Monaghan Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

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through conversion or conquest, the earlier reli-

gion rarely disappears entirely. Rather, its beliefs

and rituals remain, although the context and

meaning was forgotten. Thus in the ancient Celtic

lands today, we find a general revulsion at eating

horse-meat, considered a useful food in some areas

of the world; this may derive from the old rever-

ence for the HORSE among the Celts. Similarly,

beliefs in the BANSHEE and other FAIRY beings,

viewed as superstition today, represent an earlier

belief system in vestigial form.

Source: Henderson, George. Survivals in Belief

Among the Celts. Glasgow: James MacLeose and

Sons, 1911.

Sutugius Continental Celtic god. A few

inscriptions from France attest to the existence

of this god, believed by contemporary scholars

to have pre-Celtic roots and equated by the

Romans with their warrior god MARS.

swallow Folkloric animal. In Ireland the swal-

low was considered a helpful bird; to kill one

brought bad luck.

swan Folkloric animal. The swan was often,

like the SEAL, seen as a transformed human; occa-

sionally the swan was believed to be a bewitched

nun. It was considered lucky to see seven swans

flying, because seven years of good luck would

follow; seeing a multiple of seven brought that

many more years of good luck. Hurting or killing

a swan, conversely, brought bad luck to oneself

and one’s entire community. See SWAN MAIDEN.

swan maiden Irish, Scottish, continental

Celtic folkloric figure. The story of a young

woman who is half-bird appears throughout the

ancient Celtic lands. Sometimes the girl was said

to be under an enchantment, which might or

might not be broken; other times, no reason was

given for the maiden’s double nature. In the dark

of night, such maidens took off their swan

plumage and left it beside the lakes in which they

swam, naked and beautiful. Should a man find

the feather cloak of such a woman, he could

make her his wife by stealing it, whereupon (like

a SEAL woman) she became a happy and hard-

working helpmeet. Should the swan maiden ever

find her feathers, she instantly converted herself

to bird form and flew away, leaving her children

behind without so much as a backward glance.

That this fairy tale has mythological roots is

generally unquestioned. The BIRD is associated

with religious imagery across Europe; it is found

among the Celts as far back as the HALLSTATT

period. Many bird divinities had solar associa-

tions (see SUN), while waterbirds were connected

to thermal SPRINGS that were believed to hold

the night-sun’s energy. One of the largest and

most graceful of waterbirds, the swan was some-

times depicted as part of a team pulling a chariot

or cart, each swan connected to the others by a

small chain. That motif appears in Irish mythol-

ogy in the story of CÁER and AONGHUS ÓG, who,

after falling in love, flew away together linked by

a golden chain.

When a swan-woman married, she often

demanded that her husband follow specific rules;

the FAIRY QUEEN or goddess ÁINE, for instance,

demanded that her husband, the Earl of

Desmond, express no surprise at anything their

children did. Should the rules be broken, the

swan-wife and her children would instantly

depart, as Áine and her son

GERÓID IARLA did,

turning into waterbirds which still can be seen

on the magical

LOUGH GUR. A few scholars have

proposed that these legends recall a period when

women made specific demands in the negotia-

tion of a marriage contract.

Sources: Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in

Iconography and Tradition. London: Routledge

and Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 234; Ross, Anne.

Folklore of the Scottish Highlands. London: B. T.

Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 54; Stuart-Glennie,

John S. “Incidents of Swan-Maiden Marriage.”

In Dorson, Richard M., ed. Peasant Customs and

Savage Myths: Selections from the British

434 Sutugius

Folklorists. Vol II. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1968, p. 523 ff.

swarth Scottish folkloric figure. A magical

double of a person, the swarth was dangerous to

meet on the road, because seeing the image of

yourself was an almost certain prophecy of

death’s approach. If, however, you were brave

enough to speak with the swarth, you could gain

magical knowledge and SECOND SIGHT.

Sweeney See SUIBHNE.

sympathetic magic Cosmological concept.

