Tuatha De Danann and the Burning Boats, Telling the Cath Maige Tuired, Part 1

In which is presented a telling of the Cath Maige Tuired, accompanied by a DEEP linguistic inquiry into the Irish Mythology and Story, Part, 1.

Join the study and read along with us on Substack! By becoming a member, you get instant access to these recordings, in-depth write-ups of each episode beyond the transcript, and digital access to my award-winning Irish Retelling novels.

Learn more about me here on my website.

Buy my books!

Other Irish Mythology Podcasts to listen to: Candlelit Tales Irish Mythology Podcast, The Irish Pagan School Podcast.

. . .

The Cath Maige Tuired is an angular story set within the circularity of the Irish soul, or anam, a modern Gaeilge word rooted in the Proto Celtic anaman, from the Proto Indo European h₂enh₁-, meaning “to breathe” that is suffixed by *-mn̥, which creates abstract action nouns from regular verbs. Anam is a fine word, but there are others, lest we forget: misneach (mish-nyakh), being “the spirit that won’t break” and croí (krEE), being “centre-heart.”

The Cath Maige Tuired also opens the window for our deities, and our heroes—the Old Irish curad, meaning hero that is rooted in the Proto Celtic karuts, which means something like “warrior-champion.” It is a tale with teeth such that if we plunge into her bowels and swim in the green-grey sluice there we may find a counterposed narrative at nearly every turn. But, leaning back, the story appears not in its naked polarity, but as a round tale that begins and ends at the beginning.

It is a true circle, a fine weave, constructed by the pin-point.

You can see the oral tradition imbibing the tale and its looseness, its repetitiveness, the way it holds words like a river holds leaves—just barely and always just skimming the surface like fairy fingers, like Aes Sídhe (or the Proto Celtic sîdos) rose from their Earthen mounds to tickle the water’s surface, just barely, with the bronze pad of doru little leaves (doru means oak).

The Cath Maige Tuired is a special text in the sense that it is a cauldron of Gods. Many tales in Irish Mythology reference the figures of the TDD, often times present what I find to be a confusing mess of names and places and happenings that co-mingle into a life-time of study. But in the CMT, they are landed and embodied figures of clay and shape that speak directly with us, to us.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

This is the Keening Cave, the language of Irish Mythology podcast. Kud of Ma Giveshat. Thanks for being here. This is a podcast about remembering our myths and their power. On the Keening Cave, we are neither indifferent to scholarship, nor are we antiquarian, but we see myths as tails with teeth. We see myths as the living language of our people's weave with this land and the land of all of our spirits too. What is a keening, you ask? A keening, or the queen, is a ritualized wailing, a singing, a storytelling to usher the grief of the living and the soul of the dead to the spirit road. They are our blood weave, stretching us in two directions. Weft, myths connect us with one another. They are the living tellers of white webby fascia and missile threads that interlace the circle of kinship. And Warp, myths connect us to Creator. They lift our eyes to the stars. This is the Keening Cave. It is remembering. It is living Irish mythology, mourning the loss that modernity and its colonialism made us let go. It is also ascending, and it is here that we lead off with a fireside retelling, and then we unfasten the tale together to a study of language, archaeology, history, and the sacred. I am your host, D. Firth Griffith. I am a bastard of bards, a Markeiko, horse friend, and learning Shonaki. Shri Siaslum Buangia Tokota, Lenachina Hogan. Sit down, take off your coat, come close, and feel the fire. Before we begin, there are many sensational podcasts in the digital ether that speak to the attrition of Yuru and her myths and call us back into ceremony with the long-ago peoples at their Angelita or round river stone hearth, either from a sacred or scholarly perspective. I implore you to follow them as well, from the Irish Mythology Podcast to the Candlelit Tales Podcast to Laura O'Brien's and John O'Sullivan's Irish Pagan School Podcast. Laura and John also supply a wonderful breadth of resources that may be interesting to you. All of these are prodigious and provide fascinating perspectives. If you enjoy the words here on the Keening Cave, you may find a river of interest to plunge your story mind into with my own writings and books. My subversive retelling of the Ka Myturen, the Second Battle of Miketura, the Irish battle saga between the Twahadan and the Fumorians, called