Dian Cecht
Dian Cécht Dagda | |
---|---|
Children | Cu, Cethen, Cian, Miach, Airmed, Étan, Ochtriullach |
In
He was the father of Cu, Cethen and Cian. His other children were Miach, Airmed, Étan the poet and Ochtriullach (Octriuil). Through Cian, he is also Lugh's paternal grandfather.
Etymology
The name Dian Cecht may be a combination of the
In Old Irish, there is also the word cécht meaning 'plough-beam' (or less accurately 'ploughshare'),[4] but this makes "little sense in the light of his activities",[3] and this lexical meaning is "presumably not relevant".[2]
Genealogy
Dian Cécht is described as a son of the
Dian Cécht had fours sons, Cu, Cethen, Cian (the father of Lugh), and Miach according to a tract in the Book of Invasions (Lebor Gabála Érenn), although the same tract states that the fourth son, Miach the physician, was often not reckoned.[6] Cu, Cethen and Cian were called the "three sons of Cainté" in the late modern narrative Aided Chlainne Tuirenn.[7] Dian Cécht was grandfather to Lugh, since Cían son of Dían Cécht is the father of Lugh, by Ethne daughter of Balor.[8]
Dian Cécht had yet another son, Octriuil, who was also a physician: Dían Cécht's two sons Octriuil (Irish: Ochttríuil) and Míach, and his daughter Airmed chanted over the healing well named Sláine (cf. § Curative well below).[9]
Dian Cécht's daughters were Airmed the she-leech (female physician) and Étan the poet according to the aforementioned Book of Invasions tract.[6]
Curative well
Dian Cécht ministered to the injured by soaking them in "Slainge's Well" (
The well was located at Achad Abla ('Field of the Apple Tree'), northwest of
Dian Cécht, when questioned on his ability, boasted to be able mend anyone but those who have been decapitated (or whose brain or spinal cord have been severely damaged);[14] this he presumably accomplished using the Tipra Sláíne.[d][15]
Boiling of the River Barrow
It was Dian Cecht who once saved Ireland, and was indirectly the cause of the name of the
When this was done, Dian Cecht opened the infant's heart, and found within it three serpents, capable, when they grew to full size, of depopulating Ireland.[17] He lost no time in destroying these serpents also, and burning them into ashes, to avoid the evil which even their dead bodies might do.[17] More than this, he flung the ashes into the nearest river, for he feared that there might be danger even in them. So venomous were they that the river boiled up and slew every living creature in it, and therefore it has been called the River Barrow, the ‘Boiling’ ever since.[17]
According to the Metrical Dindsenchas:
No motion it made
The ashes of Meichi the strongly smitten:
The stream made sodden and silent past recovery
The fell filth of the old serpent.
Three turns the serpent made;
It sought the soldier to consume him;
It would have wasted by its doing the kine;
The fell filth of the old serpent.
Therefore Diancecht slew it;
There rude reason for clean destroying it,
For preventing it from wasting
Worse than any wolf pack, from consuming utterly.
Known to me is the grave where he cast it,
A tomb without walls or roof-tree;
Its ashes, evil without loveliness or innocence
Found silent burial in noble Barrow.[18]
This tale in the Dindsenchas indicates that the being slain by Diancecht was a serpent named Meichi. Elsewhere the figure named as the slayer of Meichi is Mac Cecht.[19]
Dian Cecht’s Envy
Dian Cecht made King
Miach's sister, Airmed, mourned over her brother's grave. As her tears fell, all the healing herbs of the world grew from the grave. Airmed arranged and catalogued the herbs, but then Dian Cécht again reacted with anger and jealousy and scattered the herbs, destroying his daughter's work as well as his son's. For this reason, it is said that no human now knows the healing properties of all the herbs.[20]
Additional appearances
In
In the St. Gall incantations, there is a spell that mentions Dian Cécht:
I save the dead-alive. Against eructation, against spear-thong (amentum), against sudden tumour, against bleeding caused by iron, against... which fire burns, against.... which a dog eats, ...that withers: three nuts that... three sinews that weave (?). I strike its disease, I vanquish blood...: let it not be a chronic tumour. Whole be that whereon it (Diancecht's salve) goes. I put my trust in the salve which Diancecht left with his family that whole may be that whereon it goes.