In many cultures and mystical traditions

throughout the world, it was believed that

objects of a specific shape or form affected other

similar objects; thus a girl combing her hair at

home in the evening could attract the attention

of a dangerous MERMAID, who also used a COMB

at that hour and liked to drown sailors. Another

form of sympathetic magic was the supposition

that parts always remain connected to the

whole; thus discarded HAIR and nails had a sub-

tle power over the person from whom they orig-

inally came. (See also EXTERNAL SOUL.)

sympathetic magic 435

taboo See GEIS.

Tadg (Tighe, Tadc) Irish hero. This name is

common in Irish history and mythology. The

most prominent bearer was Tadg mac Nuadat,

grandfather of the hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL;

Tadg has been interpreted as a form of the god

NUADA, although his name implies that he was

Nuada’s son. A more obscure Tadg was foster

father of the great king of TARA, CORMAC MAC

AIRT. When Cormac was a boy, he killed some

BADGERS and brought them home for dinner.

His foster father, revolted by their bloody

appearance, refused to eat them. It was well that

he did, for they were his SHAPE-SHIFTING

cousins. Another Tadg was the son of the canny

hero CIABHÁN who traveled to the OTHERWORLD

to meet the beautiful FAIRY QUEEN CLÍDNA.

taghairm Scottish ritual. A peculiar magical

ritual is known from Scottish texts, which

describe how conjurers roasted live

CATS over

coals until a giant cat named Big-Ears

appeared; he may be a folkloric descendant of

the ancient king of the cats, known in Ireland as

Irusan. The rite of taghairm was known down

through the 17th century, but it was strongly

discouraged by the clergy, who proclaimed that

anyone who performed it was instantly con-

demned to hell.

Tailtiu (Taillte, Tailtu) Irish goddess. The

mythological history of Ireland parallels what

archaeologists believe is its historical reality: waves

of invaders landing, sometimes doing battle with

their predecessors, sometimes intermarrying with

them, sometimes both. The goddess Tailtiu stands

at the boundary of two of these groups, the FIR

BOLG and the TUATHA DÉ DANANN. She may have

been a member of the Fir Bolg, although she is

also said to have been a Spanish princess; in either

case, she has been described by modern scholars as

a goddess diminished into human form.

Tailtiu was married to EOCHAID mac Eirc, the

last Fir Bolg king, an ideal ruler during whose

reign only truth was spoken in the land, which

bore abundant crops under fair skies. Eochaid

was killed at the first battle of MAG TUIRED,

when the Fir Bolg battled the magical invaders,

the Tuatha Dé Danann. Thereupon Tailtiu mar-

ried EOCHAID Garbh, who despite the similarity

of name to her first husband, was a member of

the victorious Tuatha Dé.

Tailtiu traveled to the center of the island,

where even today the land is the richest in

Ireland, and began to clear fields for planting,

but the effort of felling the dense Irish forest

killed her. As she died, she asked that her funeral

go on forever, with

HORSE racing and games and

festivities. And so her foster son, the god LUGH,

established the August festival that, strangely,

bears his name (LUGHNASA) rather than hers.

436

On Lughnasa each year at TELTOWN, on the

River Blackwater in Co. Meath, a great ÓENACH

or assembly of the tribes was held, devoted to

trading, match making, and celebration as well

as to ritual athletic contests appropriate to the

season. Horse-racing may have been part of the

festivities, for there are legends that teams swam

across the nearby river as dawn broke. The

Great Games at Teltown, also called the Tailtian

Games in Tailtiu’s honor, took place through

medieval times; a smaller-scale festival was held

at the same site through the 19th century.

The Óenach Tailten was the most important

of the ancient Irish festivals, because it was held

closest to the seat of political power, the hill of

TARA, whose kings sponsored the event. Other

Lughnasa festivals (see CARMAN, TLACHTGA)

were dedicated to goddesses who died; as earth

goddesses, they may have represented the dying

vegetation that fed humanity.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.

Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.

Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,

1906–1924, pp. 147–163.

Táin See CATTLE RAID.

Táin bó Cuailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley)

Irish epic. The greatest extant piece of Irish

mythological literature tells of a great CATTLE

RAID

upon a region now known as the Cooley

peninsula; hence the piece is sometimes angli-

cized as the Cattle Raid of Cooley. Part of the

ULSTER CYCLE of myths, the story was recorded

in the Middle Ages by Christian monks at the

important central monastery of Conmacnoise,

but its material dates to earlier times.

