber, nobody knew that the son used to shine in or at least nobody could see it in the era in which the stories were written down. So the only possible plausible explanation for that is that either it's a fantastic coincidence, which, you know, I think is nonsense, or in the Middle Ages, there is a memory there of something that happened with Newgrange, not just centuries, but millennia previously. You know, yes, no exactly given that Newgrange has built some 5,000 years ago in the Stone Age. And also there, you mentioned, I'm going to butcher the pronunciation of it, but the done diseng cast, I mean, explain Anthony, can you say the name correctly for me? Yeah, continue my question. So an acceptable d'inchanicus is how we would say it, d'inchanicus. But if you want to just say d'inchanicus, d'inchanicus, that's what it was. Yeah, okay. The d'inchanicus is a remarkable collection of lore pertaining to eminent places. It's exactly what it means. Dindchanicus is lore or folklore or lore would be a better word, and dind sacred places, important eminent places. And so it's basically a collection pertaining to to old monuments and places where important things happened in the past. What started the Civil War? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was Paul Revere? And did the Vikings ever reach America? I'm Don Wildman, and on American history, my expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years to uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors for the nation was formed, meet the characters who have altered it with their touch, and count the votes that have changed the direction of our laws and leadership. Find American history at twice a week every week, wherever you get your podcasts. American history hit, a podcast from history hit. [Music] Well you hit the nail on the head there because I was going to say if that's what these stories are, it seems that there are these extraordinary prehistoric sites like you've mentioned, Bruno Boigneur, New Grange, Passage Tomb, Nath and Douth. I've also got the Hill of Tara in my notes as well, but there are actual places and sites and landscapes in Ireland that we know how huge significance and importance to Stone Age, Stone Age populations in Ireland, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and so on. That are strongly linked with stories from Irish mythology and I think that's an extraordinary part of Ireland's mythology. Yeah, and I agree, an extraordinary part and a very important part. So something that again, non-scholars, people who have just read some stuff on the internet or read a few books may not be aware of is Denshanicus was obviously extremely important for this reason. Denshanicus material is found in at least 12 manuscripts. Now, just to compare, for instance, the story of the Salmon of Knowledge which we may get time to talk about, which happened at Bruno Boigneur by the way in the bend of the point, that episode is only written in one manuscript or at least it only survives in one manuscript. I think the fact that Denshanicus is found in so many of the manuscripts indicates how important it was, that it was an extremely critical part of the corpus of material and I suppose the cosmological worldview of the people who wanted it written down. And when I say the people who wanted it written down, it's important for your viewers and listeners to understand that, you know, Denshanicus was written down by people who were mostly Christian scribes. No, there were lay scribes, but it's a monastic environment in which these stories are being written down. Why did Christian monks labor long and hard on hold stone slabs, writing under candlelight for long hours of the day, you know, why did they exert all this labor writing down what was ostensibly pagan mythology? And the answer is this, and this is the briefest explanation I can give for it, but it is important that the reason is because without an affiliation, a relationship with the pagan kings, the monastic communities could never have thrived in Ireland. It was with the say so of the local or provincial or even the hiking, that the monasteries could become established in the first place. They needed land to farm and further ecclesiastical structures, their churches and of course their buildings of the places where they lived. And in return for that, the kings said, well, hey, we just want you to write down our law and that included, I suppose, well, it what it included was a justification of that kings write to rule, which would include, for instance, genealogies, a lot of genealogical material, you know, affirming the king's descendants, usually from the first Malaysian hiking and the Malaysians are mostly mythological, I believe, part historical, and Eremone was the first Malaysian king, and there's this major effort on behalf of the genealogists to contrive in some cases, a family tree that linked that king back to Eremone, you know, and then the Denshannicus, because if a king, a Tara is a great example, the Hill of Tara, where the over king, Ardrena Heron, the over king or the hiking of