This is laid always in thy palm full of water when washing, and thou puttest it into thy mouth, and thou insertest the two fingers that are next the little-finger into thy mouth, each of them apart.[22]
Dian Cécht's harper and poet was named Corand.[23] According to the Dindsenchas, Corand is implied to be the son of Dian Cecht and summoned a swine called Caelcheis from the Dagda's harp, which the champions of Connacht chased to Magh Coraind.[24]
In Popular Media
- Dian Cecht’s envy features in Laurell K Hamilton’s novel Seduced By Moonlight from her Merry Gentryseries.
See also
Explanatory notes
- Cormac's Glossary is not the sole attestation as Williams (2018), pp. 113–114 note 126 suggests.
- ^ Also given as "the spring of Slange" in the metrical version.[11]
- ^ Translated as "a well named Slaíne" by Gray or "well named Slane" by Stokes in the Cath Maige Tuired, but Gray appends "Tipra Sláíne" in glossary.
- ^ Mackillop (2006) glosses this as "spring of life". See also § Genealogy.
References
Citations
- ISBN 0-19-280120-1
- ^ ISBN 978-0-69-118304-6
- ^ a b Shaw (2006), p. 167.
- eDIL"plough, plough-beam".
- ISBN 9781855001473, (Full text herevia CELT.)
- ^ a b Lebor Gabála Érenn, Macalister (1941) ed. tr. ¶314 pp. 122–123
- ^ O'Curry, Eugene, ed. (1863), "The Fate of the Children of Tuireann ([A]oidhe Chloinne Tuireann)", Atlantis, IV: 168–171, n161, n165
- ^ Cath Maige Tuired §55, Stokes (1891), pp. 74, 75; Gray (1982), pp. 38, 39
- ^ a b c d Cath Maige Tuired §123, Stokes (1891), pp. 94, 95, 306; Gray (1982), pp. 54, 55
- ^ a b c d "§71 Lusmag", Stokes, Whitley, ed. (1893), "The Edinburgh Dinnshenchas", Folk-lore, 4, Folk-lore Society (Great Britain): 489–490
- ^ ISBN 9781855001473, (Full text herevia CELT.)
- ^ Glossary Gray (1982), p. 141
- ^ sláine", eDIL. "soundness, completeness, wholesomeness; health; salvation".
- ^ Cath Maige Tuired §98–99, Stokes (1891), pp. 88, 89; Gray (1982), p. 51
- ISBN 0-14-194139-1
- ^ Shaw (2006), pp. 161–164.
- ^ a b c d e Squire, Charles. "V. The Gods of the Gaels". Celtic Myth and Legend: The Gaelic Gods.
- ^ Shaw (2006), pp. 162–163.
- ^ Shaw (2006), pp. 162, 164.
- ^ Cath Maige Tuired §33–35, Stokes (1891), pp. 66–69; Gray (1982), pp. 32, 33
- ^ Tochmarc Étaíne.
- Stokes, Whitley; Strachan, John, eds. (1903), "The St. Gall Incantations", Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, University Press, pp. 248–249 (Full text herevia Celtic Literature Collective.)
- ^ "Ceis Choraind (Poem 82)", Gwynn, Edward, ed. (1903), The metrical Dindshenchas I., Todd Lecture Series 8, pp. 438–439, (Full text here via CELT.)
- ^ ed. Stokes, Whitley. "The Edinburgh Dinnshenchas". The Edinburgh Dinnshenchas: An electronic edition. Thesaurus Linguae Hibernicae, University College Dublin. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
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Sources
- Stokes, Whitley, ed. (1891), "The Second Battle of Moytura", Revue celtique, 12: 52–130, 306–308
- Gray, Elizabeth A., ed. (1982). Cath Maige Tuired: The Second battle of Mag Tuired. Drucker. (Full text here via CELT.) (Full text here via sacred-texts.)
- Macalister, R.A.S., ed. (1941), "Section VII: Invasion of the Tuatha De Danann", Lebor gabála Érenn, Part IV ¶304–¶377 pp. 106–211; Verses LIII–LXVI pp. 212–291; Notes pp. 292–
- McCone, Kim (1996). Towards a Relative Chronology of Ancient and Medieval Celtic Sound Change. Maynooth: Department of Old and Middle Irish, St. Patrick's College. ISBN 0-901519-40-5.
- Shaw, John (2006), "Indo-European Dragon-Slayers and Healers, and the Irish Account of Dian Cécht and Méiche", Journal of Indo-European Studies, 34 (1 & 2): 153–181