The Plane of Pillars, has been called a mastery of mythology by Independent Review in a form of resistance against colonization and cultural extinction by Kirkus Reviews. The Plane of Pillars, it won the 2025 Fantasy Book of the Year and other numerous literary awards, and my upcoming release, The Way of Salmon Moon, coming this November, is a Paleolithic literary horror fantasy retelling of the Irish Anbadan Fiesa, or the Salmon of Knowledge. If you are interested in the confluence of fiction and oral Irish mythology, I encourage you, check them out. This is episode one of the Kamaturen, something I am titling Dwa Dann and the Burning Boats. That's it. Off we go Maturan translated by Elizabeth A. Gray. The Tuadan were in the northern islands of the world, studying occult lore and sorcery, druidic arts and witchcraft and magical skill, until they surpassed the sages of pagan arts. They studied occult lore and secret knowledge and diabolical arts in the four cities Forias, Goris, Morias, Phindias. From Falias was brought the stone of Faul, which was located in Tara. It used to cry out beneath every king that would take Ireland. From Goris was brought the spear which Lug had. No battle was ever sustained against it, or against the man that held it in his hand. From Phindias was brought the sword of Nuada. No one ever escaped from it once it was drawn from its deadly sheath, and no one could resist it. From Morias was brought the Dogdas cauldron. No company ever went away from it unsatisfied. And there were four wizards in those four cities. Morafesa was in Farias, Esras was in Guris, Ishkiish was in Findias, Shaemias was in Morias. Those are the four poets from whom the Tuadodon learned occult lore and secret knowledge. The Tuhade then made an allegiance with the Fimore, and Balor, the grandson of Niet, gave his daughter Echna to Kin, the son of Din Ket, and she bore the glorious child, Lug. The Tuahade came with a great fleet to Ireland to take it by force from the Fir Bog. Upon reaching the territory of Corka Balgotan, they at once burned their boats, so that they would not think of fleeing to them. Their smoke and the mist which came from the ships filled the land and the air which was near then. For that reason it has been thought that they arrived in clouds of mist. The battle of Maturid was fought between them and the Fir Bog. The Fir Bog were defeated, and one hundred thousand of them were killed, including the king, Ochad Makerek. Nuwadu's hand was cut off in that battle. Shrang Makshren struck it from him. So with Kreknu, the Brazier helping him, Dienkat, the physician, put on him a silver hand that moved as well as any other hand. The Tuadan lost many men in the battle, including Edlio Makoli, Erchnas, Fiacha, and Turio the Koros. Then those of the Firbog who escaped from the battle fled to the Fumore, and they settled in the Aran, and the Isla, and the Man and the Rachlin. There was a contention regarding the sovereignty of the men of Ireland between the Tuadan and their wives, since Nawadu was not eligible for kingship after his hand had been cut off. They said that it would be appropriate for them to give the kingship to Bresh, son of Allah, to their own adopted son, and that giving him the kingship would knit the Famorian's alliance with them, since his father, Allah Makdelbiat, was king of the Famori. And that is the first tale in the Kahmatura on Kietikuo the Kinning Cave. I hope you enjoyed it. Why do all Irish gods look like Caesar? This is a question I think about quite often. Irish deities frequent the likeness of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church so often that on many occasions to break them free is to break them apart, spilling the long ago people's spirits too, leaking that rotting liquid that really just needed a passage tomb instead. Take for instance our Kaluk, the name of the Irish goddess and creator deity, a sacred goddess for many of us. She comes from the old Irish Kalek, meaning veiled one or hooded woman, derived from Kali, meaning veil or hood, which originated in our language in John Guelga, as an early loan word from the Latin pallium, meaning woolen cloak. While we mean this linguistic genetic to refer to a divine hag and creator deity, the Latin pallium, the grandmother word of our colyuc, means the white woolen liturgical vestiment worn over the chasuble by the Pope in the Catholic Church. I don't think we mean it like that. It is important, therefore, when we enter into the hearth fire telling of Irish mythology, we acknowledge the thousands of years of colonialism, of greed, of pain, of unmanaged grief in the separation that follows. One of our greatest deities is named after a pope's cloak. Think about that next time. Sometimes I wonder