Ireland ruled from, you've got a monumental landscape there. It's an archaeological landscape containing monuments from as long ago as the the the the theolithic, and so in the early medieval period when we know there were actual kings who who really existed, they're pointing to these monuments and saying here is the story of these monuments, and this helps to legitimize his power because he's saying basically our ancestors have been buried here for not just decades and generations but for centuries and possibly thousands of years, so it's against that backdrop that you get an insight into why it was that Christian scribes were writing this material down, and it's really crucial to understand that, to get a flavor of what was involved. Denshannicus, I suppose from a Bannacademic scholarship point of view, Denshannicus is funny because with many of the stories, there are almost always two explanations as to how the place got its name. It's either this or it's that, and the two are very very different and sort of seem to argue with each other. That has led modern scholars, I'm talking specifically of course about academic scholars, that has led the modern scholars to say, well this is you know this is this is a contrivance. Some of it looks a little bit kitsch and you know it loses vitality, it loses credibility because it says well it's either this or that and the two stories are very different, but I suppose what I've been doing for the past 25 years or so is I've been looking into some of those stories, not all of them, there's so much material. I've been looking into those stories that pertain particularly to Bruno Bonier, and I've been finding flimpses of a true history of the place, you know, that despite this contradiction, as it were, that these stories appear to sort of contradict each other, in there, in the detail, I believe, is information about the past. A good friend of mine said recently is, remember Anthony, that in the Middle Ages, this is what they were writing down. This was a principal component of the mythos, the world view of the people who were relating this to the scribes, you know, the bards, as it were, the ones the olives, the poets, the ones who knew this material by heart, who would never even think about writing it down, for them in a way that was anathema. But of course, the scribe needs to have had a reference point where they get this information from to write it down in the first place. There's a bard standing or sitting beside them, relating this material, and the bard in the Middle Ages is saying, well, here are all the monuments of Bruno Bonier, here are their names, and here is the origin story for each of them. And in the Middle Ages, we've got this collection of stories telling us all about the various monuments that were then visible at Bruno Bonier, and the stories behind them, some of them pertaining to gods and goddesses, some of them pertaining to heroes, some of them pertaining to animals and even mythological creatures. And yet fast, fast forward to the 19th and particularly the 20th century, and we've removed all that, and we're now producing maps of Bruno Bonier that have mound A and mound B and standing stone C and letters on all the monuments, completely depriving them of that mythological import. But if you were to go back in time, travel back to the Middle Ages and have a bard stand at Newgrange looking down across the the various still standing monuments, that bard would be able to tell you the name of each of them and the story pertaining to each of them. And also of course, you know, with natural landscapes as well, you mentioned also the river Boine, and I think the river Shannon is similar as well that there's mythology connected to these rivers, hence why they're considered like the most sacred rivers in Ireland as well. So hopefully we'll get to that and you mentioned earlier the salmon of knowledge. So I'm definitely going to get to that later in this chat. But you've also highlighted something which I love doing on the ancients with various kinds of mythology and various stories that have survived is exploring myths and then exploring whether there is historical basis or some slivers of prehistoric remembering in the stories. And you've already highlighted there these big monuments and how they are linked to certain mythological tales. One tale I'd like us to really explore now Anthony if you don't mind because you mentioned near the beginning the two-er-de-danon. And can we therefore go to in the mythology that the creation story of Ireland and how we get to this these people of the two-er-de-danon. But also people who you also mentioned in passing them are lesions who ultimately the kings of Ireland claim descent from. So I know it's a multi-volume story of how you get there. But would you mind kind of giving us an overview of what the mythology tells us about how we get to these these godlike creatures the two-er-de-danon and then ultimately the milleisions? Yeah. So the two-er-de-danon are I suppose one one aspect or one chapter in the story of Laura Gawhalla at the Book of