The Irish ethnologic legends are found in a prose tract, termed the Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Conquests.[[195]] The legends are supposed to have been preserved by Fintan, who was baptized by St. Patrick, and gave him an account of everything he remembered himself. It was reported that he had lived before the flood, and had been miraculously preserved in order that the memory of these events should not be lost.
The tale is this:—Forty days before the Deluge, Ceasar landed in Eirin, at Dunnamarc, with Fintan, Bioth, and Ladhra, and fifty maidens, but they all died before the Deluge happened. The first peopling of Ireland after the Flood was by Partholon and his colony, who came from Migdonia in Greece, and took his way through the “Muir Torrian,” or Mediterranean, by Sicily, and, leaving Spain on the right, arrived in Ireland, where he landed, with his three sons, Rughraidhe, Slainge, and Laighline, and a thousand soldiers, at Inversceine, in the west of Munster, on the 14th of May, but after three hundred years this colony was entirely swept off by a plague at the Hill of Howth.
Thirty years after Nemhidh landed with a colony in Ireland. He came from Scythia, through the Euxine Sea, past the Rhiphæan Mountains, to the North Sea, whence he sailed to Ireland with his four sons, Starn, Iarbhainel Faidh or the Prophet, Aininn, and Fergus Leithderg or Redside. After his death his followers were expelled by a people called the Fomhoruigh or sea robbers, and left Eirin in three bands. One, under Simon Breac, son of Starn, went to that part of Greece called Thrace. The second, under Iobaath, son of Beothuig, son of Iarbhainel, went to the regions of the north of Europe; and the third, under Briotan Maol, son of Fergus Leithderg, to Dobhar and Iardobhar, in the north of Alban, and dwelt there.
Nemhidh and his race were two hundred and sixteen years in Ireland, after which it remained a wilderness for two hundred years, when a people called the Firbolg arrived in Ireland from Thrace. They were the descendants of Simon Breac, and the Greeks had subjected them to slavery, obliging them to dig the earth and raise mould, and carry it in sacks or bags of leather, termed bolgs in Irish. Whereupon they came to a resolution to shake off the yoke, and make boats out of the leathern sacks in which they carried the earth. They arrived under the five sons of Deala—Slainge, Rughruidhe, Gann, Geannan, and Seangann—who divided Ireland into five provinces. Their followers were divided into three septs: the Firbolg, or men of the bags, who under Gann and Seangann landed at Iorrus Domnann in Connaught; the Fir Domhnan, so called from the domhin or pits they used to dig, landed under Geannan and Rughruidhe at Tracht Rughruidhe in Ulster; and the Fir Gaillian, or men of the spear, so called from the gai or spears they used to protect the rest at work, under Slainge at Inverslainge in Leinster.
They founded the monarchy of Eirin, and held it thirty-six years; when under Eochaidh, son of Erc, their last king, a people called the Tuatha De Danaan arrived in Ireland. They were descended from Iobaath, son of Beothuig, son of Iarbhainel the Prophet, son of Nemhidh, who had taken refuge in the north of Europe. They lived in the land of Lochlin, where they had four cities—Falias, Gorias, Finias, and Murias. After they had continued a long time in these cities, they passed over to the north of Alban, and dwelt seven years in Dobhar and Iardobhar, taking with them four articles of value—the Lia Fal, or Stone of Destiny, from Falias; the sword of Lughaidh Lamhfhada from Gorias; his spear from Finias; and the caldron of the Dagda from Murias. After seven years they left Alban, and landed on Monday the 1st of May in the north of Ireland, and sent ambassadors to the king of the Firbolg, and demanded the sovereignty of Erin. Upon this a great battle was fought at Muigh Tuireadh, in which the Firbolg were defeated with the loss of ten thousand men, and the remainder fled to the islands of Arran, Isla, Rachlin, and Innsigall, where they remained till they were eventually driven out of the isles by the Cruithnigh or Picts.
