Read Myths and Legends of the Celts (Penguin Reference) Online
Authors: James MacKillop
Myths and Legends of the Celts (Penguin Reference) (10 page)
Having become a popular woman’s given name, Tara is one of the few place names from early Ireland that most readers will recognize easily. The idea that Ireland once had a high king or
ard rí
is so familiar and resonant that the terms appear in the titles of popular novels, even as the names of gift shops. Characteristic of the romantic and imaginative reshaping of the distant past is Thomas Moore’s heroic poem ‘The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls’ in his
Irish Melodies
(1808), widely anthologized over the next century. Admittedly, Tara appears as the seat of a kingship in early Irish heroic narratives from the Ulster Cycle, but the nineteenth-century imagination aspired to see Tara as a magnificent palace, a Hibernian Windsor or Fontainebleau, if smaller. Margaret Mitchell’s naming of the O’Hara mansion Tara in her American
Civil War epic
Gone with the Wind
(1936, filmed 1939) put the notion into everyday speech in the English-speaking world.
A tourist’s visit to the hill of Tara (507 ft, 155 m) in Co. Meath, six miles southeast of Navan, sharpens perspective. From a distance there appears to be no hill at all, only a slightly rising gradient on the approaching road. Arriving at the designated site, one can see for a great distance, rumoured to be more than a third of all of Ireland, a prospect that surely delighted ancient visitors. Undulating mounds and earthworks, easier to perceive from aerial photographs, bear grandiose names – the Banqueting Hall, the Rath of the Synods, the Mound of the Hostages, etc. There is also a phallic shaft of weathered granite known as Lia Fáil [stone of destiny], put up in modern times to commemorate the martyrs of the 1798 rebellion and to remind visitors of the original stone. There is no evidence to support the contention that this is the original site, nor is there any against. Nonetheless, continuous archaeological investigation of the site reveals that the ancient Tara was the favoured venue of extraordinary activity over many centuries. The famous Tara Brooch, much copied, was not found on the site, however; its exalted craftsmanship led observers to assume it was made for a high king, even though it was found on the beach at Bettystown near Drogheda, Co. Louth. A king initiated at Tara would have distinctions to raise him apart from the 150 or so other contemporary kings.
The realm of the
rí
was the
tuath
. An early Irish law text decrees that ‘there is no
tuath
which has no clerical scholar, no church, no poets, no king to extend contracts and treaties to other
tuatha
’ (pl.). A king of the
tuath
, or
rí tuaithe
(gen.), had no army, only a bodyguard of mercenaries, a retinue of noble clients and a steward to collect revenues. The definition of
tuath
would change over the centuries, but it did not always have territorial specifications. The entity was bound together by intimate relations that prevented it from evolving into a state.
The political structure of early Ireland was based in large part on what we would call today ‘clientship’. Ordinary people living in the realm of the king were not citizens in the modern sense, nor were they subjects as people were in the days of powerful kings of nation states, or as they would have been in early modern times. Instead, the ordinary
person had an agreement or pledge with a king as the king might have with kings more powerful than he was. In Eoin MacNeill’s depiction of the well-ordered
tuath
, a king was a war leader and president of his assembly. D. A. Binchy (1970) argued that in earliest times the king had been a priest and a judge as well as a war leader. Although commentators often use the word brehon (
breithem
) to denote what we would call a judge in something approaching the modern concept of judge as an interpreter of state-written codes, an early Irish king might rule with the counsel of a brehon on land disputes.
A king could be classed in several kinds of hierarchies. The old tract titled
Críth Gablach
, probably the most widely known we have, gave fanciful names for three grades of king: (i)
rí benn
[king of peaks or ‘horns’] because of the high demand of his honour; (ii)
rí buiden
[king of bands] for his prowess in leading men and taking hostages; or (iii)
rí bunaid cach cinn
[ultimate king of every individual] for his ability to extend his control and coercive authority. Clusters of local kings [
rí tuaithe
] might be dominated by a greater king who ruled through his personal or dynastic connections, or perhaps by his commanding physical presence. Such an over-king might be called simply
ruirí
[great or over-king] if he dominated as few as four local kings,
fuiríg
[sub-king]; or he might be called
rí cóicid
[provincial king], or most exalted of all,
rí ruirech
[king of over-kings]. He was not, however, called the
ard rí
[high king] in earlier texts.
