The Dagda

The Dagda
Member of the Tuatha Dé Danann
Abode Brú na Bóinne
Weapons Club
Battles Magh Tuiredh
Artefacts
Personal information
Consorts
Children
Parents
Siblings Nuada, Ogma

The Dagda (Irish: An Dagda) is an important god in Irish mythology. One of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Dagda is portrayed as a father-figure, chieftain, and druid.[1][2] He is associated with fertility, agriculture, manliness and strength, as well as magic, druidry and wisdom.[1][2][3][4] He is said to have control over life and death, the weather and crops, as well as time and the seasons.

He is often described as a large bearded man or giant[3] wearing a hooded cloak.[5] He owns a magic staff or club (the lorg mór or lorg anfaid) which can kill with one end and bring to life with the other, a cauldron (the coire ansic) which never runs empty, and a magic harp (uaithne) which can control men's emotions and change the seasons. He is said to dwell in Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange). Other places associated with or named after him include Uisneach, Grianan of Aileach, Assaroe Falls and Lough Neagh. The Dagda is said to be husband of the Morrígan and Boann.[3] His children include Aengus, Brigit, Bodb Derg, Cermait, Aed, and Midir.[1] He is said to have two brothers, Nuada and Ogma, but this may be an instance of the tendency to triplicate deities.[3]

The name Dagda is believed to come from Proto-Celtic: *Dagodeiwos, "the good god" or "the great god".[6] He has several other names or epithets which reflect aspects of his character.[7] These include Eochu or Eochaid Ollathair ("horseman, great father" or "all-father"),[8] Ruad Rofhessa ("mighty one/lord of great knowledge"),[4][9] Dáire ("the fertile one"),[3] Aed ("the fiery one"),[10][11] Fer Benn ("horned man" or "man of the peak"), Cera (possibly "creator"),[12] Cerrce (possibly "striker"),[2] Easal[13] and Eogabal.[5] It is believed that the death and ancestral god Donn was originally a form of the Dagda,[14] and he also has similarities with the later harvest figure Crom Dubh.[15] Several tribal groupings saw the Dagda as an ancestor and were named after him, such as the Uí Echach and the Dáirine.

The Dagda has been likened to the Germanic god Odin, the Gaulish god Sucellos,[1] and the Roman god Dīs Pater.[3]

Description

Tales depict the Dagda as a figure of immense power. He is said to own a magic staff, club or mace which could kill nine men with one blow; but with the handle he could return the slain to life. It was called the lorg mór ("the great staff/club/mace") or the lorg anfaid ("the staff/club/mace of wrath"). His magic cauldron was known as the coire ansic ("the un-dry cauldron") and was said to be bottomless, from which no man left unsatisfied.[16] It was said to have a ladle so big that two people could fit in it.[17] Uaithne, also known as "the Four Angled Music", was a richly ornamented magic harp made of oak which, when the Dagda played it, put the seasons in their correct order; other accounts tell of it being used to command the order of battle. He possessed two pigs, one of which was always growing whilst the other was always roasting, and ever-laden fruit trees.

The Dagda was one of the kings of the Tuatha De Danann. The Tuatha Dé Danann are the race of supernatural beings who conquered the Fomorians, who inhabited Ireland previously, prior to the coming of the Milesians. His lover was Boann, after whom the River Boyne is named, and his daughter was Breg. Prior to the battle with the Fomorians, he coupled with the goddess of war, the Mórrígan, on Samhain in exchange for a plan of battle.[18][19]

Despite his great power and prestige, the Dagda is sometimes depicted as oafish and crude, even comical, wearing a short, rough tunic that barely covers his rump, dragging his great penis on the ground.[18] Such features are thought to be the additions of Christian redactors for comedic purposes. The Middle Irish language Coir Anmann (The Fitness of Names) paints a less clownish picture: "He was a beautiful god of the heathens, for the Tuatha Dé Danann worshipped him: for he was an earth-god to them because of the greatness of his (magical) power."[20]

Etymology

The name Dagda may ultimately be derived from the Proto-Indo-European *Dhagho-deiwos "shining divinity", the first element being cognate with the English word "day", and possibly a byword for a deification of a notion such as "splendour". This etymology would tie in well with Dagda's mythic association with the sun and the earth, with kingship and excellence in general. *Dhago-deiwos would have been inherited into Proto-Celtic as *Dago-deiwos, thereby punning with the Proto-Celtic word *dago-s "good".