Presumably the tale had been conveyed orally, as

was the tradition among Celtic BARDS, for cen-

turies before being transcribed.

Besides the tale itself, there are a number of

remscéla or fore-tales that described the reasons

for the cattle raid. These include some of the

most famous stories in Irish literature: how the

maiden NESSA was raped by the DRUID CATHBAD

and gave birth to a king who bore her name,

CONCOBAR MAC NESSA, and how she then con-

spired to put her son on the throne of ULSTER by

stealing it from FERGUS mac Róich; how the god-

dess or FAIRY woman MACHA came to earth to live

with the human farmer CRUNNIUC, who wagered

that she was faster than the king’s horses and thus

brought about her death, screaming the curse

that caused the DEBILITY OF THE ULSTERMEN

whenever they were attacked; how the lustful

king Concobar hid away the resplendent maiden

DEIRDRE, who nonetheless escaped captivity with

her beloved NOÍSIU and his brothers, the SONS OF

UISNEACH, who were later traitorously killed by

the king; how the great hero CÚCHULAINN was

begotten, grew to manhood, wooed the fair

EMER, and unwittingly killed his only son; and

how two angry pigkeepers were reincarnated

time after time, always arguing with each other,

until they found themselves in the bodies of two

powerful bulls, the great white FINNBENNACH

and the brown DONN CUAILNGE.

All these stories set the stage for the Táin

itself. MEDB, queen of the western province of

CONNACHT, was lying abed one morning with

her husband AILILL, comparing their net worth.

Medb contended that she owned as much as or

more than Ailill, while Ailill believed she did

not. And so they called for their wealth to be

counted, and indeed, Ailill was proven to be

right: He had one bull more in his herds than

Medb did. To make matters worse, the great

White Bull had been born in Medb’s herds but

had migrated to Ailill’s. Since under

BREHON law

Medb’s status as a wife was contingent upon her

comparative wealth, she set about bringing her

possessions up to par with her husband’s.

Discovering that the equal of the White Bull

was in the province of Ulster, on the Cuailnge

peninsula, Medb sent word to the lord of that

region, DÁIRE mac Fiachna, promising a fortune

in gold and her own willing thighs as well, in

return for the loan of the bull for a year. She

hoped that a powerful bull-calf would be sired

on one of her own cows by the great brown

Táin bó Cuailnge 437

DONN. Dáire was perfectly willing to make the

loan, but when his men heard Medb’s warriors

bragging that they would take the bull whether

his owner agreed or not, a furious Dáire with-

drew his consent. So, just as her men had said,

Medb set out to steal what she could not rent.

Medb had an advantage in her raid. Because

of the curse of Macha, the warriors of Ulster suf-

fered a debility whenever they were attacked,

falling down in an agony that resembled labor

pains. This went on for four days and five

nights—plenty of time for Medb’s army to be

into Dáire’s fields and off with the bull. And so

she assembled a great army at her capital city of

CRUACHAN and prepared her raid on Ulster.

While all of Ireland’s great warriors assembled

to do her bidding, Medb encountered a woman

bard or DRUID named FEDELM. She was a magnif-

icent figure mounted on a chariot, dressed in gold

and red embroidery, staring with unseeing eyes at

the chaos around her. When Medb asked whether

she had the IMBAS FOROSNAI, the ability to see the

future, Fedelm said she had. So Medb asked her

to predict the outcome of her quest. “I see crim-

son, I see red,” Fedelm warned. Medb decided to

ignore this clear warning, however, so as not to be

deterred from her plan. The seeress, she

announced, had seen only the wrath and rage of

warriors. And so the die was cast.

The armies set out from Cruachan right after

SAMHAIN. As cattle-raiding was typically a sum-

mer activity, they were marching off-season, at a

time they would not be expected. Ailill himself

went along to support Medb’s raid, as did her

lover Fergus mac Róich, who was still angry at

Concobar for cheating him out of the throne of

Ulster and for manipulating him into causing

the deaths of the sons of Uisneach. They fore-

saw a pleasant march through an unmanned

land, with only victory ahead as they walked past

the suffering Ulstermen.

