Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/221

sians by wringing his hands together, when flashes as large as apples came from his knuckles, this resembling the legends of light or fire obtained from a saint's hand. At Nemnach, near the síd of Tara, rose a stream on which stood the first mill built in Ireland, but no myth describes its origin. On the other hand, the story of the first trap resembles that told of the guillotine and its inventor. Coba was trapper to Erem, son of Mile, and was the first to prepare a trap and pitfall in Erin, but having put his leg into it to test it, his shin-bone and arms were fractured, and he died. Brea, in the time of Partholan, was the first man to build a house or make a cauldron—that important vessel of Celtic myth and ritual;⁸ while the first smelting of gold was the work of Tigernmas, a mythic Irish king.⁹ The divine origin of ploughing with oxen has already been mentioned—an interesting agricultural myth.¹⁰ Brigit, goddess of poetry, when her son Ruadan died at Mag-Tured, bewailed him with the first "keening" heard in Ireland; and she also invented a whistle for night signalling.¹¹ So also the first satire, with dire effects, was spoken by Corpre, poet of the gods.¹² Another instrument, the harp, was discovered accidentally. All was discord in the time of the Firbolgs. Canola fled from her husband and by the shore heard a sweet murmur as the wind played through the sinews still clinging to a whale's skeleton. Listening, she fell asleep; and when her husband, finding her thus, learned that the sound had lulled her, he made a framework of wood for the sinews. On this he played, and the pair were reconciled.¹³ But the Irish could also look back to a golden age when, in the reign of Geide the LoudVoiced, each one deemed the other's voice as sweet as strings of lutes would be, because of the greatness of the peace and friendship which every one had for the other;¹⁴ and, with the addition of plenty and prosperity, much the same is said of Conaire's reign, until Midir's vengeance overtook him.¹⁵ Prosperity was supposed to characterize every good king's reign in Ireland, perhaps pointing to earlier belief in his divinity and the