From a very early date a king might acquire the title
rí Temro
or
Temrach
, literally ‘king of Tara’, which implied dominance over other kings, as Edel Bhreathnach and Conor Newman (1995) point out, but it did not necessarily imply a territorial claim over the whole island. Successive rulers crowned at Tara would enlarge the expectations of the office.
The title
ard rí
, as F. J. Byrne has pointed out, is not very old, nor is it found in legal texts. It lacks precise significance and does not necessarily imply sovereignty over Ireland. The
DIL
does not contain an entry for
ard rí
, implying at the very least that its usage was not widespread in any early texts. At its first appearance it denoted an important king of a region or province, such as Ulster,
ard rí Ulad
, and in poetry it could be used figuratively for any over-king, a gesture of flattery. Much of what we read about in later Irish literature,
including the Ulster Cycle, was quite simply invented and then accepted as fact. The polite name we have for such a document is pseudo-history, as it was given more credence than those narratives we call legend.
A cynic could charge that much of what we call history is really pseudo-history, especially when history is edited to flatter powerful conquerors. Indeed, much of record-keeping in early Ireland is patently arranged to flatter the most powerful family, actually a federation of dynasties, the Uí Néill. But the most celebrated of Irish pseudo-histories, the
Lebor Gabála
[Book of Invasions] (see
Chapter 7
) appears to have been a sincere if misguided attempt to harmonize irreconcilable sources.
The first documented claimant to the status of high king was Máel Sechnaill (d. 862), later romantically known as ‘Malachy I’. The creation of his title was, as F. J. Byrne argues, political propaganda by the Uí Néill on behalf of the Tara dynasty, which it controlled. Some kind of sacral kingship, however, may have existed at Tara from much earlier times. From the mid-800s perspective, the pseudo-history claimed that high kingship had begun centuries earlier and had included Diarmait mac Cerbaill (d. 565), the last important pre-Christian monarch. Once established, the high kingship continued for another 300 years. Although the title of high king might link a ruler to Tara, his actual seat of power, the one that allowed him to be eligible for the honour, might be far distant. The last high king was Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair [Rory O’Connor] of Connacht, who remained in power up to the time of the Anglo-Norman conquest, 1169.
Two unique tests determined the suitability of a candidate to be high king at Tara, the first employing stones and instruments, the second the ritual killing of a bull. In the first he would be asked to ride in a royal chariot, and if it rejected him he was clearly unworthy. He would try to put on a royal mantle that was too big for the unworthy. He was asked to drive his chariot between two stones, only a hand’s breadth apart, to see if they would move apart to accommodate his wheels. And last he would be asked to come into contact with the Lia Fáil [stone of destiny], the stone penis, which would cry out at the touch of the right man.
Fál
(gen.
Fáil
) by itself is also a poetic name for Ireland, which also may be known as
Inis Fáil
[island of destiny]. Semantically, this suggests that the high king at Tara was a king of all
Ireland, as the Uí Néill no doubt wished to imply, but such a role is not supported in law texts.
The second ceremony at Tara by which the high king (that is, of all Ireland) might be chosen was the
tarbfheis
or bull-feast, which began with the slaughter of the innocent animal. To select a candidate for kingship a man taken at random first ate his fill of the bull’s flesh, drank a broth made from the bull’s blood and then lay down to sleep in the bull’s hide. Four druids would then chant an incantation over him, during which time he must see in his sleep the right person to be king. The word
feis
is usually translated as ‘feast’, but it originated as the verbal noun
fo-aid
, meaning ‘to spend the night with’ or ‘to sleep with’. King Conaire participates in such a
tarbfheis
in the eleventh-century narrative
Togail Bruidne Da Derga
[Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel], a story of the innocent Conaire’s struggle with relentless fate. The bull, additionally, was used in divination rites elsewhere in the Celtic world. In early Scotland a man seeking the answer to an important question might spend the night inside the still-steaming carcass of a newly killed bull.