They did not foresee that Cúchulainn would

oppose them. The great hero was not an

Ulsterman, so he did not suffer from the provin-

cial debility; indeed, he was ready to fight

against any invader. On a tree, Cúchulainn

posted a warning, written in OGHAM letters,

challenging any single warrior to combat.

And so they came, one after another, to fight

against Cúchulainn. One after another they

died: the handsome FRÁECH, Medb’s sons MAINE

and ORLÁM, even Cúchulainn’s boyhood friend

FERDIAD. The great winged goddess MÓRRÍGAN

came to help Medb, but even she could not stop

the slaughter. Yet while Cúchulainn was fending

off warriors, Medb sneaked past and stole the

brown Donn. As she was escaping across the

land with her prize, the men of Ulster recovered

from their curse and leapt into action. Although

they won the battle, they lost the bull, which

Medb brought back to Connacht with her

retreating army. There the two reincarnated

swineherds, the white bull Finnbennach and the

great brown Donn Cuailnge, did as they had

always done. They fell to fighting, with the

brown fatally wounding the white and then,

himself, dying of the exertion.

This was the ending of the story of the Táin,

although there was a late tale added: of how the

epic was partially lost, then restored by the son of

Ireland’s chief bard, SEANCHÁN TOIRPÉIST, who

called up the ghost of the great warrior Fergus at

his grave. As Fergus had been a party to the raid,

he was an excellent source for the missing mate-

rial. The poet who performed the invocation,

frightened by the apparition of Fergus’s ghost in

the king’s court where he was reciting the lost

tale, fell over dead upon its conclusion.

Sources: Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in Irish

Literature. London: David Nutt, 1898, pp. 111

ff.; Kinsella, Thomas, trans. The Tain. Dublin:

The Dolmen Press, 1969.

Taise Irish heroine. This minor figure of leg-

end became one of the wives of the hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL in order to free her father,

ABARTA, from imprisonment by the FIANNA.

Taliesin (Taliesin Pen Beirdd, Telgesinus)

Welsh hero. Like other great Celtic BARDS, the

438 Taise

poet Taliesin, whose work has been dated to the

sixth century C.E., was said to be the reincarna-

tion of an earlier mythic figure. Originally he was

the boy GWION, servant to the great goddess

CERIDWEN. Because Ceridwen’s son AFAGDDU

was born ugly, his mother decided to give him

the gift of inspiration and POETRY to make up for

it. And so she brewed, in her magical CAULDRON,

a potent mixture of herbs that needed to be

stirred constantly as they cooked for a year and a

day. Whenever she was busy about other things,

Ceridwen assigned Gwion the duty of stirring. It

happened that he was at the pot when the mix-

ture bubbled over, burning Gwion’s finger. Stung

by the pain, the boy popped his finger into his

mouth, thereby absorbing all of the magical

power Ceridwen had intended for her son.

The first gift his new vision endowed was an

image of how furious Ceridwen would be when

she found out what he had done. So Gwion ran

away. Ceridwen, when she found her potion

destroyed, ran after him. With the new power of

SHAPE-SHIFTING that he had gained from the

brew, Gwion transformed himself into a HARE,

but Ceridwen became a greyhound in hot pur-

suit. Every time he changed, she changed as

well: FISH and OTTER, BIRD and HAWK, with

Ceridwen always a hair’s breadth away from cap-

turing the errant servant boy. Then, when

Gwion turned himself into a grain of wheat,

Ceridwen became a hen and ate him up.

In Celtic myths eating often leads to preg-

nancy, and so it was with Ceridwen, who gave

birth to Gwion and set him adrift on the sea. A

nobleman, ELPHIN, found the baby floating near

shore and took him home, raising him tenderly

as his own child, calling him Taliesin, “radiant

brow.” Taliesin grew to be the most eloquent

poet in the land, one who could see through the

veil to the OTHERWORLD. Like the Irish poets

AMAIRGIN and TUAN MAC CAIRILL, Taliesin

spoke of many incarnations, both human and

animal. He is said to be buried in a stone grave

in Dyfed, called Bedd Taliesin; anyone who

sleeps there wakes up either a poet or insane.

The work that comes down to us as Taliesin’s

may have been indeed composed by a poet of

that name, but the famous name may have

attracted to itself poems from the oral literature;

the line between fact and myth is easily blurred

in Taliesin’s case.