Invasions. And the idea is very to summarize very briefly is that the history of Ireland according to what was written by the monks remember they're using part of this is is real Irish mythological tradition and part of it of course is contrived history. They imagined that Irish history began with the great flood of Noah that Noah's granddaughter was refused entry onto the ark and it was told by her grandfather to come to a place where there was no sin where there were no people living because that land would have no sin in it and would not be subject to gods vengeance or gods justice as it were with the coming flood and that's how it begins she comes to Ireland. Now there are six distinct arrivals according to Laura Gawhalla one of which is the two-er-de-danon. Now the two-er-de-danon and this is a I suppose a peculiarity as it were if you think that these are gods and goddesses a peculiarity is that they don't emerge from the land they're not created here they don't come you know they don't they don't come out of the earth as much as they're given this distinct arrival now remember that always always be very careful when you're reading Irish mythology because you have to you have to always remember there's a Christian monk writing this down and the Christian monk of course if you're standing talking to a bird who only speaks that what was then early or middle Irish you know and that bird has never seen writing before does not have to write his his own name you know he's he's not going to know that the monk is kind of changing things as he's writing it down but we're told that the two-er-de-danon had studied the occult and mysterious arts in the northern aisles of the world and they had arrived into Ireland in a fleet of ships and that Ireland was already occupied by a race of beings called the Fervologe which has been translated as the the bagmen um i know the bagmen yet um don't think a martin scorsese movie oh we could go down so many rabbit holes but the Fervologe basically occupied Ireland and in in order to sort of take it over the two-er-de-danon have to go to war with the Fervologe which they do and they defeat them now as they arrive in Ireland just to clear up something you'll see on the internet and social media you'll see all these remarkable claims that the two-er-de-danon were aliens because they came down from the sky they were said to have descended from the sky but loura goola has a very distinct reason for that impression it is because when they arrived they burned their ships because they were so brave you see that any idea that they would retreat in the face of an enemy was anathema to them cowardice complete cowardice and if you want to take the island burn the boats kind of thing yeah to utterly prevent any notion of them being afraid they burned their ships meaning they had no exit should they face a despicable enemy and the cloud of smoke billowed over Ireland for three days and loura goola very specifically tells us that this led to the impression that they had descended from the sky they brought four mysterious sacred objects or what have been described as talismans with them and they are the sword of noado noado as it happens was their first king or leader noado arrogant love which translates as noado of the silver arm there's a very long i could potentially spend an hour telling you that's story but i'll summarize it in the battle against the fervolog he had his arm chopped off which meant he had to he had to abdicate the kingship because a king could only rule if he was pure of body and mind and had no blemishes and a healer of the two of the danand dean kecht made him a silver arm the first mention in mythology i believe anywhere in the world of prosthetics prosthetics yeah and if you're thinking luke skywalker and Darth Vader you're on the right track because apparently that myth inspired that whole episode in star wars where luke has his hand arm chopped off by his father and then has a robotic arm fitted in its place that's entirely based apparently on the story of of noado then the other weapon was the spear of lu so the characteristics of these weapons were that they would never miss their mark the sword of noado when brought into battle would guarantee success the spear of lu lu was another of the great luminaries previously mentioned of the two of the danand known under various epithets lu samel donok lu the many gifted he came to tara while noado was celebrating returning to the throne we don't use the word throne in our land we don't have marble thrones it's not that kind of kingship he you know noado has been able to retake the kingship because he's got a new arm and he's no longer blemished and lu comes to tara at that time announcing his gifts and lu is the one who basically takes over from noado in the preparations for the next war against the femurians the evil sort of pirate giant cyclopian race that has occupied islands since the earliest times and to have forever been the enemy of the two of the danand so that spear was said to have never missed its mark you brought that into battle and you