"It was," says the saga, "at the battle of Moytura that Ogma, the strong man, found the sword of Tethra, the King of the Fomorians. Ogma drew that sword from the sheath and cleaned it. It was then that it related to him all the high deeds that it had accomplished, for at this time the custom was when swords were drawn from the sheath they used to recite the exploits[14] they had themselves been the cause of. And thence comes the right which swords have, to be cleaned when they are drawn from the sheath; thence also the magic power which swords have preserved ever since"—
to which curious piece of pagan superstition an evidently later Christian redactor adds, "weapons were the organs of the demon to speak to men. At that time men used to worship weapons, and they were a magic safeguard."
The saga ends in the episode of the recovery of the Dagda's harp, and in the cry of triumph uttered by the Mór-rígu and by Bodb, her fellow-goddess of war, as they visited the various heights of Ireland, the banks of streams, and the mouths of floods and great rivers, to proclaim aloud their triumph and the defeat of the Fomorians.
M. d'Arbois de Jubainville sees in the successive colonisations of Partholan, the Nemedians, and the Tuatha De Danann, an Irish version of the Greek legend of the three successive ages of gold, silver, and brass. The Greek legend of the Chimæra, otherwise Bellerus, the monster slain by Bellerophon, he equates with the Irish Balor of the evil eye; the fire from the throat of Bellerus, and the evil beam shot from Balor's eye may originally have typified the lightning.[15]
[1] "L'yowar (rhyming to hour) gow-awla," the "book of the takings or holdings of Ireland."
[2] Keating derives it from foghla, "spoil," and muir, "sea," which is an impossible derivation, or from fo muirib, as if "along the seas," but it really means "under seas."
[3] Also Fir Domnan and Fir Galeóin, two tribes of the same race.
[4] When the oldest list of current Irish sagas was drawn up, probably in the seventh century, only one battle of Moytura was mentioned; this was evidently what is now known as the second battle. In the more recent list contained in the introduction to the Senchus Mór there is mention made of both battles. There is only a single copy of each of these sagas known to exist. Of most of the other sagas of this cycle even the last copy has perished.
[5] Long afterwards, at the time that Ireland was divided into five provinces, the Cruithnigh, or Picts, drove the Firbolg out of the islands again, and they were forced to come back to Cairbré Niafer, king of Leinster, who allotted them a territory, but placed such a rack-rent upon them that they were glad to fly into Connacht, where Oilioll and Mève—the king and queen who made the Táin Bo Chuailgne—gave them a free grant of land, and there Duald Mac Firbis, over two hundred and fifty years ago, found their descendants in plenty. According to some accounts, they were never driven wholly out of Connacht, and if they are a real race—as, despite their connection with the obviously mythical Tuatha De Danann, they appear to be—they probably still form the basis of population there. Máine Mór, the ancestor of the O'Kellys, is said to have wrested from them the territory of Ui Máiné (part of Roscommon and Galway) in the sixth century. Their name and that of their fellow tribe, the Fir Domnan, appear to be the same as the Belgæ, and the Damnonii of Gaul and Britain, who are said to have given its name to Devonshire. Despite their close connection in the Book of Invasions and early history of Ireland, the Firbolg stand on a completely different footing from the De Danann tribes. Their history is recorded consecutively from that day to this; many families trace their pedigree to them, and they never wholly disappeared. No family traces its connection to the De Danann people; they wholly disappear, and are in later times regarded as gods, or demons, or fairies.
[6] Bress in the older form.