We have to suppose that the invasion myths contain at least some elements of truth about the character of early Irish Celtic society, and we can be encouraged by the many similarities we find with the better-documented Celtic tribes of Britain and Gaul. In Ireland, as elsewhere in the Celtic world, the social units were the tribe, sept and clan, with the king or queen playing an essential unifying role. There seem to have been many small kingdoms with petty kings, but there was also a very special king, the Ard Righ or High King. In some of the vernacular tales, the Ard Righ performs so many miraculous feats that he is indistinguishable from the other gods and demi-gods of pure mythology; yet there is also historical evidence for genuine Ard Rithe, High Kings of All Ireland. As with much early Irish history, we have to uncoil some of the mist of legend in order to reach historical truth, and the mist can be very persistent. We shall investigate the High Kings in more detail in Chapter Nine.
The word used to describe an individual tribe or kingdom, or its people, was ttmth (pronounced too-uh), which we have already met in its plural form tuatha (too-uh-huh) in the Tuatha de Danann, the Tribes of Danu (or, sometimes, the Children or People of Danu). Each tuath had a chief, usually the rx tuatihe, or territorial king. In modern Irish, tuath can also refer to the laity {cleir agus tuath means ‘clergy and laity’) or even to rural territory itself: amuigh faoin tuath means ‘out in the countryside’. The tuath was divided into smaller units, usually thirty in number, each known as a bade biataigh (bade means ‘home’ or ‘town’, and is easily seen in the many Irish place names which begin with Bally-). The bade biataigh was approximately equal to 194 hectares (480 acres) of arable land, or; as the ancient Irish laws described it, sufficient land to supply grazing for four herds of seventy-five cows each, ‘without one cow touching another’. The bade biataigh was again subdivided into smaller units, each known as a seasrach, literally a ‘standing’, each being a single ploughland or farm ranging anywhere from 16 to 48 hectares (40 to 120 acres) in size, perhaps even larger in sparsely grazed upland country.
The social structure within the tuath was very complex. Highest ranking were the king, the royal entourage and other nobles, the druid and his entourage of poets, seers and herbalists, and a few leading professional men, notably metalsmiths, jewellers, weapon makers and ostlers. Below the highest ranks, there obtained a complicated system of clientship, known as ceil-sine. The base word, cede, is usually translated as ‘tenant’ in this context, but actually means ‘companion’ or ‘spouse’; it is related to the word cedi or ceilidh, which can describe a friendly call or visit, a social evening, or a dancing session. Under ceilsine, the cede who possessed cattle of his own, or whose debts to his superiors were light, had a much higher social standing than the cede who had to borrow or rent all his stock; the former was sometimes referred to as a ‘free’ tenant, while the latter was ‘unfree’. Between the true noble and the ceile was an intermediate rank, the bo aire (‘cattle lord*), who was rich enough to lend stock, although he was not himself of the royal family, or even distantly related (unless he chose by judicious marriage to bring himself closer). Next below the free and unfree ceile came the bothach and the sencleithe, the shanty-dwellers and labourers, horse-boys and herdsmen, who were usually retained by individual families, although they were not related to them; they were considered members of the tribe, but they had no property or voting rights. Lowest of the low were the fuidir (the modern Irish is fuad, meaning ‘thief*, ‘vagrant* or ‘wretch*), who were strangers, war prisoners, hopeless debtors or criminals. The fuidir were treated like serfs, but this was not a rigid caste system: even a fuad, if he could show sufficient determination and effort, could improve his social status by working hard and acquiring wealth, and could eventually become a member of the feine or freeholders. Furthermore, the law offered protection to the fuidir as much as to the nobility, and the law (which was based on druidic teaching) was profoundly respected, so that even a fuad could obtain a judgment against a king.
These laws, almost certainly druidic in origin, were variously codified and explicated in succeeding centuries. They have received particular attention because they were supposedly codified by St. Patrick, and they are referred to as either An Seanchas Mor (‘The Great Law*) or as Cain Padraig (‘The Statutes of Patrick*). In the tenth century, the historian Cormac explained many of the ancient and sometimes obscure early terms, in a work which is subsequently known as Cormac*s Glossary. Collectively, the original laws and their various glosses have become known as The Brehon Laws, after the title Brehon, which was given to the chief justice or arbitrator in the early Irish royal courts. Some of the obscurity in the laws was deliberate: judgments and prophecies were given in cryptic, poetic language, so that only the initiated could interpret the meanings, which is why Cormac felt the need to supply a glossary. The Seanchas Mor is, strictly speaking, only the civil part of the legal code. Unfortunately, not only is the original language obscure (so much so that even a modem native Irish speaker would not be able to read it), but the codification was undertaken, if not by Patrick himself, by Christian scholars who excised many of the pagan references and probably bowdlerized many others. The introduction to An Seanchas Mor explains:
It was then that all the professors of the sciences in Erin were assembled, and each of them exhibited his art before Patrick, in the presence of every chief in Erin. . . . Now the judgments of true nature which the Holy Ghost had spoken through the mouths of the Brehons and just poets of the men of Erin, from their occupation of this island, to the reception of the faith, were all exhibited by Dubthach to Patrick. What did not clash with the Word of God in the written law and in the New Testament, and with the consciences of the believers, was confirmed in
The laws of the Brehons by Patrick and by the ecclesiastics and the
Chieftains of Erin; for the law of nature had been quite right, except
The faith, and its obligations. . .
