Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/614

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VI. GODS, DEMONS AND HEROES.

Roman Britain, situated respectively by the Severn Sea and the Firth of Forth. The name meant a people who had something to do with Domnu, and that something may have been a claim to be the descendants or the favourite people of Domnu; while Domnu's own name, derived from the same origin as the Celtic words for 'deep,' probably meant the goddess of the deep.[1] Thus two historical peoples and one mythic had their names from this goddess, of whom nothing is otherwise known except that she was the mother of Indech, one of the leaders of the Fomori, and that several waters were called after her, such as Inver Domnann or Broadhaven, in the county of Sligo, and Malahide Bay, near Dublin (p. 583). In this last respect she resembled the Dee or Aerven, as she may have done in others likewise.

It now remains to say a word or two of the Gailióin. They mustered as a part of Ailill's forces on the Táin, and they were so much superior to the rest of the army in skill and especially magic, that Medb was jealous of their reputation and wished them killed, but she could only get them dispersed and incorporated among the other batallions.[2] It was not long afterwards ere the army surrounded a herd of no fewer than eight score wild deer, and they wounded them; but every one of the deer except five came where there stood a man of the Gailióin, and the rest of the army had to be content with the five alone.[3] No remark is made on the incident, but it would seem to imply that the Gailióin had a surpassing reputation as magicians. This, it would appear, was what

  1. Possibly the name should be compared rather with Lat. dominus.
  2. Bk. of the Dun, 56b, 57a.
  3. Ib. 57 a.