if we should visit her on our knees, asking for a new language, or a birth of the old. The Kamatura is an angular story set within the circularity of the Irish soul, or anum, a modern Guelga word rooted in the Proto-Celtic Anaman, from the Proto Indo European, meaning to breathe, that is suffixed by the MN suffix which creates abstract action nouns from regular verbs. Anam is a fine word, but there are others, lest we forget Mishnach being the spirit that won't break, and Kri being the center or heart. The Kafmatura also opens the window for our deities and our heroes. The old Irish Kuran meaning hero that is rooted in the proto Celtic Karutz, which means something like warrior champion. It is a tail with teeth, that such that, if we plunge into her bowels and swim in the green grey sluice there, we may find a counterpose narrative at nearly every turn. But leaning back, the story appears not in its naked polarity, but as a round tail that begins and ends at the beginning. It is a true circle, a fine weave, constructed by the pinpoint. You can see the oral tradition imbibing the tail in its looseness, its repetitiveness, the way it holds words like a river holds leaves, just barely, and always just skimming the surface like fairy fingers, like Asi or the Proto Celtic Sidos rose from their earthen mounds to tickle the water surface, just barely, with the bronze pad of Doru's little leaves. Doru, the proto Celtic word for oak. The Kahmatura is a special text, in the sense that it is a cauldron of gods. Many tales in Irish mythology reference the figures of the Tuadon, oftentimes presenting what I find to be a confusing mess of names and places and happenings that commingle into a lifetime of study. But in the Kahmatura, they are landed in embodied figures of clay and shape that speak directly with us to us. In an age that reduces firelit tales into digital videos and those thence into short form Instagram reels, the spirit of the Kahmatura grows increasingly elusive, slippery, and inconvenient, for it presents themes of kinship, hospitality, and sovereignty, balanced so precisely with horrifying colonialism and overt patriarchical power in the raw form of body trickery and sexual assault, but it does not ask us to judge, it does not show us evil, it does not show us outright villainy. Though we yearn for it, we grind our teeth in the seeking of that polarity between white and black, life and death, good and evil. But the Kahmature has something else in store for us. She is a tale of those who do evil as a balance to those who do good, a tale of silence fighting the music, taking it to, a tale of a powerful man who sexually assaults the land's spirit in order to rule the world, and also a tale of a man who loses it because he loses himself. It is a tale of transformation and metamorphosis that leaves it tantalizingly unclear if we are to defer to the Femorians or to defy them, if we are to serve them, these supernatural and monstrous race depicted often as sea dwelling, anti diluvian type giants, or chaotic underworld demons. Or are we to fight them? The tale has answers, I think. Maybe, just maybe, if we stick with her long enough, she will speak. But like I said, hers is an inconvenient trace, and to get there, to arrive is also to begin. The story begins with the Tuadan were in the northern isles of this world, studying occult lore and sorcery, druidic arts and witchcraft and magical skill until they surpassed the sages of the pagan arts. First, we must ask, who are the Tuadanen? What does this term or name mean? Tuad is most simply translated to tribe of or people of, such as would be common to use in describing a basic political unit in Ireland. Tua comes from the root tua, which then comes from the Proto-Celtic Toute, meaning the same but a word that is rooted in the Proto Indo European tute, meaning tribesman, and as such here we find the very nature of Tuode. It is not just a general term describing the people of a place, but an interconnected nomenclature of kinship, such as that rooted, at least Massili, in the chur in the term children of X. As such, if Tuode means the interconnected kin of, then it begs the question who or what is Danin? The grandmother tongue, or Proto Indo European, has a thought. Danu cognates with the Latin donum and the Greek doron. This same Proto Indopian root extends into the Proto Celtic verb ta meaning to give, that cognates well into the Sanskrit ta, the Latin du or there, and the Greek didomi, and also to keep this string going, the old Church Slavonic dati, all meaning the same to give. Cross these Indo cultures and grandchildren of the Proto Indo European language, we witness a connection between gifts and skill. In the English we might say he is gifted to