The People of the Goddess Danu

      Long ago, a race of people known as the Tuatha De Danaan sailed to Ireland to take the land from the Fir Bolgs, the race already there. These newcomers were the People of the Goddess Danu, and their men of learning possessed great powers and were revered as if they were gods.
      When they reached Ireland and landed on the western shore, they set fire to their boats so that there would be no turning back. The smoke from the burning boats darkened the sun and filled the land for three days, and the Fir Bolgs thought the Tuatha De Danaan had arrived in a magic mist.
      Nuada was the king of the Tuatha De Danaan and he led them against the Fir Bolgs. They fought a fierce battle on the Plain of Moytura, and a hundred thousand of the Fir Bolgs were killed. Many of the Tuatha De Danaan died too, and Nuada had his arm severed from his body in the fight.
      In the end, the Tuatha De Danaan overcame the Fir Bolgs and slaughtered them until only a handful survived. These survivors boarded their ships and set sail to the far-scattered islands around Ireland.

Balor's Evil Eye

      Balor was the most powerful king of the Fomorians, a race of monstrous demons who lived in the islands around Ireland. One day in his youth Balor was passing a house in which magicians were working powerful spells. Although he knew it was out of bounds, Balor was drawn in by the sounds of the magicians' chanting. Seeing a window that was open high in the wall Balor scrambled up and looked furtively through it, but he could see nothing for the room was filled with fumes and gases. Just as he peered through the window the chanting grew louder and a strong plume of smoke rose in the air into Balor's face. He was blinded by the poisonous fumes and could not open his eye. Before he could escape, one of the magicians came out of the house.
      When the druid saw what had happened, he said, "That spell we were making was a spell of death and the fumes from it have brought the power of death to your eye. If you look on anyone with that eye, it means they will die!" And so Balor got his name.
      Among his own people his eye remained shut, but if he opened it against his enemies they dropped dead when he turned its deadly power against them. As he grew older his eyelid grew heavier and heavier until in the end, he could not open it without help. An ivory ring was driven through the lid and through this ring ropes were threaded to make a pulley. It took ten men to lift the lid, but ten times that number were slain by a single glance. His evil eye made him of great importance to the Fomorians and he became the most powerful of them all. His ships raided Ireland again and again, and Balor's pirates made slaves of the learned people of De Danaan.

Tain Bo Cuailnge

      The plot in a nutshell: Queen Maeve of Connacht invaded Ulster to steal the Brown Bull of Cooley so she would be equal in wealth with her husband, King Aillil, who owned the great White-horned Bull. Cuchulain defended Ulster single-handed, because the Ulster warriors were afflicted by the Curse of Macha. Maeve brought the Brown Bull back to Connacht. When the White-horned Bull saw the Brown, they fought and killed each other. The End.

Taliesen and the Cauldron

      Once there was a witch named Ceridwen, and she had two children. The one, her daughter, was as beautiful a child as you could ever hope to see; the other, her son Morfran, was so ugly, ill-favored and stupid that he sickened everyone who saw him.
      Ceridwen was grieved that Morfran was so horrible, and resolved by her magic arts to make him into such a great bard that no-one would mind his ugliness. She began to cast a great spell. Many were the plants that she cast into her cauldron, many the incantations said over it. An old blind man named Morda was set to keep the fires burning beneath it, assisted by a young boy, Gwion.
      The Cauldron of Wisdom and Inspiration must be kept boiling for a year and a day, and then the first three drops from it would impart ultimate knowledge to the one who drank them. But the rest of the liquid would be deadly poison.
      Long labored Ceridwen, roaming far to find the rare and exotic herbs she required, and so it chanced that she fell asleep on the last day of the spell. The boy Gwion was stirring the brew when three drops flew out onto his thumb, and they were scalding hot, so that he thrust it into his mouth to stop the burning. Instantly, he had the wisdom and inspiration of ages, and the first thing that occurred to him was that Ceridwen would be very angry.
      He ran away from the house of Ceridwen, but all too soon he heard the fury of her pursuit. Using his new magical powers, he turned himself into a hare. She turned into a greyhound bitch, and gained ever more on him. He came to a river, and quick as thinking became a fish. She became an otter. He leapt from the water, and in the middle of his leap became a bird of the air. The witch Ceridwen became a hawk. In desperation, he looked down and saw a pile of wheat. He dived, landed, and as it scattered he turned into a single grain. Then she landed and became a hen, and pecked at the grain until she had swallowed Gwion.
      Soon after, Ceridwen found herself with child, though she had lain with no man. When she realized that the baby was Gwion, she resolved to kill it, and Morfran wanted her to also, in revenge for his not becoming a bard. In due course, the babe was born, and Morfran would have slaughtered him on the spot, but the mother said no, because it was the most beautiful child ever seen. But she took him and, sewing him in a bag, set him adrift on the ocean.