threw it it would kill an enemy full stop no matter how badly it threw it the third object was the dog does call dron the undry it's called which i think is very funny in our land well i think we've kind of cut out a wicked sense of humor about some We call it the undribe instead of just calling it the wet. You know, the belief was that the cauldron would provide food and drink in unending measure. No matter how much you gorge from it, in terms of eating and drinking, it was always full. And for me, that's deeply fascinating. Because remember what I said earlier, Doug Da, who is the later the king of the two of the dammit, there were only a few built new grains, owned new grains, and you know, was clearly some sort of a sun/sky god. You know, for me, he belongs, his memory belongs to the Neolithic, that period of time in which farming arrived into Ireland and into Britain, you know, in the same era when we have the first cattle and goats and sheep and when we have the first crop husbandry, that yes, an agricultural community, depending on, you know, the weather, and in Ireland, you know, the reason we're so green is because we get a lot of rain, but we need the right mixture of sun and rain for the crops to grow out to their full potential and to ripen. And of course, it makes sense to me that their sky god would have this cauldron of plenty, because that's what you're hoping for from the harvest, that in bringing farming, you have a reliable source of food that enables you to settle, that enables you to evolve from this hunter-gatherer lifestyle that has been in existence, well in Ireland since the ice age, but in Britain and in Europe, you know, across the Paleolithic for, you know, maybe 200,000 years, all of a sudden you've got this source of food that you can grow locally, you know, and you've got cows and you can get milk from them, and then, you know, when they expire, you eat their meat and everybody's happy. And the last object, Lea Foyle, the so-called Stone of Destiny at the Hill of Tara, but the explanation that is clearly given in Laura Gawala is not that it is the Stone of Destiny, of course, it's the Destiny in a way. It was said, its principle property was that it was said to have screamed under the rightful candidate for kingship. So if the community of Tara at various times in the past, and I believe the kingship right at Tara goes all the way back, not just into prehistory, but to the Neolithic, that's my own belief, can I prove it, of course, I can't? But this Stone was said to be Lea Foyle, that Foyle, F-A-F-R-I-L, and according to Laura Gawala, it was a compound word, consisting of two separate words, Foyle, the Undercone, because of the fact that when the king stepped on it, or they handed it for kingship, stepped on it, it would roar or scream, ah! So that all in Tara could hear it. Leading to today, the actual Stone, which stands on a monument called on Fora, the Royal, the Royal enclosure, or the Royal seat, that visitors to Lea Foyle, you'll see them, you know, touching it, and hoping that they will hear the scream and that they will be announced as the new high king of Ireland. Yes, anyone can start, don't kick it too hard, though, okay? Please be aware that it is an actual monument, but yes, great story. Oh, yeah. So they're the four objects, and I suppose they're the, they're the sort of mystical beginnings of the D'danans, who remain mystical. There's an aspect to the two of the D'danans, sometimes they appear very human, of course, but there's an aspect to them that's very full of mystique and intrigue, because, you know, when the Malaysians come, and this is the battle then that is referred to by modern scholars as the conquest of the gods by mortals, which is a lens through which the ecclesiastical scribes of the Middle Ages were very uncomfortable with. For then, it was very much, we need to make these mortal, so that whatever happens, for instance, in the Battle of Taltu, which is the critical battle between the Malaysians and the D'dua, two of the D'danans. The Malaysians win, but the real question is, how do mortal men beat or defeat gods and goddesses in a battle? And when you look into the nuances of Laurigawala and other tales, and some folklore, you will find that, in fact, what has happened is, there haven't been mortally wounded and dropped dead. Their corpse is littering the battlefield. It is a different type of defeat. They agree with the Malaysians upon defeat that we are now going to retreat into the she. Now, that word is spelled in Middle Irish, S-I-Father-D. But father for your non-Irish viewers would be like an axon, you know, in French. She, it looks like Sid with a father on the eye, but it's pronounced she, like she for a woman, which is interesting. But there's no adequate translation of that word into modern English. You will often see that translated in, especially in 19th and 20th century, translations. You'll often see it translated as a fairy mount. But that's inadequate because the theories, of course, are much later survival of earlier beliefs and deities. The best translation