praise someone's skill, but that gift is also given, an idea found in the reflective and very linguistically redundant phrase he has been gifted with skill. This string of thought culminates to the point that our linguistics pay homage to the ancient idea that skills are gifts for the giver, and they are gifts to the receiver both. To exist in community, in other words, is to give and receive, such as the Latin reciprocus, or the modern day and completely overused word reciprocity, meaning in the original Latin, forward and backward simultaneously. But there is more. Only a creative deity can create art in full reciprocity, that is, only a creator can stand outside of the webby fabric of space time and yet create within it. Only a creator can craft with planetary skill that which is given away. This is an important consideration in Irish mythology with the Tuhadan or the people of the giver Danu, or goddess Danu. Linguistically, it begs us to ask what it means to be a goddess. It may mean to create without the boundary of time, to make art in full reciprocity and without consideration to anything but resonance. But therein lays a problem. Danu is not a word to be found in the medieval Irish manuscripts, manuscripts written in Shawn Gerga or the old to Middle Irish. Danu could be a play on words, perhaps, with a Proto Indo European Den, meaning to flow like water, given that the dark waters and creative spirits are central in to Irish symbolism and our stories. Or as it is in my opinion, the Proto Celtic Danu slithered secretly into the old Irish Dan to create the well used phrase Eishdan, or the people of skill, a phrase we will come back to later in our telling of the Krahmature in the figure of Lung. And so to recap, the Duadan are, in one sense, the people of the goddess Danu, and in another sense, they are the interconnected arts weaving Iru's land and her people. I will let you take your pick. Second, it is important for us during these early moments, we're still in the first sentence of the Kahmature, of this tale to realize that the Tuadan come from the northern islands of the world. The original Shonguelga, or Old Irish Manuscript of the Kakmature, found in Harley in Manuscript fifty two eighty folio sixty three A through seventy B, found in the catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum reads Inia Vunchiv Tuaskarta Hiv and Da Moin that translates as Northern Islanders of those who live in the Northern Isles of this world. While some scholars debate if this means those who live to the north in the island of Ireland, I fall in line with those who see the world as a bigger place, an ancient mythology as a fluid medium of memory, and what do migrating hearts need more than memory? To understand this, we need to pick it up once again. The second part reads They studied occult lore and secret knowledge and diabolical arts in four cities Falias, Goris, Morias, and Phindias. From Falias was brought the stone of Fal, which was located in Tara. It used to cry out beneath every king that would take Ireland. From Goris was brought the spear which Lug had. No battle was ever sustained against it, or against the man who held it in his hand. From Findias was brought the sword of Nuada. No one ever escaped from it once it was drawn from its deadly sheath, and no one could resist it. From Morias was brought the Dagda's cauldron. No company ever went away from it, unsatisfied. In The Earth Shapers by Ella Young, an Irish poet and metologist in her nineteen ten edition, wrote Agma brought the sword of light from Findias, the cloud fair city that is in the east of the Dodonan world. Nuada brought the spear of victory from Gorias, the flame bright city that is in the south of the Dodonan world. The Dogda brought the cauldron of plenty from Morias, the city that is builded in the west of the Dodonin world, and has the stillness of deep waters. Midyear brought the store stone of destiny from Falias, the city that is builded in the northern of the Dedan world, and has the steadfast of the animate. Young's words and interpretation tempt a gripping correspondence. Are we presented here with the medicine wheel of the Irish people and spiritual tradition? Findias is a city on high ground, representing the element of air in the direction of east. Goris is a city in sunny climbs, representing the element of fire in the direction south. Morias is a city in the greater body of water, representing the element of water and the direction west, and Phalias is a fortress and steadfast city, representing the element of earth and the direction of north. We see here in the beginning lines of this great story a proposed spirituality and medicine wheel that is rooted in the occult lore and sorcery of Northern