How Conor Mac Nessa Became King of Ulster

Morrigan and the Brown Bull of Cooley

      On the same day that Queen Maeve and King Ailill of Connacht bickered over who was the wealthier, and found that Maeve was poorer by one bull, the Morrigan paid a visit to the Brown Bull of Cooley. The Morrigan flew in the form of a hooded crow to the field where the bull and his fifty heifers grazed, and landed on a pillar-stone beside him. She warning the Brown Bull about the men of Connacht thusly: ³So, pitiful one, Donn Cooley, be on your guard, for the men of Connacht will come upon you and will carry you off to Queen Maeve's fortress unless you take heed.¹ And as she warned him, he dug into the turf with his heels and kicked up a trench in anger, and he swore that no men of Connacht would take him away from the lovely green fields of Cooley.

Cu Chulainn and The Morrigan

      Cu Chulainn is awakened one night by a terrible noise and rushes out suddenly, so suddenly in fact that his wife must pursue him with his clothing and weapons. Loeg, Cu Chulainn¹s charioteer hears the noise as well and the two ride toward the sound.
      When they reach the ford at the border of Ulster they find a beautiful woman, whose eyebrows and incredibly long mantle are red, riding alone in a chariot drawn by a horse with a single leg with the pole of the chariot passing through its body. A large man walks beside the chariot, driving a cow. Because it is Cu Chulainn¹s task to guard the cows of Ulster, he accosts the man. His verbal attack is parried instead by the woman. "You¹re biting off more than you can chew, Hound" she says. Cu Chulainn ignores her comment and complains to the man that it is the woman and not the man who converses with him. Again, the woman speaks up, saying that he did not address the man but her. The verbal contention has annoyed Cu Chulainn, and he leaps into the chariot, landing with his feet upon the woman¹s shoulders and his spear upon the part in her hair. He demands of her that she tell where the man got the cow and where they are taking it. She answers "This is no cow of Ulster."
      Cu Chulainn, disbelieving her demands the truth, and she demands that he get off her shoulders. Cu Chulainn leaps from her sholders and when he lands the woman and all has disappeared except for a black bird on a nearby branch. To the bird Cu Chulainn says, "If I had only known that it was you, Bedb, I would not have accosted you." The bird responds in the voice of the woman, "I am guarding your death and will continue to guard it" and then goes on to tell him more about the cow. She was not lying when she said earlier that it was no cow of Ulster. Rather, she had brought the cow from the otherworld in order to mate her with the bull of Daire mac Fiachna, the Donn of Cooley, and was now returning it. She also reveals that the Cu Chulainn's life will only last until the unborn calf's birth, and that the calf's father will incite a war in which Cu Chulainn will die. Cu Chulainn counters that the battle will only increase his fame, and that he will survive it. The Morrígan answers that she will guard his body on the field of his death, for die he will.

Queen Maeve and the Prophecy

      Maeve, the great queen of Connaught, rode in an open chariot accompanied by four warriors chariots - one before, another behind, and one on each side - with a golden diadem on her head and royal robes. On the eve of battle Maeve was visited by an otherworldly vision.
      Suddenly there stood before the queen's chariot a tall and beautiful woman. She wore a green robe clasped with a golden pin, a golden fillet on her head, and seven braids for the Dead of bright gold were in her hand. Her skin was white as snow that falls in the night; her teeth were as pearls; her lips red as the berries of the mountain ash; her golden hair fell to the ground; and her voice was sweet as the golden harp-string when touched by a skillful hand.
      "Who art thou, O woman?" asked the queen, in astonishment.
      "I am Feithlinn, the fairy prophetess of the Rath of Cruachan," she answered.
      "'Tis well, O Feithlinn the prophetess," said Maeve; "but what doest thou foresee concerning our hosts?"
      "I foresee bloodshed; I foresee power; I foresee defeat!" answered the prophetess.
      "My couriers have brought me good tidings!" said the queen; "my army is strong, my warriors are well-prepared. But speak the truth, O prophetess; for my soul knows no fear."
      "I foresee bloodshed; I foresee victory!" answered the prophetess the second time.
      "But I have nothing to fear from the Ulstermen," said the queen, "for my couriers have arrived, and my enemies are under dread. Yet, speak the truth, O prophetess, that our hosts may know it."
      "I foresee bloodshed; I foresee conquest; I foresee death!" answered the prophetess, for the third time.
      "To me then it belongs not, thy prophecy of evil," replied the queen, in anger.
      "Be it thine, and on thy own head."
      And even as she spoke the prophet maiden disappeared, and the queen saw her no more.
      But it so happened that, some time afterwards, Queen Maeve was cruelly slain by her own kinsman, at Lough Rea by the River Shannon, to avenge the assistance she had given in war to the king of Ulster; there is an island in the lake where is shown the spot where the great queen was slain, and which is still known to the people as the stone of the dead queen.