Excerpt - Pagan Portals Lugh

 I'd like to offer an excerpt from my recently released book Pagan Portals Lugh. This particular section comes from chapter 5, looking at Lugh in the modern world. 

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Lugh’s importance has changed over time, of course, as Christianity came in, but he has not been relegated to obscurity by any means as some of the other Tuatha De Danann were. Time has shaped people’s understandings of Lugh in new direction however which can be shown by looking at his depictions over the last hundred years or so. In this chapter we will look at the way that Lugh has been depicted in modern retellings of his stories, which often vary significantly from the older mythology, how he has been shown in mass media, and Lugh in modern paganism.

Modern Folklore

We have examined Lugh’s place in the older mythology and in older folklore but he can also be found in more recent folklore, some of which has been created by the fertile imaginations of authors during and since the Victorian period. It’s important to understand these newer  threads and how they have been woven into the older in the last 150 years. It is up to the reader to decide their place and value, but whether you accept or reject them they do form part of our understanding of who Lugh is.

Jeremiah Curtin, Hero-tales of Ireland, 1894 – Lugh continues to be found in modern Irish folklore and as was true historically this folklore can often be very regionally specific. One example of this is seen in Curtin’s late 19^th century work which preserved folklore from the area of Donegal and gives us versions of the Lugh and Balor story that are largely different from older mythology. Curtin’s retelling has been presented already in chapter 2 so it won’t be recapped again however one key change to be emphasized here is the shifting of Lugh (called Lui in the story) into a wholly human figure. This sort of euhemerization is common in later material and Williams in ‘Ireland’s Immortals’ notes the prevalence of historic and ancestral figures named Lugh or with names that are variants of Lugh who are described in fully human terms yet are certainly meant to be reflections of the older deity.

W. B. Yeats – also writing in the late 1890’s we find Yeats, a poet and amateur folklorist, as well as occultist. Yeats wrote of Lugh, and the other Tuatha De Danann, in both poetry and prose and did much to help spread their popularity although his depictions were more concerned with evocative descriptions than passing on genuine folklore. The Lugh of Yeats was a more romantic figure and one intrinsically linked to the sun. This reflected Yeats own personal approach to deity as expressions of moods or imagination (Williams, 2016). From this view gods become a way to convey wider themes in a poetic work or embody the desired mood or atmosphere of the text. Yeats also did much to shift the existing understanding of the sidhe as a numberless multitude into the commonly listed pantheon of Tuatha De Danann we find in books today (Williams, 2016).

Augusta Gregory, Gods and Fighting Men, 1904 – Lady Gregory may represent the first example of widely read re-tellings of myths, where the core of the older mythology or story is retold in a new and partially fictionalized way. Her work was popular and has gained popularity again today, possible because it is easily accessed free online. This may present a challenge for readers that are new to Irish myth because her writing often combines multiple conflicting versions of tales, as well as her own ideas, into one whole that is presented in a way that may seem like genuinely older material.

Her writing is too extensive to recap full here but for example her chapter ‘The Coming of Lugh’ combines material from the Lebor Gabala Erenn, Cath Maige Tuired, and Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann along with her own flourishes into a single story the like of which had not existed previous to her writing it. She places Lugh in a central position throughout the story, repeatedly emphasizing his prophesied importance in driving out the Fomorians. For a second example in her chapter ‘The Hidden House of Lugh’ she retells the Baile and Scáil, but she adds material where Lugh is speaking to Conn so that she related his prophecy which is not found in the older text and she doesn’t have Lugh stating that he is a dead human, but rather at the very end of the text has him simply declare himself ‘Lugh son of Ethniu.’

Ella Young, Celtic Wonder Tales, 1910  – Ella Young was born in Ireland and emigrated later in life to California, USA. Considered an expert in Irish mythology she toured various universities and taught Celtic studies at Berkley. Despite this expertise her book ‘Celtic Wonder Tales’ takes extreme liberties with the older mythology, rewriting stories completely in places and creating new material in others. Her ‘Celtic Wonder Tales’ has become a common resource in the past hundred years and is enjoyed for its poetic text and evocative descriptions.