The Tuatha De Danaan remained one hundred and ninety-seven years in Ireland, when the sons of Miledh arrived from Spain with the Scots, and wrested the kingdom from them. This Miledh was said to have originally borne the name of Golamh, and to be the son of Bile, son of Breogan, who took possession of Spain. He had eight sons—two, Donn and Aireach Feabhruadh, by Seang, daughter of Refloir, king of Scythia; and six, Eibherfionn and Amhergin, Ir and Colpa, Arannan and Eireamon, by Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The Tuatha De Danaan were under the rule of three brothers—MacCuill, MacCeacht, and MacGreine—who had their seat at Oileach Neid in the north of Ulster, and from whose three wives—Eire, Fodla, and Banba—the island had these names given to it. The sons of Miledh arrived with their fleet at Inverslainge, now Wexford, but were driven from shore by the spells of the Tuatha De Danaan, and went round to Inbhersceine in the west of Munster. Three of the sons—Donn, Ir, and Arannan—were drowned in a storm, but Eimher and his followers landed at Inbhersceine, and encountered Eire with the Tuatha De Danaan at Slieve Mis in Ulster, and defeated them. In this battle, Scota, the wife of Miledh, fell. Eireamon, with another division of the fleet, landed at Inbhercolpe, now called Drogheda, and was joined by Eibhear there, when they met the rest of the Tuatha De Danaan at Taillten in Meath, and slew there three kings with their wives. Having thus entirely reduced the island, Eireamon became their first king. He divided Ireland into four provinces. He gave the province of Ulster to Emhear, son of Ir; Munster to the four sons of Emhear Finn; Connaught to Un and Eadan; and Leinster to Crimthan Sgiathbhel of the Fir Domnan.[[196]]
In the time of this Crimthan Sgiathbhel, king of Leinster, the Cruithnigh came from the land of Thrace. They were the children of Gleoin Mac Ercol, that is, of Gelonus, son of Hercules, and were called Agathirsi. They came away with nine ships and three hundred and nine persons, landed at Inverslainge under six brothers—Solan, Ulfa, Nechtan, Drostan, Aengus, and Leithenn—and had passed through France, where they built the city of Pictavis. The king of Leinster offered them a settlement, provided they would drive out a people called the Tuatha Fidhbhe. This they accomplished. Of the brothers, Leithenn died in France; and Drostan, Solan, Nechtan, and Ulfa in Ireland. Gub, and his son Cathluan, acquired great power in Erin, till Eireamon drove them out, and gave them the wives of the men who had been drowned with his brother Donn. Six of them remained in the plains of Bregia in Meath. Those that left Erin sailed to Inver Boinne to dwell in the country beyond Ile, and from thence they conquered Alban from Cath to Forchu.[[197]]
An older account of the settlement of the sons of Miledh, and that of the Cruithnigh in connection with it, is probably to be found in a poem contained in the Book of Leinster, and attributed to Maelmurra of Othain, who died in the year 884.[[198]] They are said in this poem ‘to have been Greeks in their origin, and descended from Fenius, who came from Scythia to Nembroth, where he built the great tower, and founded a school for languages. This Fenius Farsaid had a son Nel, who went to Egypt, and married Scota, daughter of Forann (Pharaoh), by whom he had a son, Gaedhel Glass, and his people were called Gaedhil from him, Feni from Fenius, and Scuith or Scots from Scota. After Forann was drowned in the Red Sea, they seized his ships, and passed by India and by Asia to Scythia; and then by the Caspian Sea to the Slieve Riffi or Rhiphæan Mountains. They settled in Golgutha, where they dwelt two hundred years. Brath, son of Deagath, then left Gaethligh for the islands of the Muir Torrian or Mediterranean, and by Crete and Sicily to Spain. His son, Breogan, conquered Spain, and founded Brigantia, or the tower of Breogan. His son, Ith, discovered Erin, and landed at Bentracht or Magh Ith in Leinster, and died at Slemnaibh (unknown). The six sons of Miledh—Donn, Colptha, Amergin, Ir, Eber, and Erimon, with Luguid, son of Ith, came to revenge his death with four-and-twenty plebeians to attend them—two on each chief. Cruithne, son of Cing, took their women from them, except Tea, the wife of Eireamon. They fought Banba with her hosts at Sliabh Mis, Fodhla at Ebhlinne, and Eire at Uisneach. The Tuatha Dea sent them forth, according to the laws of war, over nine waves. Eireamon went with one half of the host to Inbhercolphtha; Donn with the other half to Inbhersceine, but himself died at sea. They spread themselves through Erin to her coasts, and made alliance with the Firbolg and the clan of Nemid, their wives having been stolen from them. They made alliance with the Tuatha Dea, and half the land was given to them. Eireamon took the north as the inheritance of his race. Eber took the south. Lugaidh, son of Ith, possessed certain districts, and Erin is full of the race of Ir.’ Such is a short abstract of this curious poem. The Milesians are here represented not as driving out the previous inhabitants, but as making alliance with them, and obtaining wives from the Tuatha De Danaan, their own wives having been taken from them by the Cruithnigh.