Islanders, though we still do not understand who they are, these four wizards as they are described, Morfesa was in Falias, Esras was in Goras, Ishkiish was in Findius, and Shaamias is in Morias. They stand as masters of the magical skill and in part upon the Tuadan the humble and mentor seeking position of apprentices. The story is telling us that these figures possess the heart of a student, though they have become the masters of art, as the text says they surpass the sages of the pagan arts, talking about the Tuod, but their heart is a school of skill, their knees are bent, and they have learned to suckle at the hearth fire of masters. The mythology treats this as a good thing. This heart is the surface of the Tuadon's strength, but it makes them vulnerable, as being a student so often does, and they are ripe for the taking. For in the next line it reads The Tuadai then made an alliance with the Famore, and Balor, the grandson of Nietzsche gave his daughter Echna to Kian, the son of Dienket, and she bore him the glorious child, Lug. The Tuadon's first act in the land of Eru is to make an alliance with those who seem to have also mastered the powers of skill and magic, the Famore. They are hungry for knowledge, for wisdom, and maybe they are too trusting. Like the sages of the Northern Isles, the Fumore are masters of art, but not necessarily the good medicine kind. It is the Fumore's ballor that leads this confluence. He is the son of Nietzsche, the god of war, it is argued, who is sometimes ascribed to the Tuode and sometimes ascribed to the Fumore, perhaps I think, because war can be both good medicine and bad medicine, for war is art in motion, and that also means it can create as well as destroy. Before we move on from this scene in the Tuodan's heart for masters and sages in the polarity of war, it is important to lay the foundation for Lug, a character born just now, from the daughter of Balor, Ekna, and Kin. Lug, who will be seen as the sun god by many, is half Tu Aday and half a More. The theme here is pregnant with symbology, and bursting with meaning, a thing well accomplished by mythology that says so much and so little. The sun in the sky is masculine in the light, and feminine in the dark. Many cultures carry this wisdom. This is just as it is with Lug in our story. He is the dark figure of the Femores Echna, female, paired with the leech and medicine healer of the Tuads Kian, the male. He is half darkness and he is half light. But he has some decisions to make, but we'll see that in the conversations to come. Before we move on and plunge into the depths of this drama, as we are barely touching but the introduction as of yet, it is important to consider the arrival of the Tuade on the shores of Ireland. The text reads The Tuade came with a great fleet to Ireland to take it by force from Fear Bog. Upon reaching the territory of Corka, Belgotan, they at once burned their boats, so that they would not think of fleeing to them. The smoke and the mist which came from the ships filled the land and the air which was near then. For that reason it has been thought that they arrived in clouds of mist. The original Harlean Manuscript fifty two AD of the Kahmature reads something like a sea voyage of great approach, I'm not going to attempt the pronunciation of the words there, but maybe not so much that their fleet was great, as is Gray's translation that we just read together, but rather that their fleet's voyage was great. While this may be considered a small amendment to the translation, or really no amendment at all when you consider the finer points of jumping through two languages to get to our own, it is important to regard the spirit of their seizing of Ireland, as the text says. If the fleet is great, then their taking of Ireland is at the hands of greatness, and either might or size, we don't know. But if the fleet's approach is great, the honor of greatness is bestowed not on their might, but their mass, their interconnected whole as a people, as a Tua, if we remember and recall our beginning study of their name, Tua Danan, and that changes everything. After riding the waves and landing on Eru shores, they set to burn their boats. It is said that this is so that their journey has no rebuttal, no escape, no means for retreat. I think this could be true, but the Shan Gilga uses the term Techid, that we translate to fleeing or flight, as in so that they would not think of fleeing to them. But Techid is rooted in the proto Celtic Techti, meaning to flee, sure, but also in much more directly, to abscond or to desert from duty. As such, Techti adds a layer of communal morality to the translation that the simple English word fleeing fails to hold, and falls far inadequate to. They burned