In Young’s work we first meet Lugh in a story titled ‘The Coming of Lugh’ which retells the Cath Maige Tuired in parts but with alterations. Young’s version begins with Manannan taking the child Lugh, who she calls a Sun God, away with him into Fairy from Ireland. She describes a variety of animals including lions, panthers, and unicorns that keep Lugh company as he grows. While he is with Manannan the Fomorians come to Ireland and steal the Dagda’s cauldron and the spear (another of the treasures) leaving only the stone of Fál which prevents the Fomorians from fully taking over. Finally Lugh reaches his 21^st birthday and Manannan makes a show of giving him a  gift, the sword¹ which is the fourth treasure and which has been in Manannan’s keeping. When he touches it Lugh remembers Ireland and pledges to go back. To help him Manannan equips him with a horse and armour. Lugh returns with a fairy host to Ireland, passing invisibly thanks to Manannan’s magic until he reaches Nuada’s court. He requests entry and is denied until he lists all his skills after which he is allowed in, then he best Ogma in a test of strength and plays chess. Finally Nuada proclaims him ‘Ildana’ and Lugh plays music on the Dagda’s harp which, according to Young, causes the seasons to turn. He lulls the court to sleep and slips away.

Lugh’s presence inspired the Tuatha De to rebel and they go to Uisneach. A battle is about to begin when Lugh and the fairy host appear, Young comparing his approach to the rising of the sun. the Fomorians are destroyed save 9 men who Lugh sends back to Balor to tell him and the other Fomorians that the De Danann are free from their oppression.

Lugh shows the Tuatha De Danann the sword and asks them for the other three treasures which they admit have been lost except for the stone. He then has them all swear an oath with the earth of Ireland on the sword and stone to fight and destroy the Fomorians. Shortly after this his father is killed by the sons of Tuireann and the earth sends a wind to tell Lugh. Lugh finds his fathers body and gets the tale of his death, then goes to the assembly and accuses the sons of Tuireann who Nuada orders killed. Lugh stays his hand however and asks instead that they gain items useful in the upcoming battle. They agree to these terms and set off to acquire the list of items Lugh requests² engaging in adventures for each one. The three gain many of the treasures and Lugh, aware that they only have two left, decides they are succeeding too easily and puts a spell of forgetfulness on them so that they return early, however he immediately regrets this and sends out a second spell so that if the feel badly for what they have done they will not forget. They have no regret so they return early and are sent out a second time to gain the last two items. They manage to do this but are mortally wounded in the process. Finally dying they return to Ireland to give Lugh the items they have gained. Tuireann begs Lugh to heal his sons with the healing skin and so Lugh gives them the choice to be healed or to pass to the next life; they choose to go to the next life³.

Next Young retells a version of the battle between the Tuatha De Danann and the Fomorians. The two groups meet and fight but Lugh stays back waiting for Balor who he believes will not enter the fight until later. A few days pass before Balor does appear and then Lugh and he have their epic confrontation. The two meet an a scene that describes the clash of darkness and light, with Lugh throwing the spear into Balor’s eye and Balor dissolving into shadow.

This summarizes Young’s stories about Lugh, which hopefully the reader can hold in contrast to the Irish mythology discussed in chapter 2. Young’s Lugh is devoid of the fierce and tempestuous nature of the mythical Lugh and presented instead as a figure of light – figurative and literal – who acts as a saviour figure to the Tuatha De Danann.

Peter Berresford Ellis, Celtic Myth and Legend, 1989 – Ellis is an English historian and novelist who has written nearly 100 books, including several on Celtic mythology. ‘Celtic Myth and Legend’ is his attempt at retelling various famous myths from the Celtic language speaking cultures and includes a creation myth of the author’s own imagination.

The book begins with a chapter titles ‘The Ever Living Ones’ that combines Ellis’s own fictional creation story with a retelling of the Cath Maige Tuired. As with Young, Ellis takes creative liberties with the mythological material, for example attributing the sword to Lugh (not the spear which he gives to no one) and giving Lugh’s lineage as an odd combination of the possible fathers we find in mythology, saying that he was the son of Cian who was the son of Cainte. In Ellis’s version Lugh was kept from the battle of Maigh Tuired because the De Danann saw him as too valuable to risk and said “his was the wisdom needed to serve humankind” (Ellis, 1989 p 31). He also explains Nuada placing Lugh in charge for thirteen days as a means for Lugh to share his wisdom with them, before they set nine warriors to guard him from the battle. When Nuada was killed in the battle Lugh escaped and set out to join the fight, his arrival appearing like the sun’s rising to the Fomorians. Lugh kills Balor with his sling and then leads the Tuatha De Danann to victory.

Ellis ends that section of text with a passage claiming that Lugh was reduced into the folkloric Leprechaun and that is how his fame and memory have been preserved. We will discuss this assertion separately later in this chapter, but suffice to say here that it is less than accurate.

Ellis goes on in the following chapters to retell several other Irish myths, including the Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann with more accuracy. Although these retellings are written in a more exuberant manner than the originals and include expanded conversations the main themes and characters are kept relatively true to form. In itself this is good, but combined with the imaginative and less accurate earlier chapter this can be very misleading to readers who may struggle to sort out the accurate from the imaginative.