Sources: Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. The Secret

Country: An interpretation of the folklore of ancient

sites in the British Isles. New York: Walker and

Co., 1976, p. 59; Jackson, Kenneth, et al. Celt

and Saxon: Studies in the Early British Border.

Cambridge: University Press, 1963, p. 29;

Nash, D. W., “Taliesin in Song and Story

.” In

Matthews, John. A Celtic Reader: Selections

from Celtic Legend, Scholarship and Story.

ellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1991, pp.

179 ff; Matthews, John. Taliesin: Shamanism

and the Bardic Mysteries in Britain and Ireland.

London: Aquarian/Thorsons, 1991.

talisman Symbolic object. The distinction

between a talisman and an AMULET is not invari-

ably maintained, as the words are sometimes

used as synonyms. While both words indicate

magical objects, a talisman draws good luck or

the blessing of gods to the owner, while an

amulet wards off evil spirits and bad luck.

Tamara Cornish and British folkloric figure.

The nymph of the RIVER Tamar, which forms the

boundary between Cornwall and Devon, was

originally a maiden who wandered the land

freely, despite the annoyance this brought to her

parents, two earth-dwelling

GNOMES. Two

GIANTS, Torridge and TAVY, fought over her, and

the argument caused all three of the lovers to

dissolve into the rivers that bear their names.

Although the legend itself was first transcribed

in the 17th century, it is likely that it elaborates

on an earlier tale, for the ancient geographer

Ptolemy named the Tamar as a major river of the

region. While the story of Tamara is similar to

that of other Celtic river goddesses like BÓAND

and SÍNANN, this story is unusual in having male

divine figures dissolving to form rivers.

Tamara 439

Tam Lin (Tamlane, Tam-a-Lin) British folk-

loric hero. One of the most famous FAIRIES of the

British border country was Tam Lin, a lascivious

young man who haunted Caterhaugh Wood and

lured maidens away from their families in order

to ruin them. He had once been human, but the

queen of FAIRYLAND tricked him into passing

over its borders, thus trapping him forever. A

young girl named Janet fell deeply in love with

Tam Lin and tried to bring him back to this

world. Following Tam Lin’s instructions, Janet

went out on SAMHAIN night to watch the WILD

HUNT pass on the road. When a milk-white

steed appeared, she knew Tam Lin would be rid-

ing it, so she grasped him as he rode by and, just

as he had predicted, found herself holding an

eel, a bear, a lion, even a spike of fire. In spite of

these tricks, she did not let go and so finally

freed him from his enchantment.

tangie Scottish folkloric figure. This strange

being occasionally appeared around water, both

fresh and salt, on the Orkney islands. Sometimes

he looked like a human being, at other times like

a fierce WATER HORSE. The tangie’s name seems

to derive from the local word for seaweed, tang.

tanist (tanáiste) Celtic social role. According

to many ancient and medieval authors, Celtic

leaders had an elected assistant called a tanist.

The English poet Edmund Spenser, who spent

most of his life in Ireland, noted that even in the

17th century the Irish still elected their kings

and, at the same time, a tanist who assumed the

leadership role upon the king’s death. Just as the

king was not necessarily the eldest of a royal fam-

ily, so the tanist was chosen for his talent and

strength rather than for family prestige or posi-

tion. Some theorists believe that the tanist was a

religious as well as a political role, possibly deriv-

ing from the Celtic belief in the power of

TWINS.

Tara (Temair, Temuir) Irish mythological site.

Perhaps the most famous ancient site in Ireland,

Tara is a small hill in Co. Meath that has been

renowned at least since Celtic times—perhaps

even before, as there are stone monuments on the

hilltop from the pre-Celtic period. Ireland’s

mythic history, the BOOK OF INVASIONS, tells how

the early invaders, the FIR BOLG, erected the first

structures on the hill, although the Stone Heap of

the One Man, their supposed work, is not known

at Tara today. The place-poetry of Ireland, the

DINDSHENCHAS, says that the name of the hill

under the Fir Bolg had been Druim Cáin; the ear-

lier people of NEMED had called it Druim Léith,

after LIATH who had cleared its slopes so that

there would be enough sun for crops to grow;

even before that it had been called Forduim, a hill

on which magical HAZEL trees grew.

