if it does any other on a large scale, which may be doubted. For the Tuatha Dé Danann contain among them light and dark divinities, and those standing sometimes in the relation of parents and offspring to one another. Some members of the Irish pantheon are cruel and repellent characters, but on occasion they may prove friendly. Thus, though the Tuatha Dé Danann under the Dagda are accused of blighting the corn and spoiling the milk of the Milesians, the latter were said to conciliate them so as to make them spare both farmer and shepherd. This is not all; for when Redg and the other three Fomori that had escaped from the slaughter of Moytura were engaged in ruining the corn, the milk, the fruit-crops and the produce of the sea, they were expelled the country by the wily gods Mider and the Mac Óc, and the terrible goddesses the Bodb and the Mórrigu;[1] not to mention that a successful king's reign was marked by good seasons and plentiful crops, for the reason that he forced the Fomori to abstain from their ravages: thus we read of three triple-headed Fomori of vast voracity secured by Mac Cecht's valour as hostages at Conaire's court, that their kin would not spoil either corn or milk in Erinn as long as Conaire reigned.[2] But to return to the contest with Redg, it is to be observed that it is located at a spot called Slemna Maige Itha, which enables one to identify the engagement with the first battle said to have been fought in Ireland, namely, the one in which Partholon is represented annihilating the Fomori, which is by no means incon-
- ↑ Bk. of Fermoy, 24b2, quoted by Hennessy in the Rev. Celt. i. 41.
- ↑ Bk. of the Dun, 89b, 90a: see also Celtic Britain, p. 64.
