Myths and Legends of the Celts (Penguin Reference) by James MacKillop Page B
Authors: James MacKillop
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where deer were and continue to be prevalent, there are indications of deer worship in the Lochaber region. The
sianach
is a deer-monster in Scottish Gaelic oral tradition.
In early Irish and Welsh narratives, deer appear most often in two modes, as enticers of mortals to the otherworld and as transformed beings. The great Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhaill often hunts an enchanted stag who is the metamorphosed god Donn. With the coming of Christianity, the stag became a guide for souls seeking heaven and was so represented in cemeteries. As for transformation, both mortals and fairies might become deer, willingly or unwillingly. One Irish story depicts a jealous woman turning one hundred girls into deer. Perhaps the strangest of these transformations comes in a poem attributed to St Patrick (fifth century) titled in English ‘The Deer’s Cry’ or ‘St Patrick’s Breastplate’. The saint uses a power called
féth fíada
to turn himself and a companion named Benén into wild deer so that they may escape ambush while on their way to evangelize Tara, the royal hill in the Boyne Valley. Their adversaries see only a deer with a fawn.
Some fawns, on the other hand, may be warlike, like the Irish Fenian hero Oisín, the principal son of Fionn mac Cumhaill. To conceive him, Fionn sleeps with the deer-woman, Sadb, thus explaining Oisín’s name, the diminutive of
os
[deer], meaning ‘little deer’ or fawn. Within the bulk of Fenian narratives the character of Oisín manifests no hints of zoomorphism, but in later tales he is the one invited to enjoy a 300-year love affair with a beautiful damsel, Niam, in the otherworld, as in Micheál Coimín’s
Laoi Oisín i dTír na nÓg
[The Lay of Oisín in the Land of Youth],
c
. 1750. The persona of Oisín was also the basis for James Macpherson’s creation Ossian in the
Poems of Ossian
(1760–63).
The name of the horse goddess Epona has long had a certain cachet and is likely to be among the first a beginning reader would encounter in discussions of the Celtic world. That arises in part from her popular but unsupported association with the superb Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire, one of the earth’s largest pictorial works of art. With a distinctive taut, curvilinear style, the figure, 364 ft long, was cut through the sod to the underlying layer of white chalk about 50 BC . Unfortunately, surviving evidence suggests that the cult of Epona did not arrive in Britain until after the coming of the Romans almost 100 years later in AD 43. Epona’s cult originated in eastern Gaul near Alésia prior to its spread to Britain; inscriptions and statues commemorating her are more numerous than for any other goddess. She is usually shown on horseback, sometimes sidesaddle, often clothed but occasionally nude and nymphlike. Her name is sometimes given in plural form, Eponabus, perhaps explained by the triplication of her form as found at Hogonange in the Moselle Valley. Roman commentators noted her popularity with the cavalry, who erected her statue in stables. She was the only Celtic deity ever placed in the Roman pantheon, where she was remembered on 18 December.
The horse, not native to Europe, was introduced about the eighth century BC in the Iron Age and quickly became associated with the aristocratic warrior elite. Horses were seen in continental Celtic culture only a short time before they began to be employed in sacrifices and ritual practices, as when drawing their funerary chariots, and sometimes interred with humans. Not surprisingly, then, the horse may be linked with deities other than Epona, such as the Gaulish Rudiobus, who is honoured with a beautifully preserved bronze statue (first century BC ) found in the Loire Valley, western France. Rudiobus may be an aspect of Gaulish Mars (see Chapter 2 ) rather than a native god. Celtic Jupiter and Celtic Apollo also had associations with the horse, the former in huge columns where the sky god and sun god would appear on horseback.
sianach
is a deer-monster in Scottish Gaelic oral tradition.
In early Irish and Welsh narratives, deer appear most often in two modes, as enticers of mortals to the otherworld and as transformed beings. The great Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhaill often hunts an enchanted stag who is the metamorphosed god Donn. With the coming of Christianity, the stag became a guide for souls seeking heaven and was so represented in cemeteries. As for transformation, both mortals and fairies might become deer, willingly or unwillingly. One Irish story depicts a jealous woman turning one hundred girls into deer. Perhaps the strangest of these transformations comes in a poem attributed to St Patrick (fifth century) titled in English ‘The Deer’s Cry’ or ‘St Patrick’s Breastplate’. The saint uses a power called
féth fíada
to turn himself and a companion named Benén into wild deer so that they may escape ambush while on their way to evangelize Tara, the royal hill in the Boyne Valley. Their adversaries see only a deer with a fawn.
Some fawns, on the other hand, may be warlike, like the Irish Fenian hero Oisín, the principal son of Fionn mac Cumhaill. To conceive him, Fionn sleeps with the deer-woman, Sadb, thus explaining Oisín’s name, the diminutive of
os
[deer], meaning ‘little deer’ or fawn. Within the bulk of Fenian narratives the character of Oisín manifests no hints of zoomorphism, but in later tales he is the one invited to enjoy a 300-year love affair with a beautiful damsel, Niam, in the otherworld, as in Micheál Coimín’s
Laoi Oisín i dTír na nÓg
[The Lay of Oisín in the Land of Youth],
c
. 1750. The persona of Oisín was also the basis for James Macpherson’s creation Ossian in the
Poems of Ossian
(1760–63).
The name of the horse goddess Epona has long had a certain cachet and is likely to be among the first a beginning reader would encounter in discussions of the Celtic world. That arises in part from her popular but unsupported association with the superb Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire, one of the earth’s largest pictorial works of art. With a distinctive taut, curvilinear style, the figure, 364 ft long, was cut through the sod to the underlying layer of white chalk about 50 BC . Unfortunately, surviving evidence suggests that the cult of Epona did not arrive in Britain until after the coming of the Romans almost 100 years later in AD 43. Epona’s cult originated in eastern Gaul near Alésia prior to its spread to Britain; inscriptions and statues commemorating her are more numerous than for any other goddess. She is usually shown on horseback, sometimes sidesaddle, often clothed but occasionally nude and nymphlike. Her name is sometimes given in plural form, Eponabus, perhaps explained by the triplication of her form as found at Hogonange in the Moselle Valley. Roman commentators noted her popularity with the cavalry, who erected her statue in stables. She was the only Celtic deity ever placed in the Roman pantheon, where she was remembered on 18 December.
The horse, not native to Europe, was introduced about the eighth century BC in the Iron Age and quickly became associated with the aristocratic warrior elite. Horses were seen in continental Celtic culture only a short time before they began to be employed in sacrifices and ritual practices, as when drawing their funerary chariots, and sometimes interred with humans. Not surprisingly, then, the horse may be linked with deities other than Epona, such as the Gaulish Rudiobus, who is honoured with a beautifully preserved bronze statue (first century BC ) found in the Loire Valley, western France. Rudiobus may be an aspect of Gaulish Mars (see Chapter 2 ) rather than a native god. Celtic Jupiter and Celtic Apollo also had associations with the horse, the former in huge columns where the sky god and sun god would appear on horseback.
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