As we just saw, a common creation motif that we find in quite a few Indo-European cultures is the dismemberment of a primordial being – either a human or an animal. During the dismemberment of this being (which may be presented as a sacrifice of some sort), the various parts of the dismembered body then go on to create different elements of the world around us. Seeing as these creation myths are all slightly different expressions of what was once the same story (a ‘proto-myth’), we tend to find that there’s usually quite a consistent link between these parts of the body that are mentioned, and the things they then go on to create – like how the hair goes on to create grass and foliage, or an eye creates the sun.
Bearing this in mind, it’s hardly a surprise to find that in many of the Indo-European languages the very words that are used to describe the parts of the body, that are most significant to these acts of creation, often share the same linguistic roots with the very thing they supposedly create. Indo-European words for the eye may ultimately derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root for ‘the sun’ (*sāwel-), which is itself derived from (PIE *wel-, ‘to see’). The Greek helios and Latin sol (both meaning ‘sun’) can be traced back to these roots (the Greek helios having dropped the initial *sā– from PIE *sāwel-), and so can the Old Irish súil (‘eye’), by way of an earlier Proto-Celtic form, *súli or possibly *su-wli- (the latter of which suggests a compound of the prefix su-, ‘good,’ and *wel-, meaning ‘to see’).10 It’s from this same Proto-Celtic root that we also get the name of the Brythonic deity Sulis, who was associated with the thermal springs at Bath (Latin name: Aquae Sulis, or ‘Waters of Sulis’), in the south-west of England, where a Romano-British baths and temple was built in her name (where Sulis was then paired with the Roman Minerva, as was common in that day and age).11
This link between words for the sun and the eye makes perfect sense considering the fact that the light from the sun quite literally helps us to see. It sheds light on things, illuminating them, bringing clarity. In Gaelic tradition, then, it’s hardly a surprise to find that the sun, and light, are intimately linked with matters of seership – the revelation of hidden knowledge (the metaphorical manner of shedding light on something). Themes relating to the sun, and sight, help to ‘create’ understanding, or a full comprehension of certain things that may otherwise be quite obscure. As a result, this gives us a clear link between the eye, the sun, and matters of creation, which is something we find being expressed in a number of different ways in the pre-Christian practices of the Gaels. Rituals that were aimed at achieving poetic inspiration (which may ultimately be seen as a form of divination, and a gift from the divine – whether that’s from God, or the gods) are underpinned by this idea of revelation, where the hidden knowledge of these verses, perfect and proper in form, is revealed through a process of symbolic ‘illumination.’
A specific ritual that was performed by professional poets (or filid, pronounced fil-ith, where the ‘th’ is hard, as in the), for these inspirational purposes, was known as imbas forosnai (meaning ‘knowledge that illuminates; kindles’), as we’ve only touched upon briefly in the page on historical sources, and if we look at the very meaning of the word filid (the plural form of fili, or file) we find that it derives from the same root as the Welsh gweled, ‘see,’ where they can both be traced back to PIE *wel-, implicitly pointing to the origins of the poet as a seer.12
The source of this poetic inspiration is often linked with the river Boyne and its source (the well of Segais) in Irish tradition, and as we’ve seen it’s said to have been created in a manner that’s consistent with the sort of Indo-European creation motifs we’d expect to find in a story that’s ultimately describing an act of creation – albeit on a microcosmic scale, as opposed to a macrocosmic one, but the two are always going to be linked because that’s just how creation works.
This principle also applies to other acts of creation – including artistic creative processes like the composition of poetry. The rituals, and the lore surrounding the profession of the poets in general, both therefore contain expressions of these creative motifs as well. Poets are often described as being blind, which is a sort of deliberate irony considering the fact that they are, at their core, seers. This blindness (or partial blindness) makes them liminal figures in a way, because their very blindness in this world allows them to ‘see’ more clearly in other ways and other worlds; their blindness is in direct opposition to their abilities as seers, which reinforces the otherworldly nature, or source, of their art (since the otherworld is often described as a sort of opposite land – where it’s winter here it’s summer there, where there is strife here there is peace in the otherworld, etc.). In essence, their inability to see in a physical sense makes them better able to see, or divine knowledge, from the otherworld – knowledge that is itself imparted by the divine. It’s through this seership that they are then able to compose their verses. They are liminal, then, because they are in-between figures: they can ‘see’ (or they are seers) but they cannot see in a literal, visual sense.13
As the source of the Boyne river, the mythical well of Segais has strong associations with matters of poetry. The well is, in effect, the source of the inspiration that poets may seek from the Boyne itself, and we find descriptions of a number of hazel trees that grow around the well, their branches overhanging the waters so their nuts drop directly into the waters. As the well flows into the Boyne river, the nuts may then be carried along by the waters’ currents, where they can then be caught and eaten, or else they might be eaten by the salmon who live in the well, and who then swim into the river themselves. If one of these fish is caught, cooked, and then eaten, a person can gain superhuman skills that will allow them to gain this poetic inspiration instantly, without the need for the lengthy and laborious rituals the filid normally had to perform in order to be able to compose their verses.
