According to an Irish and Scottish medieval tradition, Goídel Glas (Latinised as Gathelus) is the creator of the Goidelic languages and theeponymous ancestor of the Gaels.

The tradition can be traced to the 11th-century Lebor Gabála Érenn. A Scottish variant is due to John of Fordun (d. 1384).

Lebor Gabála Érenn[edit]

The narrative in the Lebor Gabála Érenn is a fictional account of the origin of the Gaels as the descendants of the Scythian prince Fénius Farsaid, one of seventy-two chieftains who built the Tower of Babel. Goídel Glas was the son of Nel (son of Fénius) and Scota (daughter of a Pharaoh of Egypt).^[1] Goídel Glas is credited with the creation of Gaelic (proto-Irish language) from the original seventy-two languages that arose at the time of the confusion of tongues.^[2] His descendants, the Gaels, undergo a series of trials and tribulations that are clearly modelled on those of the Israelites in the Old Testament. They flourish in Egypt at the time of Moses and leave during the Exodus; they wander the world for 440 years before eventually settling in the Iberian Peninsula. There, Goídel's descendant Breogán founds a city called Brigantia, and builds a tower from the top of which his son Íth glimpses Ireland. Brigantia refers to Corunna in Galicia (which was then known as Brigantium)^[3] and Breogán's tower is likely based on the Tower of Hercules (which was built at Corunna by the Romans).^[4]

An interesting anecdote in the LGE tells how Gaidel Glas [Hirem Abif?], son of Nel (Keating: Niul), was cured of a serpent's sting when Moses made fervent prayer and touched his rod upon the lad's wound.^[5] An inserted verse in an earlier passage says of Gaidel: "green were his arms and his vesture".^[6] O'Clery's redaction of the Lebor Gabála adds that the snake bite left a green ring on the boy, from which he earned his nickname of Gaidel Glas (meaning "Green").^[7] Keating also repeats this quoting a glossarial verse, although he prefaces it with an alternate derivation of the nickname from the word for lock (Irish: glas)^[8][9]

John of Fordun[edit]

Scota (left) with Goídel Glas (right) voyaging from Egypt, as depicted in a 15th-century manuscript of theScotichronicon of Walter Bower; in this version Scota and Goídel Glas (Latinized as Gaythelos) are wife and husband.

A Scottish version of the tale of Goídel Glas and Scota was recorded by John of Fordun. This is apparently not based on the main Irish Lebor Gabála account. Fordun refers to multiple sources, and his version is taken to be an attempt to synthesise these multiple accounts into a single history.

In Fordun's version, Gaythelos, as he calls Goídel Glas, is the son of "a certain king of the countries of Greece, Neolus, or Heolaus, by name", who was exiled to Egypt and took service with the Pharaoh, marrying Pharaoh's daughter Scota. Various accounts of how Gaythelos came to be expelled from Egypt—by a revolt following the death of Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, pursuing Moses, or in terror from the Plagues of Egypt, or after an invasion by Ethiopians—are given, but the upshot is that Gaythelos and Scota are exiled together with Greek and Egyptian nobles, and they settle in Hispania after wandering for many years. In the Iberian Peninsula they settle in the land's northwest corner, at a place called Brigancia (the city of A Coruña, that the Romans knew as Brigantium).

The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of the Gaelic (or Goidelic) languages; a branch of the Celtic languages comprising Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx.^[1] Historically, the Gaels were a distinct ethnic group. Gaelic language and culture originated in Ireland, extending to Dál Riata in southwest Scotland. In the Middle Ages it became dominant throughout Scotland and the Isle of Man also. However, in most areas, the Gaels were gradually anglicized and the Gaelic languages supplanted by English.

Terminology[edit]

The modern English term Gael derives from the Old Gaelic word Goídel. The modern spellings are Gael in Irish and Gàidheal in Scottish Gaelic. Goídel is thought to have been borrowed during the 7th century from the Primitive Welshform which became Old Welsh Guoidel "Irishman" (attested as a male personal name in the Book of Llandaff). This may be derived from the Proto-Indo-European *weidh-(e)l-o-, perhaps meaning "forest people", partially cognate with the Old Gaelic Féni (from Proto-Indo-European *weidh-n-jo-, "forest people"; "warriors" [ROBINHOOD??]in Proto-Irish),^[2][3] which is also the origin of Fianna and Fenian.

Gaelic Irish soldiers, a boy piperand a woman, c.1575

Gaelic Irish men and noblewomen, c.1575

Romanticist depictions of Scottish Highlanders in the 1840s by R. R. McIan

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Bunworth Banshee

The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity. However, much of it was preserved in medieval Irish literature, though it was shorn of its religious meanings. This literature represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches ofCeltic mythology. Although many of the manuscripts have not survived and much more material was probably never committed to writing, there is enough remaining to enable the identification of distinct, if overlapping, cycles: the Mythological Cycle, the Ulster Cycle, the Fenian Cycle and theHistorical Cycle. There are also a number of extant mythological texts that do not fit into any of the cycles. Additionally, there are a large number of recorded folk tales that, while not strictly mythological, feature personages from one or more of these four cycles.

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 The sources
• 2 Mythological cycle
  • 2.1 Other important Tuatha Dé Danann figures
• 3 Ulster cycle
• 4 Fenian cycle
• 5 Historical cycle
• 6 Other tales
  • 6.1 Adventures
  • 6.2 Voyages
  • 6.3 Folk tales
• 7 References
  • 7.1 Primary sources in English translation
  • 7.2 Primary sources in Medieval Irish
  • 7.3 Retellings of the myths in English
  • 7.4 Secondary sources
  • 7.5 Preservationist works — modern traditional stories
• 8 External links

The sources[edit]

The three main manuscript sources for Irish mythology are the late 11th/early 12th century Lebor na hUidre which is in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, the early 12th century Book of Leinster in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Rawlinson manuscript B 502 (Rawl.), housed in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Despite the dates of these sources, most of the material they contain predates their composition. The earliest of the prose can be dated on linguistic grounds to the 8th century, and some of the verse may be as old as the 6th century.

Other important sources include a group of four manuscripts originating in the west of Ireland in the late 14th or early 15th century: The Yellow Book of Lecan, The Great Book of Lecan, The Book of Hy Many,^[1] and The Book of Ballymote. The first of these contains part of the earliest known version of the Táin Bó Cúailnge ("The Driving-off of Cattle of Cooley") and is housed in Trinity College. The other three are in the Royal Academy. Other 15th-century manuscripts, such as The Book of Fermoy also contain interesting materials, as do such later syncretic works such as Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (The History of Ireland) (ca. 1640), particularly as these later compilers and writers may have had access to manuscript sources that have since disappeared.

When using these sources, it is, as always, important to question the impact of the circumstances in which they were produced. Most of the manuscripts were created by Christian monks, who may well have been torn between the desire to record their native culture and their religious hostility to pagan beliefs resulting in some of the gods being euhemerised. Many of the later sources may also have formed part of a propaganda effort designed to create a history for the people of Ireland that could bear comparison with the mythological descent of their British invaders from the founders of Rome that was promulgated by Geoffrey of Monmouth and others. There was also a tendency to rework Irish genealogies to fit into the known schema of Greek or Biblical genealogy.