Dagda: An Early Celtic Chief of Gods
An early chief of the gods is Dagda, who, in the story of the battle of Mag-tured, is said to be so called because he promised to do more than all the other gods together. Hence they said, "It is thou art the good hand" (dag-dae). The Cóir Anmann explains Dagdaas "fire of god" (daig and déa). The true derivation is from dagos, "good," and deivos, "god," though Dr. Stokes considers Dagda as connected with dagh, whence daghda, "cunning." Dagda is also called Cera, a word perhaps derived from kar and connected with Lat. cerus, "creator" and other names of his are Ruad-rofhessa, "lord of great knowledge," }and Eochaid Ollathair, "great father," "for a great father to the Tuatha Dé Danann was he." He is also called "a beautiful god," and "the principal god of the pagans." After the battle he divides the brugs or síd among the gods, but his son Oengus, having been omitted, by a stratagem succeeded in ousting his father from his síd, over which he now himself reigned—possibly the survival of an old myth telling of a superseding of Dagda's cult by that of Oengus, a common enough occurrence in all religions. In another version, Dagda being dead, Bodb Dearg divides the síd, and Manannan makes the Tuatha Déa invisible and immortal. He also helps Oengus to drive out his foster-father Elemar from his brug, where Oengus now lives as a god. The underground brugs are the gods' land, in all respects resembling the oversea Elysium, and at once burial-places of the euhemerised gods and local forms of the divine land. Professor Rh[^y]s regards Dagda as an atmospheric god; Dr. MacBain sees in him a sky-god. More probably he is an early Earth-god and a god of agriculture. He has power over corn and milk, and agrees to prevent the other gods from destroying these after their defeat by the Milesians—former beneficent gods being regarded as hurtful, a not uncommon result of the triumph of a new faith. Dagda is called "the god of the earth" "because of the greatness of his power." Mythical objects associated with him suggest plenty and fertility—his cauldron which satisfied all comers, his unfailing swine, one always living, the other ready for cooking, a vessel {}of ale, and three trees always laden with fruit. These were in his síd, where none ever tasted death; hence his síd was a local Elysium, not a gloomy land of death, but the underworld in its primitive aspect as the place of gods of fertility. In some myths he appears with a huge club or fork, and M. D'Arbois suggests that he may thus be an equivalent of the Gaulish god with the mallet. This is probable, since the Gaulish god may have been a form of Dispater, an Earth or under-Earth god of fertility.
An early chief of the gods is Dagda, who, in the story of the battle of Mag-tured, is said to be so called because he promised to do more than all the other gods together. Hence they said, "It is thou art the good hand" (dag-dae). The Cóir Anmann explains Dagdaas "fire of god" (daig and déa). The true derivation is from dagos, "good," and deivos, "god," though Dr. Stokes considers Dagda as connected with dagh, whence daghda, "cunning." Dagda is also called Cera, a word perhaps derived from kar and connected with Lat. cerus, "creator" and other names of his are Ruad-rofhessa, "lord of great knowledge," }and Eochaid Ollathair, "great father," "for a great father to the Tuatha Dé Danann was he." He is also called "a beautiful god," and "the principal god of the pagans." After the battle he divides the brugs or síd among the gods, but his son Oengus, having been omitted, by a stratagem succeeded in ousting his father from his síd, over which he now himself reigned—possibly the survival of an old myth telling of a superseding of Dagda's cult by that of Oengus, a common enough occurrence in all religions. In another version, Dagda being dead, Bodb Dearg divides the síd, and Manannan makes the Tuatha Déa invisible and immortal. He also helps Oengus to drive out his foster-father Elemar from his brug, where Oengus now lives as a god. The underground brugs are the gods' land, in all respects resembling the oversea Elysium, and at once burial-places of the euhemerised gods and local forms of the divine land. Professor Rh[^y]s regards Dagda as an atmospheric god; Dr. MacBain sees in him a sky-god. More probably he is an early Earth-god and a god of agriculture. He has power over corn and milk, and agrees to prevent the other gods from destroying these after their defeat by the Milesians—former beneficent gods being regarded as hurtful, a not uncommon result of the triumph of a new faith. Dagda is called "the god of the earth" "because of the greatness of his power." Mythical objects associated with him suggest plenty and fertility—his cauldron which satisfied all comers, his unfailing swine, one always living, the other ready for cooking, a vessel {}of ale, and three trees always laden with fruit. These were in his síd, where none ever tasted death; hence his síd was a local Elysium, not a gloomy land of death, but the underworld in its primitive aspect as the place of gods of fertility. In some myths he appears with a huge club or fork, and M. D'Arbois suggests that he may thus be an equivalent of the Gaulish god with the mallet. This is probable, since the Gaulish god may have been a form of Dispater, an Earth or under-Earth god of fertility.