It was at Tara that the Fir Bolg king received

news of the arrival of yet another wave of

invaders—this time the magical TUATHA DÉ

DANANN—and at Tara that he mustered his hosts

for the first battle of MAG TUIRED. In that monu-

mental event, the Fir Bolg were defeated and

forced to cede Tara to the newcomers. The

Tuatha Dé changed the name of the hill to

Cathair Crofhind and installed four treasures

that they had carried from the mysterious cities

of their origin, including the LIA FÁIL or Stone of

Destiny, a great pillar (“a stone penis” according

to some texts) that screamed when a true king

touched it. Whether the stone that stands on

Tara today is the same stone is unknown; some

sources contend that the Scottish Stone of Scone

(see INAUGURATION STONES) that rested for cen-

turies in Westminster Abbey and upon which the

English royals were crowned, is the real Lia Fáil.

There were also two great flagstones called

Blocc and Bluigne, which fit tightly together

except when a true king arrived, when they would

open up so that he might pass between them.

These stones, if they ever existed outside myth,

are no longer to be seen on the hill. There was

also a great Banquet Hall, the vestiges of which

can be seen as earthen embankments on the hill.

Legend has it that the Hall had nine separate

areas for the various levels of society that would

meet there, but no such divisions are visible today.

440 Tam Lin

Despite their victory over the Fir Bolg, the

Tuatha Dé Danann were not the wisest rulers.

Soon they were at war again, this time against

the combined forces of the Fir Bolg and the

monstrous FOMORIANS. Under the leadership of

LUGH, the Tuatha Dé once again won over their

foes at the second battle of Mag Tuired, from

which they returned to Tara rejoicing.

They were not to remain forever as Tara’s

rulers, for a new and even stronger race arrived

in Ireland several hundred years later. Against

the MILESIANS, even the Tuatha Dé could not

prevail. They were forced to accept banishment

to the OTHERWORLD while the Milesians settled

upon the green and fertile surface of Ireland. A

doorway to that Otherworld was thought to exist

on Tara, for it was described in a medieval poem

as “the secret place on the road of life,” but its

location is lost, or secret.

It was to Tara that the Milesian leader

ÉREMÓN carried the body of his beloved wife,

TÉA, who had asked that she be buried on the

most beautiful hill in Ireland. This motif is found

on other sacred mountains as well: TLACHTGA,

for example, is said to have been buried beneath

the mountain that bears her name, and the

island’s eponymous goddess ÉRIU rests on the

slopes of the sacred central mountain, UISNEACH.

Nothing is known of Téa except her dying wish.

Téa is not the only divine figure connected

with Tara, for its goddess of

SOVEREIGNTY was

variously said to be ÉTAIN and MEDB. Étain was

said to have been the reincarnated lover of the

FAIRY king MIDIR, who in her human form mar-

ried king EOCHAID of Tara, from whom Midir

won her by gambling. Medb, although more typ-

ically associated with the great capital of the

province of CONNACHT called CRUACHAN, is also

said to have married nine kings of Tara, one after

the other; a HILLFORT on the site bears her name.

Finally, the heroine or sun goddess GRÁINNE is

associated in myth with Tara, for she was to have

been married at the palace there before she

eloped with one of her husband’s retainers.

Another mythic being, the COW goddess of

abundance, is also found on Tara’s heights, for

there is an earthworks called the Mound of the

Cow (now lost) and two WELLS, one dedicated to

the White Cow, the other to her calf. Some texts

provide the name Glas Teamhrach for the

mound, apparently referring to the magical cow

GLAS GHAIBHLEANN, which gave milk endlessly

to anyone who needed it.

The great ÓENACH or assembly of Tara was

held on SAMHAIN, the day when the veils

between this world and the Otherworld were

lifted; it was not held at Tara itself but at the

nearby hill of Tlachtga (now called the Hill of

Ward), from which the seasonal fires blazed. It is

recorded that Samhain was the time of the feis

Temrach, the INAUGURATION feast when Tara’s

king ritually married the goddess of the land.

Some evidence suggests that the assembly was

held every THREE years rather than annually.