I've seen is other world mount, because now what happens is the two of the dam and retreat into the she-mounds and occupy the subsurface land as it were realm that is co-existent with this one. It's very much, we're sharing the same realm in a way, but the Malaysians are given the surface territory of Ireland. And the Malaysian story is fascinating because they come from Spain. There are eight brothers who are the sons of the king of Spain. And they come to take Ireland from the two of the dam and, as I said, much, much later, kings try to say, well, we're descended from them because it was the first Malaysian hiking, Erimon, whose wife, Chiah, had chosen Tara as the place from which they would reign. And you've got this effort because they were clearly heroic in that they had defeated the gods. But here's the catch. And it's a very major catch. The gods and goddesses of the two of the dam and never really went away. Yes. They weren't killed. They didn't die. They are ever living. And in the folk beliefs of recent centuries in Ireland, we have these prophecies that they're going to come out of the she-mounds again at the end of time or some great tumultuous end times battle or some time of great struggle for Ireland and will bring glory to Ireland. So this belief that it's a little bit like those tales that you find in Britain and in other parts of Europe, the ones that we call King Under Mountain. A little bit like the dead army in Lord of the Rings, especially in the movie Not So Much in the Book, but this idea that, you know, Aragorn is able to rouse this sleeping army. And we've got these stories in especially the early 20th century, which have probably survived early for generations and centuries before about, you know, enchanted armies of sleeping warriors in monuments subsurface, you know, in subterranean areas beneath the hills and monuments of Ireland. And it's against that backdrop that you begin to realize why it is that there is so much mystique and intrigue and modern-day interest in the two of the dammit. So it's like, you mentioned the she-mounds there. I immediately thought so. Could the she-mounds of Irish mythology be a reference to the great Stone Age, Neolithic mounds like Newgrain, and they're like that UCN Island today? Or do we think that there's the link there? No, it's not a question. It's absolutely the case. It is absolutely the case. So for instance, many of your viewers and listeners may not know this, but Newgrain is a 12th century name, 12th century AED. It is not the original name of that monument. It derived the name Newgrain from the Sustertians who established a very major monastery called Melafant Abbey in the year 1142 AED just a few miles away and were granted by the local king, Donneville O'Carill, who said, "Yeah, sure you can come in and set up your monastery and farm the land." I'll give you loads of land, gave them tons and tons of land, and because they're a French order, they established what are called granges, granche in French, and there are four townlands in the immediate vicinity of Newgrain. Newgrain is the name of a townland. It's the name of a unit of land as it were around Newgrain. That is 12th century in order just before the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. The old name of the monument is Sheed and Broga. Sheen Vru. It's so literally we have in the name of the original name of the monument, we have that word Sheed. So we've got one tale from the Middle Ages where a guy goes to Newgrain, Gila Lugam, goes to Newgrain to talk to Angus, who said to haunt the monument every year at Sauen. Sauen, of course, incredibly superstitious and important moment, as it were, in the annual calendar. I love that idea that people are going to Newgrain to the Middle Ages to talk to the gods. The gods and goddesses of the two are the dannin, indefatigable, indefeatable, live in the mythological memory and mindset. They never died. They were never vanquished. They're always there. And of course, that survives in a way into modern and late medieval. saadaan jälkeen ja valitaisin jälkeen ja kylpäisissä. Olen Jänen Maldonado. Käsi tehtyjä artesaanitua teita myy vän ja jauja kaupan perustaja. Valitisin shopifaeinkoska alustoja testatessani, sen ehdottomasti yhdeksi helpokäyttöisimmistä alustoista. Minulla oli tärkeää pohtia kehittymistä me tulevaisuudessa. 