Of these three certain colonisations of Ireland, the Firbolg was the first. Legend says they came from Greece, where they had been long enslaved, and whence they escaped in the captured ships. of their masters.

In their possession of Ireland the Firbolgs were disturbed by the descents and depredations of African sea-rovers, the Fomorians, who had a main stronghold on Tory Island, off the Northwest Coast.

But the possession of the country was wrested from the Firbolgs, and they were forced into partial serfdom by the Tuatha De Danann (people of the goddess Dana), who arrived later.

Totally unlike the uncultured Firbolgs, the Tuatha De Danann were a capable and cultured, highly civilized people, so skilled in the crafts, if not the arts, that the Firbolgs named them necromancers; and in course of time both the Firbolgs and the later-coming Milesians created a mythology around these.

The great Irish historiographer, Eugene O'Curry, says: "The De Danann were a people remarkable for their knowledge of the domestic, if not the higher, arts of civilized life"-and he furthermore adds that they were apparently more highly civilized than even their conquerors, the Milesians.

In a famed battle at Southern Moytura (on the Mayo-Galway border) it was that the Tuatha De Danann met and overthrew the Firbolgs. There has been handed down a poetical account of this great battle-a story that O'Curry says can hardly be less than fourteen hundred years old-which is very interesting, and wherein we get some quaint glimpses of ancient Irish ethics of war (for even in the most highly imaginative tale, the poets and seanachies of all times, unconsciously reflect the manners of their own age, or of ages just passed). The Firbolgs, only too conscious of the superiority of the newcomers, used every endeavour to defer the fatal encounter. When the armies were drawn up in seeming readiness, the Firbolgs refused to begin battle. And they coolly replied to the impatient enemy that they could not say when they would be ready to begin. They must have time to sharpen their swords, and time to put their spears in order, to furbish their armour, and brighten their helmets. The Tuatha De Danann had better restrain their impetuosity. Tremendous things hung upon the outcome of this fight, and they, wisely, were not going to be rushed into it until the last rod in the last (wickerwork) shield was perfect.

Moreover, they observed that their opponents had a superior kind of light spear: so time must be given them to get like weapons

made. And they magnanimously pointed out to the Tuatha De Danann that, on the other hand, as they, the Firbolgs, had the advantage of possessing craisechs, heavy spears that could work great destruction, the De Danann needed to provide themselves with craisechs. Anything and everything to stave off the dread matching of courage and skill. Altogether they most skilfully managed to keep the enemy fretting and fuming with impatience for a hundred days and five before the great clash resounded to the heavens.

But the De Danann gained an important point also. For, as the Firbolgs were possessed of overwhelming numbers, the strangers demanded that they eliminate their majority and fight on equal terms, man for man-which the laws of battle-justice unfortunately compelled the reluctant Firbolgs to agree to.

The battle raged for four days. Then the Firbolgs, finding themselves beaten, but pretending not to know this, proposed that the doubtful struggle be ended by halting the great hosts and pitting against each other a body of 300 men from each side. So bravely had the losing ones fought, and so sorely exhausted the De Danann, that the latter, to end the struggle, were glad to leave to the Firbolgs that quarter of the Island wherein they fought, the province now called Connaught. And the bloody contest was

over.

The Firbolgs' noted King, Eochaid, was slain in this great battle. But the greatest of their warriors, Sreng, had maimed the De Danann King, Nuada, cutting off his hand-and by that stroke deposed him from the kingship. Because, under the De Danann law (and ever after in Eirinn) no king could rule who suffered from a personal blemish.

The great warrior champion of the De Danann, Breas (whose father was a Fomorian chief) filled the throne while Nuada went into retirement, and had made for him a silver hand, by their chief artificer, Creidné.

Breas, says the legend, ruled for seven years. He incensed his people by indulging his kin, the Fomorians, in their depredations. And he was finally deposed for this and for another cause that throws light upon one of the most noted characteristics of the people of Eire, ancient and modern. Breas proved himself that meanest of all men, a king ungenerous and inhospitable-lacking open heart and open hand-"The knives of his people" it was complained, "were not greased at his table, nor did their breath smell of ale, at the banquet. Neither their poets, nor their bards, nor their satirists, nor their harpers, nor their pipers, nor their trum

peters, nor their jugglers, nor their buffoons, were ever seen engaged in amusing them in the assembly at his court." So there was mighty grumbling in the land, for that it should be disgraced by so unkingly a king. And the grumbling swelled to a roar, when, in the extreme of his niggardliness, he committed the sin, unpardonable in ancient Ireland, of insulting a poet. Cairbre, the great poet of the time, having come to visit him, was sent to a little bare, cold apartment, where a few, mean, dry cakes upon a platter were put before him as substitute for the lavish royal banquet owed to a poet. In hot indignation he quitted the abode of Breas, and upon the boorish king composed a withering satire, which should blight him and his seed forever. Lashed to wrath, then, by the outrage on a poet's sacred person the frenzied people arose, drove the boor from the throne, and from the Island-and Nuada Airgead Lam (of the Silver Hand) again reigned over his people.