The association of Tara with the beginning of

winter makes it parallel to its twin mountain,

Uisneach, where the opposite feast of BELTANE

was celebrated with great double fires.

Among the many ancient structures and

earthworks on the hills is the so-called Rath of

the Synods, a pre-Celtic site from the MEGA-

LITHIC CIVILIZATION that later became important

to the Christian Irish, who believed incorrectly

that it had been the site of bishops’ councils in

the early days of the Church. The site is now par-

tially destroyed because in the 19th century a

group of British believers tore through the earth

in search of the biblical Ark of the Covenant,

which they thought had been buried within it by

the daughters of the last king of Israel. Although

they never found the Ark, they destroyed much

of this ancient structure in their attempt.

Visitors to Tara today enter the site through

the yard of a church once dedicated to ST.

PATRICK but now converted to an educational

center. Almost directly ahead the ruined Rath of

the Synods is visible. To the right, the long earth-

works called the Banqueting Hall stretch in two

parallel lines; the name is probably incorrect, but

it is not known for what reason the structure was

designed. Down the hill beyond the Banqueting

Hall is a small rath named for GRÁINNE, errant

Tara 441

wife of the hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, who may

have originally been a goddess of Sovereignty.

The larger rath, dedicated to Medb, is separated

from the main monuments by distance, lying

almost two kilometers away; the rath was once

part of the ancestral estate of the Anglo-Irish

author Lord Dunsany, commonly regarded as the

inventor of the literary genre of fantasy fiction.

A cut on the north side of Rath Medb’s bank,

presumably the entrance, is aligned with the old-

est site at Tara, the Mound of the Hostages. A

pre-Celtic PASSAGE GRAVE, long covered by rub-

ble, was excavated in the 1950s so that the cham-

ber is now visible. Remains buried beneath the

mound have been dated to some 3,500 years ago,

suggesting that the tales of Tara’s antiquity as a

sacred site convey some truth. The name of the

mound suggests that it was used as a prison, but

it refers rather to the famous king of Tara, NIALL

of the Nine Hostages. He took on nine foster

sons from various parts of the land; their rela-

tionship to the king of Tara is questionably

translated with the word “hostage.”

Near the Mound of the Hostages, two smaller

mounds rise from the green hilltop. One is the

Forradh, also called the King’s Seat or Place of

Judgment; in the Dindshenchas, this monument is

called the Mound of Téa and is said to be her

grave. Atop this mound stands the upright Lia

Fáil, approximately one-half of it visible above

the ground. Nearby rises a mound nearly identi-

cal in size to the Forradh; called Cormac’s

House, it is as yet unexcavated and is associated

in myth with the great king CORMAC MAC AIRT.

Other monuments at the site include Rath

Lóegaire, dedicated to Tara’s king at the time of

St. Patrick’s arrival; the Sloping Trenches, site of a

mythical massacre of more than 3,000 maidens

who are thought to have belonged to a college of

priestesses; several holy wells; and minor struc-

tures and earthworks. Together, these monuments

make Tara as important a site today, although for

different reasons, as it was in its storied past.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.

Part I. Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.

Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,

1906–1924; Ó Ríordáin, Seán. Tara: The

Monuments on the Hill. Dundalk: Dundalgan

Press, 1992; Raftery, Brian. Pagan Celtic Ireland:

The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thames

and Hudson, 1994, pp. 65 ff; Rees, Alwyn, and

Brinley Rees: Celtic Heritage: Ancient T

radition in

eland and Wales. London: Thames and Hudson,

1998, pp. 146 ff.

Taran Welsh god. This obscure god is men-

tioned once in the compilation of Welsh mythol-

ogy, the MABINOGION; he is assumed to be similar

to the continental Celtic thunder god, TARANIS.

Taranis (Taranos, Taranoos, Taranucnos)

Continental Celtic god. This god was associated

both with lightning strikes and with the fire that

often follows. His name derives from a Celtic

word for “thunder” and is thought refer to the

god depicted with a HAMMER, although that god

is also identified as SUCELLUS. The Romans, who

believed Taranis to be the chief Celtic divinity,

typically associated him with their own chief god

JUPITER, although there is no evidence that

Taranis stood at the head of a pantheon. The

Roman poet Lucan claimed that Taranis, the

“master of war,” was honored with HUMAN SAC-

RIFICES that required the victims be burned alive.

tarans Scottish folkloric figure. Spirits of

unbaptized infants were called by this name in

Scotland. They were encountered in wild places,

weeping over their inability to reach heaven.