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Ta OSelle marua häviä ei Sии escape maailtaagedomi on mama laittua itseasi 4. Kyllä se olepieces hy puppya 1894. pareili染äync ultrasound ja olisi guvisionkinưussa. NonolleitMusni 1 - 2 sue. Nik Ath yeniitko olabiliristissionust ja montre Gonkii quedaana valikes Whereas on tullut kärdäntä. Tämä on tullut kärdäntä. prophecy would come to that place, a place known as Lin Fick, which is an Irish name, meaning Fick's pool or Fick's pool. That's when he's waiting there and he's spent seven years waiting because he knows that if he eats that fish, he will gain all of the mysterious arcane knowledge, basically of the universe. I mean, that's probably my own way of putting it. He will gain suddenly three major sort of talents is not even a good word, but but but boons and become the wisest person who ever walked the surface of the earth. The thing is that on the day the fish arrives, a young boy happens upon the druid. His name is Jevna, which is an Irish word that means certainty. Nobody, as far as I know, has ever tried to explain that. My explanation for it is Jevna certainty is because of the certainty that he would become a great hero and a great warrior and a great cult figure. Jevna asks the druid, what are you doing? He says, well, I'm waiting for the Salmon of Knowledge. The Salmon comes along, the druid catches it, and Jevna says the druid, well, can I help you? And the druid says, yeah, you can. Will you cook the fish for me? And the boy says, yes, of course, Master, suddenly he says, Master, and you know, the boy is told to cook the fish, but very strictly informed or very strictly warned, do not eat any of it. The boy agrees, puts the fish on a spit, turns it over the fire and everything's going well, but as is everybody who's ever cooked in that way, knows it's very hard to cook a fish on a spit without it blistering, and he wanted to present to his Master the perfect cooked fish. A blister rose up on the surface of the fish, and Jevna thinking, oh, I can't present it to him like this, it must be perfect, pressed down on the blister with his thumb. And of course, he borne his thumb and immediately he put his thumb in his mouth, and at that moment he gains all the knowledge of the salmon of knowledge, and he becomes intimately wise. In this, I think we're seeing a right of passage or what to might call it, what is it, a threshold or transformation myth, you know, where the young innocent boy suddenly becomes the wisest, you know, he goes back when the cook is, when the fish is cooked, he brings the salmon back to his Master and Finnegus immediately can tell that there's something has changed. He says, is everything okay in the bush? Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Here's your fish. What I should tell you that there was a blister, and I pressed down on my thumb and I sucked my thumb and of course, at this moment, Finnegus realizes that he has lost out on the chance that all of the arcane and secret knowledge of the fish has passed to the boy. And he says to Jevna, he says, what did you tell me your name was? And Jevna says, I'm Jevna. And Finnegus says, no, you are the Finne. And Finne is a word in Irish. That means brightness. It means it can mean whiteness and fair. Like it's often said that Finne was called Finne because of his fair hair, because of the episode in which he dived into a lake to rescue a woman's ring, but she had tricked him and put old age on him and the silvery hair. But it's an interesting one that that should be the case. Because if you think about it, the sucking of the thumb is something we associated with infancy, you know, with babies and toddlers. They suck their thumb, right? But in that image, we've got both the baby and then that sudden transformation, you know, the child is no longer a child. The child suddenly has this wise old head on its shoulders. So it's only natural that sometime later, we should find that he's referred to the Finne because the silvery hair, because no matter what age he was, even when he was young, he had silvery hair like an old man. Because he had the wisdom of an old man, you know? And look, there's so much I could tell you about the salmon of knowledge. Just a couple of very brief things. The salmon, as you know, is speckled. It has spots on its back. According to Irish folk tradition, the more spots that a salmon has, the wiser it is, because of the tradition that goes all the way back to the formation of the boy, that the salmon actually spent its infancy years in the well known as the well of segush, the well from which the boy and river was said to have been born. That's where it grew up. And it ate these hazelnuts that dropped down out of nine sacred hazelnuts that grew over the well. And it ate these to gain all its knowledge. The other thing is that one of the descriptions of the dogda in medieval Irish mythology, and I'm saying medieval, that's when it was written down, he is called the king of Linfek. I think that's fascinating, that the chief of the two of the damon should be referred to as the king of Linfek, the source of all of the arcane, spiritual, mystical, scientific knowledge of yourself, the world and the universe, an extraordinary transformation. And Anthony, almost as a teaser for potential future episodes on more parts of Irish mythology, I mean, is this Finn character? Is this the same Finn that will be the hero who's associated with those warriors, the Fiener and the story? I think there's one story where he makes the Giants cause way to cross over to fight a giant, hence the name of Giants cause way. So this is, as I said, this is his transformation with the salmon of knowledge into becoming this very well known hero of Irish mythology. Yeah. And even the scholars who've looked at that story will say Finn