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the Dagda resigned as their leader. A council was held at which his son the Bodb Dearg was chosen as leader. All accepted the decision except Manannán Mac Lir, who simply left the proceedings, and Midir the Proud, who started a war against the Bodb Dearg. In this war between the gods, the Fianna were enlisted on Midir’s side. The Dagda no longer took any significant part in the affairs of Ireland.
[I] Daughter of the Bodb Dearg and sister of Sadb. She falls in love with Fionn Mac Cumhail, but when he rejects her she gives him a cup of poison that drives him insane. The Fianna desert him but Cáilte persuades them to return when the madness passes. Daireann’s sister, Sadb, becomes Fionn’s lover and bears his son Oisín.
See Dumnonia.
Gaulish goddess. “The Divine Cow.”
[I] Sometimes given as Danu and cognate with Anu. She is found in Welsh as Don. A mother goddess from whom the Tuatha Dé Danaan take their name. If her counterpart in the Welsh tradition is anything to go by, her husband was Bilé, god of death. The Dagda is her son. However, her husband is never mentioned in Irish tradition, although in some texts it is she, not Brigid, who is the mother of the children of Tuireann.
An ancient Irish poetical system equivalent to the Welsh Cynghanedd, a metrical system of multiple alliteration and rhyme within every line of the strict metre.
Gaulish. She is shown seated on a wild boar and may be cognate with the Irish Flidhais, who ruled over the beasts of the forest and herded wild deer.
Gaulish. Perhaps connected with Art, the Irish “bear.”
[I] Daughter of Cathbad the druid and Maga, daughter of the love god Aonghus Óg. She was mother of the hero Cúchulainn. At her wedding feast, celebrating her marriage to an Ulster chieftain, Sualtaim Mac Roth, a fly flew into her cup and she drank it. She fell into a deep sleep and was taken to the Otherworld, where the god Lugh Lámhfada became her lover and she bore him a son called Sétanta. She returns to Ulster, and Sualtaim accepts the child as his own. Sétanta eventually is given the name Cúchulainn.
Attributed to Gildas (ca. a.d. 500–570). “On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain,” a contemporary
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