The king was elected from the leading family, and the election did not always go to the eldest son. Inheritance generally was also not decided by primogeniture; on the father’s death, land and stock were equally divided among all the sons. In Britain, and to some extent in Gaul, there is clear evidence of matri-linear inheritance, and we know that there were British and Gallic queens of considerable status and importance. There are queens among the early Irish gods and goddesses, and there are mythological queens of great power and significance, notably Queen Medb, in the Irish literature, but the later social pattern, certainly as it had developed by Christian times, was clearly patriarchal.
It is highly likely that the druids played a very important role in the selection of the king. The candidates would be the sons of the deceased king, but also his brothers, uncles, nephews and grandsons. Physical perfection, without a blemish of any kind, was an absolute requirement. Proven prowess in battle was usually also required. The druidic concept of the ‘fitness of things’ also played an important part: there would be some particular feature or characteristic of the ideal candidate which would emerge or be revealed, sometimes by invocatory magic (cf. the practice of tarbhfhess at Tara, described on page 114), and that feature would be distinctive and unmistakable, like (in the British mythology) Arthur’s drawing of the sword from the stone. On occasion, the title would be determined by combat, either between candidates themselves, or with the candidate represented by his airechta or champion, although that was always a dangerous method, since intrafamilial feuds and vendettas would almost certainly follow in due course. There were so many feuds springing from disputed succession that, in later centuries, there developed a system in which the king’s successor was chosen while the king was still alive; the king-elect was called tanaiste, a word used in the modern Irish Dail or Parliament to refer to the deputy of the Taoiseach, or Prime Minister.
The king of the tuatb owed allegiance directly to the king of the cuig, or province, who in turn owed allegiance to the Ard Ri or High King. These allegiances were cemented by a ritual exchange of tribute known as tuarastal: each overlord paid an annual stipend to his retainers, usually in the form of cattle, jewellery, cloaks or weapons. The king would also host many assemblies, usually on feast days, at which the entertainments would be generous to a fault. Among the nobility, bathing was highly valued, and offering a valued guest a bath with scented oils and fragrant herbs after the day’s hunting was an important courtesy. Dinners would be accompanied by a variety of amusements, including musicians, dancers, jugglers and seanchaithe. The seanchai (sometimes written seanachy, pronounced shon-a-hee) was a historian and story-teller, who would recite ancient lore and tales of the gods and heroes around the fireside. Ficheall (sometimes written fidchell), a chess-like board game, was also very popular among the royal families, and there are many tales, including some Brythonic ones, in which matters of great import are decided by success at the chessboard.
Tara in County Meath, the holy seat of the High King, was supposedly the ancestral seat of the god-kings Bres and Nuadu Argat Lam. The goddess-queen Medb pronounced that no king could rule at Tara unless he first mated with her. A special kingship ritual, called the tarbhfhess or ‘bull sleep’, was associated with Tara in particular. A druid would eat the flesh of a sacrificed bull, and drink of the broth in which it had been cooked, and then sleep. During his sleep, while four other druids chanted over him, a vision of the next king would come to him. There is a 2 metre (6 ft) standing stone inside the Rath na Rithe (Fort of the Kings) at Tara which may well be the Stone of Fal, the legendary stone of destiny which shrieks when, and only when, it is touched by the rightful king of all Ireland.
The other great royal capital, Emhain Macha, is situated at Navan Fort near Armagh. It is the traditional royal seat of the kingdom of Ulaid (Ulster). The word emhain means ‘twins’, and the name refers to the twin sons of the goddess Macha, who died in a horse race after giving birth to them. Emhain Macha is the central site of the Ulster mythological cycle, which features King Conchobar Mac Nessa, and the successive feats of the god-hero Cu Chulainn, in particular those recorded in the Tain Bo Cuailnge (‘Cattle Raid of Cooley’).
World History