Aegis, Finn Aegis means wise Finn. And it's like there are basically two versions of the same thing. By the way, we're seeing a repeating theme here in the mythology of Newgrange. Dougda is eventually sort of transplanted by his son, Angus, oh, got Newgrange. Angus becomes the new owner of Newgrange by tricking his father out of the monument. And it's a little bit like that. I suppose if you think about it in terms of Mirce Iliadi and this idea of the eternal return, that one thing that ancient cultures liked to think about was the resetting or the reimagining of the cosmological origins. And that often involves the replacement of a wise old deity with a youthful version, which is what we hope happens every year with the son, I believe, is the old dying son is replaced with a vibrant new hope to use another Star Wars term, new hope. Oh, look, you know, we have in this short conversation literally scratched the surface. We could spend years talking and never get to the true depth and the true bottom of all this. But how fascinating is it to explore it and to reimagine and bring it back to life, to re-vivify, to breathe life into those old stories and to give them some relevance in the 24th century. Anthony, absolutely, and you've done such incredible work on this. As you say, as I've already mentioned, we haven't even really scratched the castle rate of Cule or St. Patrick, St. Bridgid and so on and so many more of these stories. There's also this extraordinary creature, the martyr, which I know you do a lot of work around as well. So we'll have to say this on other days. It almost feels like Irish mythology could be a series in its own right. Anthony, last but certainly not least, tell us you've written books about this. Of course, you always have your website too. So, you know, give us a bit of background into all the work that where people can find your work and learn more about these myths. Yeah, well, the thing to say is I'm not difficult to find. So Mythical Ireland is the name of my website. That's been in existence for 25 years now. Mythical Ireland.com or dot i e will work as well. So that is a very substantial resource. You could spend many a day reading the material on that website alone. I run a YouTube channel. Again, Mythical Ireland is the key at youtube.com at Mythical Ireland or forward slash Mythical Ireland. If you're on a browser, there are in total 1500 videos, but I do a weekly live stream, which in the pandemic began as a daily live stream called live Irish myths. So if you're interested in Irish myth and legend and folklore, Monday nights, 8 p.m. Irish time is when that's on. Join please the free newsletter and the email newsletter on the website. And if you're interested in supporting Mythical Ireland, please become a paying patron because a couple of years ago, finally decided that I was going to try and actually make a living from doing this work because it wasn't possible to have a career and to try and squeeze the two in. And then in terms of the books, I've written 10 books, mostly nonfiction, some fiction, probably the best one to start with is the one called Mythical Ireland New Light on the Ancient Past. It happens to be my best seller and I think for a good reason because it provides a great overview into what we've been talking about. So it looks at archaeology and prehistory and the history of Ireland. It looks at the myths and legends. It looks at the astronomical alignments and tries to tie them all together. So that would be a great place to start. If you want a signed copy or you can order my books from the Mythical Ireland website and I will send you a signed copy. I'm also tour guide. I run tours, some public and I'm a private guide as well if you want to hire me as a private guide. And so especially during the summer season, if you're in Ireland or you're coming to Ireland, look out for my tours in which we talk about just these topics, you know, at an exploration of archaeology myth and astronomy and how they all come together. Starris, stones and stories. Well I see that's quite a pitch, quite a resume, you have their leading expert. on Irish mythology and it just goes me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the orcust today. Being an absolute pleasure Tristan thank you very much for having me. Well there you go there was Anthony Murphy introducing you to the extraordinarily rich world of Irish mythology and its links to Ireland's prehistoric past. I hope you guys enjoyed the episode and hopefully we like more episodes on Irish mythology on other epic tales like the cattle raid of Kuli in the future. Thank you for listening to this episode of the ancients please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts it really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favor. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well we really appreciate that. Don't forget you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts at free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/subscribe. That's enough from me. I'll see you in the next episode. [Music] [Music]