A burial site as early as the third millennium BC, Tara had long been a centre of religious ceremony. It had once been sacred to Medb of Connacht, later an important figure in the Ulster Cycle and the
Táin Bó Cuailnge
, while she was still considered to be a goddess; her double, Medb Lethderg, ruled the hilltop. The Uí Néill, whose first homeland was in the north, seized Tara from the Leinstermen of the east in the fifth century, before Christianization. The first kings of Tara were important local rulers whose prestige was enhanced by their initiation on such hallowed ground. With the coming of the high king, Tara became the generator of its own myth. In dozens of early Irish narratives it became the royal residence of a succession of dominating rulers. In the stories of legendary king Conaire Mór, Tara appears to be a magical kingdom. It is to the court at Tara of Arthur-like Cormac mac Airt that the youthful hero Fionn mac Cumhaill proves himself by slaying the fiery Aillén mac Midgna, who had been preying upon the ‘palace’ every year on the eve of Samain (1 November).
Even after Tara was abandoned as a place for religious ritual and became overgrown with weeds and bushes, it remained the site of one of the largest fairs held in medieval times and was the scene of an
engagement by the United Irishmen in the rebellion of 1798. As late as 1843, the patriot and parliamentarian Daniel O’Connell held ‘monster rallies’ at Tara, urging thousands of his impoverished countrymen to demand their rights.
It was not only the Uí Néill who wished to create their own history to enhance Tara. Christian ecclesiastics invented the story of Saint Rúadán, supposed to have lived in the sixth century, who put a curse upon Tara because king Diarmait mac Cerbaill insulted him in a Church/state dispute. In the greatest pseudo-history of Ireland, the
Lebor Gabála
, much of it compiled by ecclesiastics of later centuries, the victorious Milesians (that is, real mortals or the Gaels themselves) named the hilltop Temair after their queen, Téa. Temair is, in fact, one of several Irish spellings for the site; the anglicized Tara derives from its genitive form,
Teamhrach
. Its etymological root is not clear, perhaps ‘dark one’, ‘spectacle’, ‘elevated place’ or ‘assembly hall’.
Bad press dies hard. A slander uttered once can have the permanence of granite. A hundred truthful corrections frequently cannot erase the lasting effects of one defamation, especially if it is inflammatory. In early Ireland there was no more antagonistic reporter than the well-born Welsh cleric Gerald de Berri (
c
. 1146–1223), usually known as Giraldus Cambrensis or Gerald of Wales, who supported the disdainful view the Anglo-Normans held of the native Irish. Gerald first visited Ireland in 1183 and later returned in the entourage of Henry II. His detailed, mostly first-hand observations of the Ireland he visited are found in two texts, the earlier
Expugnatio Hibernica
[The Conquest of Ireland] and the more informative
Topographia Hibernica
[Topography of Ireland] (
c
.1185). Useful observations not found elsewhere abound in
Topographia
, but they are often interleaved with heated diatribes against what the author perceives to be the unspeakable savagery of the natives. Late in his account is the horrified description of the confirming of a new king that has echoed down eight centuries and remains in print in inexpensive paperback editions in our own time. Giraldus begins the passage with an apology, allowing
that ‘… the austere discipline of history spares neither truth nor modesty’.
There is in the northern and farther part of Ulster, namely in Kenelcunill [i.e. Cenél Conaill, Tyrconnell, Co. Donegal], a certain people which is accustomed to appoint its king with a rite altogether outlandish and abominable. When the whole people of that land has been gathered together in one place, a white mare is brought forward into the middle of the assembly. He who is to be inaugurated, not as chief, but as beast, not as king, but as an outlaw, has bestial intercourse with her before all, professing himself to be a beast also. The mare is then killed immediately, cut up into pieces, and boiled in water. He sits in the bath surrounded by all his people, and all, he and they, eat of the meat of the mare which is brought to them. He quaffs and drinks of the broth in which he is bathed, not in any cup, or using his hand, but just dipping his mouth into it round him. When this unrighteous rite has been carried out, his kingdom and dominion have been conferred.