Breas fled to the Hebrides, to his father, Elatha, the chief of the Fomorians, where, collecting a mighty host of their sea-robbers, in as many ships as filled the sea from the Hebrides to Ireland, they swarmed into Eirinn-and gave battle to the De Danaan at Northern Moytura, in Sligo. In this, their second great battle, the De Danann were again victorious. They routed their enemy with fearful slaughter, and overthrew the Fomorian tyranny in the island forever. The famous Fomorian chief, Balor of the Evil Eye, whose headquarters was on Tory Island, off the Northwest coast, was slain, by a stone from the sling of his own grandson, the great De Danann hero, Lugh. But Balor had slain King Nuada before he was himself dispatched.

This famous life and death struggle of two races is commemorated by a multitude of cairns and pillars which strew the great battle plain in Sligo-a plain which bears the name (in Irish) of "the Plain of the Towers of the Fomorians."

The De Danann were now the undisputed masters of the land. So goes the honored legend.

CHAPTER II

THE TUATHA DE DANANN

OVER the island, which was now indisputably De Danann, reigned the hero, Lugh, famous in mythology. And after Lugh, the still greater Dagda-whose three grand-sons, succeeding him in the sovereignty, were reigning, says the story, when the Milesians came.

Such a great people were the De Danann, and so uncommonly skilled in the few arts of the time, that they dazzled even their conquerors and successors, the Milesians, into regarding them as mighty magicians. Later generations of the Milesians to whom were handed down the wonderful traditions of the wonderful people they had conquered, lifted them into a mystic realm, their greatest ones becoming gods and goddesses, who supplied to their successors a beautiful mythology.

Most conquerors come to despise the conquered, but here they came to honor, almost to worship those whom they had subdued Which proves not only greatness in the conquered, but also bigness of mind and distinctiveness of character in the conquerors.

The De Danann skill in the arts and crafts in course of time immortalised itself in beautiful legends among the Milesians. Lugh was not only the son of a god (of Manannan MacLir, the sea-god), and the greatest of heroes, but tradition gave him all the many mortal powers of his people, so that he was called Sab Ildanach.. meaning Stem of all the Arts. When the De Danann had first ar rived in Ireland Lugh went to the court of Eochaid, the Firbolg king at Tara, and sought an office. But no one was admitted a member of this court unless he was master of some art or craft not already represented there. The doorkeeper barring Lugh's way demanded on what ground he sought to be admitted. Lugh answered that he was a saer (carpenter). No, they had a good saer in the court already. Then he said he was a good smith They had an able smith, also. Well, he was a champion. They already had a champion. Next, he was a harper. They had a wonderful harper, too. Then a poet and antiquarian. They had such-and of the most eminent. But he was a magician. They

had many Druids, adepts in the occult. He was a physician. They had the famous physician, Diancecht. He was a cupbearer. They had nine. Then, a goldsmith. They had the famous Creidné.1 "Then," said Lugh, "go to your king, and ask him if he has in his court any man who is at once master of all these arts and professions. If he has, I shall not ask admittance to Tara."

Eochaid, the King, was overjoyed. He led in the wonderful Lugh, and put him in the chair of the ard-ollam, the chief professor of the arts and sciences.

The Dagda, who reigned just before the coming of the Milesians, was the greatest of the De Danann. He was styled Lord of Knowledge and Sun of all the Sciences. His daughter, Brigit, was a woman of wisdom, and goddess of poetry. The Dagda was a great and beneficent ruler for eighty years.

1 The old traditional tales say that the Creidné mentioned was a very famous worker in the precious metals. The basic truth of these traditions seems evidenced by the reference in very ancient manuscripts to Bretha Creidné, "The Judgments of Creidné," a body of laws dealing with fine scales, weights and measures, and the precious metals. There is still preserved part of a very old poem, which says that Creidné was drowned, returning from Spain with golden ore.