Appearances

Under the name Aed of Ess Ruaid, the Dagda is named as the son of Badurn, the Lord of Emain, and the Grandson of Argatmar.[21] The rapids in which he supposedly drowned were named Ess Ruaid and were previously called Ess Duind after Dond, the grandson of Bile.[21]

The Dagda had an affair with Bóand, wife of Elcmar.[22] In order to hide their affair, Dagda made the sun stand still for nine months; therefore their son, Aengus, was conceived, gestated and born in one day.[23] He, along with Bóand, helped Aengus search for his love.[24]

Whilst Aengus was away the Dagda shared out his land among his children, but Aengus returned to discover that nothing had been saved for him. Aengus later tricked his father out of his home at the Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange). Aengus asked his father if he could live in the Brú for láa ogus oidhche "(a) day and (a) night", which in Irish is ambiguous, and could refer to either "a day and a night", or "day and night", which means for all time, and so Aengus took possession of the Brú permanently. In The Wooing of Étaín, on the other hand, Aengus uses the same ploy to trick Elcmar out of Brú na Bóinne, with the Dagda's connivance.[24]

The Dagda was also the father of Bodb Dearg, Cermait, Midir, Áine, and Brigit. He was the brother or father of Oghma, who is probably related to the Gaulish god Ogmios; Ogmios, depicted as an old man with a club, is one of the closest Gaulish parallels to the Dagda. Another Gaulish god who may be related to the Dagda is Sucellus, the striker, depicted with a hammer and cup.

He is credited with a seventy or eighty-year reign (depending on source) over the Tuatha Dé Danann, before dying at the Brú na Bóinne, finally succumbing to a wound inflicted by Cethlenn during the second battle of Magh Tuiredh.[25]

In some texts the Dagda's father is Elatha, and his mother is Ethniu.

In a poem about Mag Muirthemne, the Dagda banishes an octopus with his "mace of wrath" using the following words: "Turn thy hollow head! Turn thy ravening body! Turn thy resorbent forehead! Avaunt! Begone!"[26]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Koch, John T. Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2006. pp.553-554
  2. 1 2 3 An Dagda. Mary Jones's Celtic Encyclopedia.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. Myth, Legend & Romance: An encyclopaedia of the Irish folk tradition. Prentice Hall Press, 1991. pp.145-147
  4. 1 2 Monaghan, Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore. Infobase Publishing, 2004. pp.113-114
  5. 1 2 Ward, Alan (2011). The Myths of the Gods: Structures in Irish Mythology. pp.9-10
  6. ↑ The Names of the Dagda
  7. ↑ Ó hÓgáin, p.245
  8. ↑ Koch, pp.553, 1632
  9. ↑ Maier, Bernhard. Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture. Boydell & Brewer, 1997. p.90
  10. ↑ Berresford Ellis, Peter. The Druids. W.B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1994. p.123
  11. ↑ Smyth, Daragh. A Guide to Irish Mythology. Irish Academic Press, 1996. p.15
  12. ↑ Monaghan, p.83
  13. ↑ Monaghan, p.144
  14. ↑ Ó hÓgáin, pp.165-166
  15. ↑ MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa: A Study of the Survival of the Celtic Festival of the Beginning of Harvest. Oxford University Press, 1962. p.416
  16. ↑ "Celtic Myths". www.livingmyths.com. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
  17. ↑ https://www.thoughtco.com/the-dagda-father-god-of-ireland-2561706
  18. 1 2 Cath Maige Tuireadh. Trans. Elizabeth A. Gray.
  19. ↑ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dagda
  20. ↑ Coir Anmann.
  21. 1 2 https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T106500D/text002.html
  22. ↑ https://thenewpagan.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/the-dagda-father-of-all/
  23. ↑ "The Dagda, the Father God of Ireland". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
  24. 1 2 Tochmarc Étaíne. Corpus of Electronic Texts
  25. ↑ Lebor Gabála Érenn.
  26. ↑ The Metrical Dindshenchas poem on Mag Muirthemne. Corpus of Electronic Texts.

Further reading

  • Bergin, Osborn (1927). "How the Dagda Got his Magic Staff". Medieval Studies in Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis. Paris and New York. pp. 399–406.
  • Sayers, William (1988). "Cerrce, an Archaic Epithet of the Dagda, Cernnunos, and Conall Cernach". The Journal of Indo-European Studies. 16: 341–64.
Preceded by
Lug		 High King of Ireland
AFM 1830–1750 BC
FFE 1407–1337 BC		 Succeeded by
Delbáeth
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