their boats in a cloud of mist, so that their hearts remained singular, non absconded, unbroken, and tightly interwoven with the secure spirit of their social and sacred being. The power of this moment reflects the power of the Irish soul, and the sacred weave of that spirit, that spirad with the land of Eru and the gods. History tells us that the Great Famine in Ireland lasted from eighteen forty five to eighteen fifty two, but we know it never really ended. Over one million people died, and over one million people emigrated. But did they leave? Can they leave? The living and the dead got on boats shore, sailing the Atlantic and sailing the spirit road up into the Milky Way or the Black Nabo fin, but did they flee? Did they abscond? Irish mythology tells stories of people coming from afar. Ireland is mingling, that has no borders. Kyadmifalcha, or a hundred thousand welcomes, isn't just for the tourists. It is for all the souls, living and dead, that a call upon the name of Eru of Ireland. We will see this played out in another story, the tale of a marriage in Glung, but let us hold that for another day, for the tale of the Kahmature is changing, transforming from an introduction of the people, the Tuade to a battle saga, in spirit fury of a culture. The next scene is anchored to the angularity that I mentioned earlier. It is here that the weighted polarity begins. It reads Nuada's hand was cut off in that battle. Shring Makshengen struck it from him, so with Kregnia, the Brazier helping him, Din Kat the physician put on him a silver hand that moved as well as any other hand. Now the Tuadan lost many men in the battle, including Elio Makale, Ernamas, Fiacha, and Turbakro. Then those of the Firbog who escaped from the battle fled with the Famore, and they settled in Aran and the Isla, and in Man and in Rachlin. The story tells us that Nuada is the first leader of the Tuode. His name is considered to be rooted in the Proto-Celtic Nuodent, which means something like to acquire through hunting, though some scholars have suggested a Germanic origin and point to the grandmother tongue of Proto Indo European, focusing on the word Niod instead. In either case, it is Nuada that led them to victory in what is known as the first battle of Maturid, when the Tuade fought their distant kin, the Fear Bog. We can see this in the text a reference to the battle and the scraggly bits and pieces of its outcome. While the Tuade won the battle, their king's arm was cut off by Shring Mekren. This detail is carried beside the death of warrior heroes as though it ranks among them, as though it is death being described by the removal of an arm, not just a wound. In other words, it is not just Edlio Mekalay and Derchamas and Fiacha and Tirel Bakuro that died in the battle with Firbog, but something about Irish kingship died as well. It is this moment that the story is born, for without Noada losing his arm, the rest of the Krachmature would not have happened, it can be supposed. In storytelling we would say this is the great drama. This is when the Titanic springs a leak, when Hamlet goes mad, when Macbeth blurs what is foul and fair. This is Achilles' rage that sets the Argives back. In ancient Irish custom, kingship was a sacred and conditional office, an office quite dissimilar to the medieval notion of kingship through aristocracy, or the latter forms of gentry and nobles. It was not seen as absolute rule, but rather the king or re maintained his right through justice and honor by acting as a husband to the land in ritual marriage. This is called banish ri. Kings were selected through tanistry and not primagenture, that is, through selecting the strongest inside of the body and outside of the body, male in the broader family, and not the oldest in a direct line. But there is more. The sacred rite of Geisha may be seen as a marriage shawl over the sacred union of king and sovereignty goddess, that is between the ruler of Ireland and the land herself. It is a pact dictating honor and strength and respect. Nawada's rule is founded in his marriage with the land, in a sacred and balanced union made of male and female, the walking clay with the clay herself. But Geisha also means wholeness, for Baneshri is strong only so far as Firflachan, a term meaning true judgment or cosmic justice. Banishri is the king's wholeness that maintains the relationship and kinship between the people, or Tuadei and the fertility and sacred power of the land and her goddess. When Nuada loses his arm, fear Flachan is enacted, and through Gesha he is deprived of Baneshri, the right of kingship. Many scholars focus on the fact of Nuwada losing his arm, but I want to focus our attention on a different aspect. It is important, I think, to consider which