The nuts dropping into the well, and then flowing into the Boyne, is not a regular occurrence – it’s something that only happens every seven years or so. The filid are said to have eagerly anticipated the event, so they could catch the nut or fish, prepare it, and then eat it (according to a lengthy set of instructions that had to be carefully followed), so they would become the best and most famous poet in the whole of Ireland. This is an important part of the story of Fionn mac Cumaill, for example, who (according to one version of this story) gained instant access to poetic inspiration (imbas) after he was given the laborious task of tending to one of these salmon while it was being cooked. The fish wasn’t really intended for Fionn mac Cumaill, who at this point in his life was still a mere boy who was known by the name of Demne – the name that had been given to him at his birth. Instead, the fish was being cooked so that Demne’s mentor, the master-filid Fionn Éces, could eat the fish and become the greatest poet around. Because the fish took so long to cook, though, Fionn Éces had delegated the task to his gillie (servant-boy apprentice), Demne, giving the boy strict instructions that Demne should never taste the fish – not even a little bit.
While Demne was tending to the salmon (as instructed by Fionn Éces), which had been boiling away in the cauldron for quite some time – and was almost ready – a hot bubble that had formed on the fish’s skin burst, and the scalding hot juices landed on Demne’s hand. Instinctively, Demne sucked on his scalded thumb to soothe the pain, and as he did so he got a taste of the nearly-cooked salmon. As a result, Demne gained the powers his master had been pursuing. Luckily for Demne, Fionn Éces had the wisdom to realise that the fish had been meant for his student all along, which meant that Demne was the ‘true’ Fionn – and that’s how Fionn mac Cumaill got his name.14
After this episode, whenever Fionn wanted to make a poetic composition, or he needed to divine something, all he had to do was chew on his thumb as he stood on one foot, with one eye open (and it can’t be a coincidence that Bóand was maimed in the exact same way after she looked into the well of Segais, really). The liminal themes are clear in Fionn’s story, as Joseph Nagy has pointed out: the salmon was cooked-but-not-cooked (it was only nearly ready) when he tasted it (without deliberately intending to), and Demne/Fionn ate-but-didn’t-eat the fish (because he only tasted the juices, not the fish itself). The stance he then assumes to achieve imbas sees him chewing on his thumb, so he again eats-but-does-not-eat (just as the ritual of imbas forosnai involves chewing but not swallowing raw flesh – eating-but-not-eating flesh that is food-but-not-food, because it’s meat, but it’s not cooked, and it’s ultimately not digested, either.15
More than that, however, all of these bits of lore hint at some sort of action of ‘fire-in-water’ – one of the creation motifs we’ve mentioned. The nuts that fall into the well could be seen as a metaphor for boiling water (the nuts representing bubbles); the salmon is cooked in cauldron, in its own broth, which obviously involves the action of both fire and water, and the water is itself burning hot when it scalds Demne’s hand.16
We see this fire-in-water motif in other ways as well, especially in relation to Nechtán, the guardian of the well of Segais and Bóand’s husband (according to some stories), not to mention the well itself. It’s said that anyone who might approach the well unattended – without the oversight of Nechtán or one of his attendants – would soon find their ‘two bright eyes would burst’ if they looked into the waters. This has been interpreted as suggesting that the water contains some sort of fiery brightness, which can only be handled by the likes of the well’s guardians (i.e. Nechtán and his cupbearers). On top of this, Nechtán’s own name is highly suggestive of fiery and watery associations, because it may be derived from necht, meaning ‘clean, pure, white,’ with further connotations of ‘bright’ (though ultimately tracing back to the Indo-European root *neigw-t, meaning ‘washed, purified’), which brings up connotations of the cleansing nature of both fire and water (as well as the general brightness of the flame, or the reflection of the sun on the water’s surface). Reinforcing all of this there is a river Nith close to the Hill of Tara in Co. Meath, whose name may be derived from the same root as Nechtán’s own (possibly indicating his own association with the waters, although the etymology here is by no means certain). The names of Nechtán’s wife Bóand, and Fionn himself, also relate to matters of whiteness, brightness, and/or purity; Bóand’s name is traditionally described as a combination of Old Irish bó (‘cow’) and finn (‘white; bright, lustrous’), while Fionn’s own name clearly reflects the latter word as well.17
Nechtán’s name is also cognate with that of the Indo-Iranian and Vedic deity Apām Napāt (as is Neptune), and the stories associated with this figure draw some striking parallels with Irish tradition. Both Nechtán and Apām Napāt are associated with bodies of water – there’s Nechtán and his well (but also a river), while Apām Napāt is associated with a lake or large body of water. Combined with Neptune’s example, as god of the seas, we immediately see an obvious theme that’s shared by all of them.