Another version of this form of the legend of the Cruithnigh, is that ‘Cruithnechan, son of Cinge, son of Lochit, went from the sons of Miledh to the Britons of Fortrenn, to fight against the Saxons, and remained with them. But they had no wives, for the women of Alban had died. They then went back to the sons of Miledh, and swore by heaven and earth, and the sun and the moon, and by the dew and the elements, and by the sea and the land, that the regal succession should be on the mother’s side, and they took twelve of the women whose husbands had been drowned with Donn.’[[199]]
In the form which these legends of the colonisation of Ireland assume in the Book of Conquests there are five successive colonies, but the first two, those of Partholan and Nemhidh, are separated from each other and from the latter by long internals, while the last three, beginning with the Firbolg, are continuous, each succeeding the other without interval. The older form, as contained in Maelmurra’s poem, knows nothing of Partholan and his colony, names the Firbolg first, and appears to identify the Clanna Nemidh with the Tuatha Dea.[[200]] An unfortunate resemblance between the name of the Firbolg and Cæsar’s Belgæ has led most writers to assume that they were the same people, to the great confusion of the early history of Ireland. There is nothing in the legend—and what we are told of the Firbolg is simply legendary—to warrant this, and the interpretation there given to the names Firbolg and Firdomnan harmonises very singularly with the legendary accounts of the tin-workers of Cornwall and the tin islands. It is not difficult to recognise in the tradition that the Firbolg derived their name from the leathern sacks which they filled with soil, and with which they covered their boats, and the Firdomnan from the pits they dug, the people who worked the tin by digging in the soil and transporting it in bags in their hide-covered boats. The traditions too of the physical characteristics of these early colonists of Ireland lead to the same conclusion. It is thus quoted in the preface to M‘Firbis’s Book of Genealogies: ‘Every one who is white [of skin], brown [of hair], bold, honourable, daring, prosperous, bountiful in the bestowal of property, wealth, and rings, and who is not afraid of battle or combat, they are the descendants of the sons of Miledh in Erinn. Every one who is fair-haired, vengeful, large; and every plunderer; every musical person; the professor of musical and entertaining performances; who are adepts in all Druidical and magical arts; they are the descendants of the Tuatha De Danaan in Erinn. Every one who is black-haired, who is a tattler, guileful, tale-telling, noisy, contemptible; every wretched, mean, strolling, unsteady, harsh, and inhospitable person; every slave, every mean thief, every churl, every one who loves not to listen to music and entertainment, the disturbers of every council and every assembly, and the promoters of discord among the people, these are the descendants of the Firbolg, the Fir Gailian of Liogairné, and of the Firdomnan in Erinn. But, however, the descendants of the Firbolgs are the most numerous of all these. This is taken from an old book.’[[201]]