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Leinster who coveted the wife of Mongán, the son of Manannán Mac Lir, who was his good friend. Mongán had to use his magic powers to get his wife back.
[W] Daughter of Llyr, sister of Bran and Manawydan. She marries the Irish king Matholwch and bears him a son, Gwern. However, her half brother, Efnisien, had insulted Matholwch, and Matholwch is forced by his people to make her suffer for the outrage. She is forced to do menial tasks in the kitchens for three years. She rears a starling and teaches it to speak, conveying to her brother Bran, ruler of the Island of the Mighty, news of her unhappiness. Bran invades Ireland. As Matholwch is about to make peace, Efnisien intervenes again and this time kills her son, Gwern, by casting the boy into a fire. In the ensuing battle Matholwch, Bran, and everyone except five pregnant Irish women and seven British warriors are killed. Branwen is a figure of dignity and restraint throughout the tale. Now, as she sees the devastation wreaked in her name, she dies of a broken heart. She is buried on the banks of the Alaw, which was thereafter called Ynys Branwen.
[I] The High King of the World, who lived in the west. His country was called Hy-Breasal or Hy-Brasil, which became the legendary Atlantis, only visible to human eyes once every seven years. The name of Hy-Brasil appeared in records as a real place. A. Dalorto (ca. a.d. 1325), a Genoese cartographer, believed it to be southwest of Ireland. When explorers came to South America they thought they had found the legendary country and thus gave the name Brazil to the land they had discovered.
[I] A son of Milesius, sometimes recorded as father of Bíle and Ith. However, Bíle also appears as the father of Milesius, and as the husband of the mother goddess Dana.
[I] The oldest surviving codified law system in Europe. The ancient laws of Ireland, named from breitheamh, a judge. The laws are sophisticated and complex, the result of many centuries of practice and oral tradition. They were thought to have been codified first in the fifth century under the instigation of St. Patrick. It has been said that the Irish law tracts are probably the most important documents of their kind in the whole of western Europe by reason of their extent, their antiquity, and the tradition they preserve. Their roots are in ancient Indo-European custom and not in Roman Law. Of the surviving tracts the Senchus Mór deals with civil
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