Apām Napāt’s name is believed to mean ‘Child /Descendant of the Waters,’ but in the Vedas we sometimes see this name being identified with Agni, the god of fire (where Apām Napāt is another name or title for Agni, just as the Morrígan is often used as an alternative or additional name or title for other goddesses, like Anu, Badb, and Macha). This seems like a clear hint towards this fire-in-water motif, suggesting that Agni (‘Fire’) is a ‘Child of the Waters,’ which therefore seems to describe the process of creation itself.18 Since Apām Napāt may be described as living in the depths of a great body of water, he is the fire-in-water in a very literal sense.
In the Vedas, it’s from Apām Napāt (as Agni) that all life is derived – all plants and animals, including humans – and a hymn to Agni from the Rig Vedas makes all of this very clear:
7 He, in whose mansion is the teeming Milch-cow, swells the Gods’ nectar and cats noble viands.
The Son of Waters, gathering strength in waters, shines for his worshipper to give him treasures.
8 He who in waters with his own pure Godhead shines widely, law-abiding, everlasting—
The other worlds are verily his branches, and plants are born of him with all their offspring.
9 The Waters’ Son hath risen, and clothed in lightning ascended up unto the curled cloud’s bosom;
And bearing with them his supremest glory the Youthful Ones, gold-coloured, move around him.
10 Golden in form is he, like gold to look on, his colour is like gold, the Son of Waters.
When he is seated fresh from golden birthplace those who present their gold give food to feed him.19
On a surface level, it’s easy to imagine that the way Agni is described here could apply to Nechtán as well (especially in terms of the ‘teeming milch-cow,’ which brings to might the bovine underpinnings of Bóand’s name – Nechtán’s wife who lived within Síd Nechtáin), but note in particular the first line of verse 8, where Agni’s ‘own pure Godhead shines widely.’ As we’ve already seen from the previous page, quite a significant number of the Irish gods are given names that point to some sort of fieriness, brightness or qualities that ‘shine’ – of the more well-known, recognisable deities we can include Áed, Delbáeth, Nechtán, Bóand, Áine, and Grían here for a start. If we broaden our criteria to also include epithets or ‘alternative names’ that might describe these same ideas, we can also add deities like Mac Gréine (otherwise known as Cetheor, in some sources), a son of Cermait, son of the Dagda, who served as one of the three last high-kings of Ireland, alongside his two brothers, before the Milesian conquest. His name means ‘son of Sun,’ and the Book of Invasions (and other sources that fit in with the events described this text) explains that each of Cermait’s sons had their own god, where each god that’s attached to them may also serve to further reinforce the bright or shining link with their divinity. Different versions of the story tend to name different ‘gods’ so it’s all a bit confused here; in one version Mac Gréine’s ‘god’ is said to have been the sun (as one would expect, given his name), but in another it’s said to be the earth.20 His brother Mac Cécht, or Tetheor, has the ploughshare as his god (where his name can be interpreted to mean ‘son of Plough,’ although the alternative meaning of cécht, giving ‘son of Power’ seems more apt),21 or else it’s ‘the air was his god, with its luminaries, the moon and the sun,’22 giving both of them solar or ‘bright,’ ‘fiery’ associations. Their brother, Mac Cuill or Setheor, is more consistent in being identified with the hazel as his god (where Mac Cuill means ‘son of hazel’),23 and on the whole it does make more sense that the names should match the gods they’re linked with, since (as we’ve previously seem on the Linguistics section) names like this can express a ‘client-patron’ or devotee relationship. Mac Gréine most likely should be associated with the sun, then, while Mac Cécht should be more properly linked with the earth, and Mac Cuill with the hazel.
