Celtic Mythology and Religion

130 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
character as a fire-goddess ; she was born at sunrise ;
her breath revives the dead ;
stays flames up to heaven ;
of a white red-eared cow ;
a house in which she
she is fed with the milk
a fiery pillar rises from her
head, and she remains a virgin like the Roman
goddess, Vesta, and her virgins—Vesta, whom
Ovid tells us to consider " nothing else than the
living flame, which can produce no bodies." Cormac
calls her the daughter of the Dagda. " This
Brigit," he says, " is a poetess, a goddess whom
,
poets worshipped. Her sisters were Brigit, woman
of healing ; Brigit, woman of smith work ; that is,
goddesses ; these are the three daughters of the
Dagda." Doubtless these three daughters, thus
distinguished by Cormac, are one and the same
person. Brigit, therefore, was goddess of fire, the
hearth and the home.
The rest of the Gaelic pantheon may be dismissed
in a few sentences. Angus Mac-ind-oc, " the only
choice one, son of Youth or Perfection," has been
well called the Eros—the Cupid—of the Gael. " He
was represented with a harp, and attended by bright
birds, his own transformed kisses,
at whose singing
He
love arose in the hearts of youths and maidens."
is the son of the Dagda, and he lives at the Brugh
of the Boyne ; in one weird tale he is represented
as the son of the Boyne. He is the patron god of
Diarmat, whom he helps in escaping from the wrath
of Finn, when Diarmat eloped with Grainne. The
River Boyne is also connected with the ocean-god