The belief appears to combine Celtic and

Christian views of the afterlife, mixing up the

OTHERWORLD with the Christian Limbo where

unsoiled but unsanctified souls spend eternity.

Tarbhfheis See BULL-SLEEP.

tarroo-ushtey Manx folkloric figure. The

WATER BULL of the Isle of Man was not as dan-

gerous as such creatures normally are. Whereas

442 Taran

in other lands, such water monsters devoured

people and CATTLE outright, the tarroo-ushtey

merely blighted the crops. As with other FAIRY

creatures, this one could be warded off with a

wand of ROWAN.

Tarvostrigaranus (Tarvos Trigaranus) Con-

tinental Celtic god. This obscure god is known

from two stone sculptures at Paris and Trier,

where he was depicted as a BULL with THREE

CRANES or other waterbirds perched upon him.

He may be similar to or identical with the god

ESUS.

tatter-foal (shag-foal) British folkloric figure.

A kind of BOGEY or bogle, the tatter-foal was a

shape-shifter (see SHAPE-SHIFTING) who appeared

in many forms, including that of a monkey, but

most commonly a shaggy baby HORSE.

tattoo Celtic ritual. Although the word itself

comes from the South Pacific, there is some evi-

dence that the Celts decorated their bodies with

permanent markings. The tribal name of the

Scoti has been translated (perhaps fancifully) as

“the scarred ones,” while the name of the PICTS

may mean “the pictured ones” or the “engraved

ones.” Roman writers describe Celtic warriors as

painted with the blue dye-plant woad, while

COINS from the imperial era show faces with

what seem to be tattoos. Whether the apparent

tattoos were marks of status, totemic markers, or

religious symbols is unknown.

Tavy Cornish folkloric figure. The river spirit

Tavy warred with another GIANT, Torridge, over

the hand of the beautiful maiden TAMARA. He

won her, but only after all three dissolved into

rivers, for only the Tavy joins the Tamar, while

the Torridge flows elsewhere. The name Tavy

has also been suggested as the origin of the sea

spirit DAVY JONES.

Téa (Tea) Irish goddess or heroine. This

obscure figure gave her name to the great royal

site of TARA in the center of Ireland. Little else is

known of her, except that its first earthen walls

were built at her request and that she died at

Tara, giving her power to the hill.

Tech Duinn (House of Donn) Irish mytho-

logical site. A small rocky island off the BEARE

peninsula in west Co. Cork was believed to be

the home of DONN, a shadowy early god who

ruled the OTHERWORLD of death. Unlike later

visions of the Otherworld as a magnificently

beautiful land, Tech Duinn was a frightening

place of darkness and dread. Its relationship to

the more typical Otherworld is unclear.

Tegau Eurfron Welsh heroine. One of the

THREE SPLENDID WOMEN of CAMELOT, Tegau

Eurfron rescued her husband from a venomous

snake. She herself was bitten and lost one breast

as a result. It was replaced with a breast made of

gold, which matched her golden hair.

Tegid Welsh mythological site. What is now

called Lake Bala in northern Wales—the

largest LAKE in that land—appears in mythol-

ogy as Llyn Tegid, home of the great goddess

CERIDWEN. It was there that she brewed her

magical potion in a

CAULDRON, which she left

the young boy GWION to watch while she did

other chores.

When he accidentally swallowed some of the

brew, thereby gaining both

WISDOM and poetic

talent, Gwion fled the scene. The omniscient

Ceridwen knew what had happened and pursued

him. Despite his newfound SHAPE-SHIFTING

ability, Gwion was at last eaten by the goddess,

who gave birth to him again as the great BARD,

TALIESIN. The lake’s mystical character remained

in local folklore, for it was believed that Lake

Bala’s depth could never be measured; anyone

who tried would be greeted by a booming voice

demanding that the measurement cease. DRAG-

ONS were reputed to live in the lake’s bottomless

lower regions.

Tegid 443