This may well point to the same sort of arrangement we see in other Indo-European cultures, where the major gods of a pantheon (comparable to the Olympian gods of the Greeks) are typically identified ‘celestial’ deities (expressed here in the form of Mac Gréine, with his links with the sun) while other gods may be described as ‘chthonic’ deities of the earth and underworld (i.e. Mac Cécht). Mac Cuill, meanwhile, with his links to the hazel, is tied to matters of knowledge or revelation (thinking back to the well of Segais), so he may be seen as a divine intermediary, perhaps.24
Other deities who have epithets that point to similar qualities relating to the sun, or to some sort of brightness, include Ogma Grianenech (‘Sunny-Face’), Núadu Airgetlám (‘Silver Arm,’ an epithet that may have originally meant ‘Brightly Shining Arm’),25 and Nemain (described in a glossary as Nemain dega, meaning ‘sparks of fire’),26 besides many many other deities who are described throughout the literature as having bright or fiery or sunny features in a more general sense (including Lug, the ‘shining phantom’).27 It seems safe to assume, then, that these qualities are Indo-European in origin, and they could well be a fundamental expression of their divinity, since (as we’ve already seen) the Indo-European word for ‘god,’ *deiwos, may be traced back to connotations of ‘celestial, luminous, radiant.’
This radiant or luminous quality brings us back to a fundamental part of more than a few Indo-European creation myths: the concept of fire-in-water. As we saw earlier, the Irish figure of Nechtán has Indo-European counterparts in the form of Neptune and Apām Napāt – the latter of which is a name or title that may be associated with Agni in the Vedas, a god whose name means ‘Fire.’ Looking to other sources, however, we find that a figure by the name of Apām Napāt is also featured in the Iranian Avesta (where Sanskrit and Avestan, the language of the Avesta both belong to the Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European family tree). In the Apām Napāt is depicted as the guardian of a lake, which is said to contain the Xvarnah – a sort of divine light or brilliant ‘light of glory,’ which serves as a symbol of royal power (amongst other things, but we might think of it as a light that therefore ‘creates’ kings, etc.). Apām Napāt keeps the Xvarnah in the lake for safe-keeping, but inevitably somebody tries to steal it; a warrior named Frangrasyan dives into the waters to try and reach it, but he soon he soon finds the waters are too deep and he’s forced to turn back before he’s overwhelmed. As a result of this attempt, a river bursts forth from the lake. A second and third attempt from Frangrasyan results in further river-bursts, but no success in capturing the Xvarnah, and ultimately he gives up.28
Considering this Xvarnah, with its associations with royal power, in particular, it’s probably no particular shock to find that Irish tradition also couches matters of sovereignty in similarly bright and fiery terms.29 The similarities between this story and Bóand’s creation of the Boyne river are hard to ignore, as well, as is the fact that Apām Napāt functions in such a similar way as Nechtán – Bóand’s husband. Given the fact that Nechtán and Apām Napāt are ultimately cognates, this does point to a remarkable degree of consistency here, even though so many other details are so very different. Ultimately, this gives us a clear hint about the presence of these creation motifs in Gaelic tradition, in general, but it also shows us how the creation motifs could be recycled and applied in other ways – informing and influencing the form and function of certain rituals, like imbas forosnai, but also helping to shape fundamental practices like sacrifices and offerings.
In light of all this (no pun intended), now is as good a time as any for us to expand on exactly how these motifs might inform practice in a bit more detail. Our discussion here will continue on the next page.
References
10 Bruce Lincoln, Myth, Cosmos, and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction (1986), 17-18.
11 Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental (2003), 287; Pierre-Yves Lambert, ‘Gaulois Solitumaros,’ in Études Celtiques 36:1 (2008), 90.
12 J. E. Caerwyn William (Auth.) and Patrick K. Ford (Trans.), The Irish Literary Tradition (1992), 21.
13 Patrick K. Ford, ‘The Blind, the Dumb, and the Ugly: Aspects of Poets and their Craft in Early Ireland and Wales,’ in Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 19 (1990), 27-40.
14 See Magnímartha Finn.
15 See Joseph Falaky Nagy, ‘Liminality and Knowledge in Irish Tradition,’ in Studia Celtica XVI/XVII, 1981/1982; see also: Kim McCone, Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature (1990), 169; Joseph Falaky Nagy, The Wisdom of the Outlaw: The Boyhood Deeds of Finn in Gaelic Narrative Tradition (1985).
16 This is discussed in Patrick Ford’s ‘The Well of Nechtan and La Gloire Lumineuse,‘ in G. J. Larson, C. Scott Littleton, and Jaan Puhvel (Eds.), Myth in Indo-European Antiquity (1974).
17 Conor Newman, ‘The sacral landscape of Tara: a preliminary exploration,’ in Roseanne Schot, Conor Newman and Edel Bhreathnach (Eds.), Landscapes of Cult and Kingship (2011), 37; eDIL s.v. 2 necht or dil.ie/33016; eDIL s.v. 1 finn or dil.ie/22134; eDIL s.v. bó or dil.ie/6201.