(Cambrensis, 1984: 110)
The experienced reader of modern propaganda will notice tell-tale signals undermining Giraldus’s credibility. He does not speak from personal observation, as he does elsewhere in the
Topographia
, and he places the outrage in the remotest part of the island where the invaders had yet to set foot. More tellingly, Giraldus was an interested observer: he and members of his family were part of the body of conquistadors who were sworn to bring the barbarous and semi-pagan Irish back into the embrace of the holy mother Church in Rome. Yet this is not to say that Giraldus wilfully invented the entire episode out of thin air. Informed commentators on early Ireland have admitted that the horse is often sacrificed as part of kingship rituals among many Indo-European peoples. F. J. Byrne points out that there are obvious parallels, from distant ancient India and from pre-medieval Norway, where the king and his people were obliged to eat horse flesh together; even an early Christian king such as Haakon the Good (
c
.914–961) submitted to the apparently pagan rite.
Giraldus’s portrayal of the bath of broth is certainly precedented in early Irish heroic narrative. One common motif portrays a wounded hero cured and restored in a broth containing pieces of meat. Fráech, a mortal hero, son of an otherworldly mother, in the eighth-century
Táin Bó Fraích
[Cattle Raid of Fráech], is resuscitated in a broth-bath after having been treacherously induced to enter a pool and attacked by a water monster. This story is linked to the explanation of the place name of the historic mound Carn Froích (Carnfree, Co. Roscommon), where the Ó Conchobhairs (O’Connors) were inaugurated as late as the fifteenth century, and Carn Froích is but three miles from Cruachain, fabled home of Queen Medb, where the kings of Connacht were crowned. Following this, F. J. Byrne has asserted that there is a confused tradition connecting the broth-bath with a royal inauguration site. Further, it is reasonable to suppose that Giraldus picked up from the Irish or Norse of the southeast of Ireland a more primitive account of an obsolete pagan rite, which he then libellously asserted to be still in force among an unvisited tribe in remote Donegal.
As for the implication that the new king must perform an act of coitus as a part of his initiation, the early Irish record is rife with sexual metaphors. The sacral king is the spouse of his
tuath
, and his initiation until the time of Diarmait mac Cerbaill (d. 565) was called the
banais ríghe
, or, literally, ‘the wedding feast of kingship’.
Banais
, the normal Irish word for marriage, incorporates as a prefix the word
ban
, meaning ‘woman’. We have no first-person accounts of the
banais ríghe
, but we can deduce that the ceremony comprised two elements: (a) a libation or ceremonial drink offered by the ‘bride’, and (b) the sexual intercourse between the new king and the sovereignty of Ireland. Alas, no document survives to tell us how this ‘bride’ was portrayed – an actual person playing a role, an icon of some kind or a decorated simulacrum meant to signify a person. Recent commentators have shown that the motif of sexual union between king and goddess persisted until the later Middle Ages in literature and possibly also in ritual. At Tara the ceremony was known as
feis Temrach
or
feis Temro
, employing a different word for the sex act,
feis
, as considered above. The great Geoffrey Keating, the father of Irish historiography in his
Foras Feasa ar Éirinn
(1629–31), describes the
feis Temrach
as an annual event in which the high king reaffirms his legitimacy. A more recent examination of the evidence suggests that the
feis Temrach
was held only intermittently and at ‘seed time’ rather than at Beltaine (May Day) because it was the supreme fertility ritual, designed to secure that man and beast and earth shall be fruitful throughout the king’s
dominions. Although any explanation of the
banais ríghe
would no doubt have further disgusted Giraldus Cambrensis and might also raise the eyebrows of contemporary readers, the concept of the king ‘marrying’ his kingdom is by no means uniquely Irish or Celtic. Parallel examples may be found as far afield as the early cultures of India and the Semitic peoples of the Middle East.