The Coming of Lugh. A Celtic Wonder-Tale Retold

Mananaan Mac Lir who rules the ocean took the little Sun-God, Lugh, in his arms and held him up so that he could see the whole of Ireland with the waves whispering about it everywhere.

“Say farewell to the mountains and rivers and the big trees and the flowers in the grass, O Lugh, for you are coming away with me.”

The child stretched out his hands and cried—

“Good-bye, mountains and flowers and rivers; some day I will come back to you.”

4

Then Mananaan wrapped Lugh in his cloak and stepped into his boat, the Ocean-Sweeper, and without oar or sail they journeyed over the sea till they crossed the waters at the edge of the world and came to the country of Mananaan—a beautiful country shining With the colours of the dawn.

Lugh stayed in that country with Mananaan. He raced the waves along the strand; he gathered apples sweeter than honey from trees with crimson blossoms, and wonderful birds came to play with him. Mananaan’s daughter, Niav, took him through woods where there were milk-white deer with horns of gold, and black-maned lions and spotted panthers, and unicorns that shone like silver, and strange beasts that no one ever heard of; and all the animals were glad to see him, and he played with them and called them by their names. Every day he grew taller and stronger and more beautiful, but he did not any day ask Mananaan to take him back to Ireland.

5

Every night when darkness had come into the sky, Mananaan wrapped himself in his mantle of power and crossed the sea and walked all round Ireland, stepping from rock to rock. No one saw him, because his mantle made him invisible, but he saw everything and knew that trouble had found the De Danaanans. The ugly, misshapen folk of the Fomor had come into Ireland and spread themselves over the country like a pestilence. They had stolen the Cauldron of Plenty and carried it away to their own land, where Balor of the Evil Eye reigned. They had taken the Spear of Victory also, and the only one of the four great Jewels of Sovereignity remaining to the De Danaanans was the Stone of Destiny. It was hidden deep in the earth of Ireland, and because of it the Fomorians could not altogether conquer the country, nor could they destroy the De Danaanans, though they drove them from their pleasant palaces and hunted them through the glens and valleys like outlaws.