18 J. P. Mallory and D. Q. Adams’s The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World (2006), 438; see also: Encyclopædia Iranica.
19 Ralph T.H. Griffith, Rig Veda (1896).
20 R.A.S. Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland Part IV (1941), 192-195.
21 See: eDIL s.v. 1 cécht or dil.ie/8432 and eDIL s.v. 2 cécht or dil.ie/8433
22 R.A.S. Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland Part IV (1941), 192-192.
23 eDIL s.v. 1 coll or dil.ie/10500
24 We can clearly see that some of the gods of the Gaels are clearly celestial in origin, but in being ‘demoted’ to fairies or fallen angels who took refuge in the hills, they came to essentially be lumped in with their chthonic friends.
25 This interpretation is based on an analysis of the Proto-Celtic root for ‘silver,’ which is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root, *h₂r̥ǵ-n̥t-ó-. This contains the PIE word *h₂r̥ǵ-, which can mean ‘white’ or ‘glittery,’ and from this we get Proto-Celtic words like *arg-ant-ī, ‘brightly shining,’ as well as *argantom, ‘silver.’ Obviously the word for the metal is itself derived from its brightly shining quality, but as far as Núadu’s epithet goes, it’s not actually clear if it was originally meant in the sense of a ‘Brightly Shining Arm,’ or merely a ‘Silver Arm.’ Clearly the medieval scribes understood it to mean the latter, as did the Welsh with one of Núadu’s medieval cognates, Lludd Llaw Ereint (Lludd ‘Silver Arm.’
Lludd is thought to be derived from Nudd, the initial ‘N’ becoming a ‘Ll’ under the influence of its proximity to Llaw – where the alliterative Lludd Llaw rolls off the tongue more easily than Nudd Llaw does).
Stefan Zimmer, ‘The making of myth: Old Irish Airgatlám, Welsh Llaw ereint, Caledonian Ἀργεντοκόξος,’ in Richter and Picard (Eds.), Ogma: Essays in Celtic Studies in Honour of Próinséas Ní Chatháin, (2002), 297.
26 Angelique Gulermovich Epstein, The Morrígan and her Germano-Celtic Counterparts (1998).
27 We could also point to folk etymologies that ascribe some sort of ‘fieriness’ to certain deities, like the one that’s given for Brigit in Sanas Cormaic. (‘Cormac’s Glossary’), where her named is explained as breo-aigit or breo-saighit, meaning ‘fiery arrow.’ As a ‘folk’ etymology, this is – by definition – not at all accurate, but she does have consistent links with fire throughout the literature (relating to both the goddess and the saint).
Lug is popularly described as a ‘sun god,’ but this is partly based on an incredibly outdated approach (where basically every deity ever is a sun god, so…), and partly based on a possible derivation of his name from the Indo-European *leuk-, meaning ‘flashing, light.’ This is now no longer widely accepted; alternative explanations here point to possible derivations such as ‘oath,’ or even a ‘lynx, warrior,’ with lug (‘oath’) being the most commonly accepted suggestion – with implications for the traditional oath we find in a number of myths whereby characters will ‘swear by the god my people swear by.’ Does that hint at Lug himself?
It may be worth noting, however, that an early Irish poem calls Lug a ‘shining phantom,’ and he is often associated with a fiery spear, which never misses its target. Although this has – again – been used as evidence to support his roots as a ‘sun god,’ based on what we’ve seen here it’s far more in keeping with the fact of his divinity in general. No sun gods need apply. See: John Carey, ‘From David to Labraid: Sacral Kingship and the Emergence of Monotheism in Israel and Ireland,’ in Katja Ritari and Alexandra Bergholm (Eds.), Approaches to Religion and Mythology in Celtic Studies (2008), 8-9.
28 Patrick Ford, ‘The Well of Nechtan and La Gloire Lumineuse,‘ in G. J. Larson, C. Scott Littleton, and Jaan Puhvel (Eds.), Myth in Indo-European Antiquity (1974), 74.
29 See for example the early Irish poem known as Moen Oen:
Gold above the great bright sun,
he gained sovereignty over the world of men;
[as] the one God to the gods
is Moen son of Áine, the sole king.
John Carey, ‘From David to Labraid: Sacral Kingship and the Emergence of Monotheism in Israel and Ireland,’ in Katja Ritari and Alexandra Bergholm (Eds.), Approaches to Religion and Mythology in Celtic Studies (2008), 7.
Eòlas 