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The Marriages of the Gods at the Sanctuary of Tailltiu

1920; Routledge; Volume: 31; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0015587x.1920.9719136

1469-8315

Thomas Johnson Westropp,

Irish and British Studies

WHEN the gods of the Gaedhil invaded Ireland they are said to have found the Fir Bolg in possession and fought them to a finish.Though there can be no doubt that the Fir Bolg were a real tribe group, ill-defined, but, if one ynay use the terra, " non-Milesian," and some have even imagined that the Tuatha De Danann were also a human race (which is hard indeed to suppose possible), 1 it is evident that the story is of a war of gods, not a mere mortal struggle, that the new faith took over the older sanctuaries was °nly to be expected, and, in the case of the Celts, as of most P°lytheists, the line of least resistance was to try and reconcile their new-come god3 with those of the soil.The sanctuary and assembly place of Taiiltiu, at Oristown and telltown, in Co. Meath, has preserved a most illuminating tradition, which it is well to study in some detail.The pagan Irish had a pantheon formed of divergent and ev eri discordant elements.*We have mountain deities like 'Two races of gods divide the Sid mounds {Sttoa Gadelica, S. JI.