arm. According to Manuscript thirteen nineteen at Dublin's Trinity College, the concept of Nuwada losing his right hand is connected with Banishri, the hope of kings. It reads Shrang dealt a blow with his sword at Nuwada, and cutting away the rim of his shield severed his right arm at the shoulder, and the king's arm with a third of his shield fell to the ground, as translated by J. Frasier. The phrase right arm at the shoulder is Lovnich Akan Chulin, and the word for right is niche, as in Lovnich or right hand. When Noada loses his Lovnetch, his right hand, he loses the kingship. Like a quiver loses its arrows, and the people lose their connection with land. There is an interesting linguistic connection between Lovnich and its connection with Bonasri in the Proto Slavic language, the sister tongue to Irish. Birdi is a Protoslavic word that holds the connection between one's right hand in the idea of pregnancy, which itself depends on the wholeness and union of male and female. Through this window, though a bit blurry, one might say, we may consider that love nich is like a mother's hope when with child, meaning something like a sacred union of the masculine and the feminine, like a prayer that hope holds. The old Irish Nietz becomes Dish in modern Irish, meaning right side, which lives in phrases such as Er Desch the Gorava Man, meaning may his or her soul be on the right side of God, which one may say at funerals or death songs. Noada's loss of his right arm loses him the kingship, and it severs the Tuadis' connection with the land and her spirits. What comes next changes everything. It reads There was contention regarding the sovereignty of the men of Ireland between the Tuad and their wives, since Nuadu was not eligible for kingship after his hand had been cut off. They said it would be appropriate for them to give the kingship to Bresh, the son of Ilaha, to their own adopted son, and that giving him the kingship would knit the Famorian's alliance with them, since his father, Allah Matilbiat, was king of the Fomori. In this state of separation, the Tuade turn to the Famori, while the English translation of the tale reads They said that it would be appropriate for them to give the kingship to Bresh. The old Irish, the Schonguilga, reads Bakudi, or it would be protecting. Kudi means something like covering or protection or container, and may share linguistic relation with other Irish words such as kultak, meaning structure or building, kuda, the masculine plural of kudov, which is generally considered to mean a covering or a wrapper, like the roof of a house, such as in the phrase Takahunda, and is a term woven throughout the early Christian period, which would be about the same historical time as a manuscript's writing from about the seventh through the tenth century CE, as a protective vessel for sacred items, one used in religious or historical contexts to refer to a shrine, a box or protective case for a relic or a book. If this is true, then kudi used in the manuscript of the Kakmature may just mean something like a collection, or protection through containment when all you have is pieces and bits, that is, when one's connection with the land and her spirits and deities with her like autumn grasses. It is the Famori that the Tuade turn to collect them, to hold them. But why Bresh? Or better who is Bresh? And what happens next? The end comes in balefuls of pain, to write a new beginning, and the battle begins. Join us next time as we continue this telling of the Kahmature Gramor Slangofoil. Nothing in this podcast is true. It's not the Irish mythology your pretty little monks gave to you, the mythology that our pretty little books see as gospel. Nothing in this podcast is true. But if you were to think about it, which I don't think you should, you will see that it is. Only fools bend, stream, straight. Only fools understand, but is not meant to be understood. If this podcast was interesting, if the thoughts of fools meant something to you, please consider rating and reviewing this podcast in the player of your choice. Share it, share it with your friends, and join us on Substack. The link is in the show notes or the podcast description, The Keening Cave, the language of Irish mythology, where you can commune with us, chat with us, and develop these episodes together. And if it is your druthers, get the books. My Rimwalker series, This retelling of Irish mythology through literary horror and mythological fantasy, is available anywhere you get your books. The Plane of Pillars is the first book, Bloodless We Go Buried is the second, and The Way of Salmon Moon is the third. They are retellings from the Kachmature all the way through the Anbedan Fiesa, mergings with Ovid's Metamorphosis, Hamlet, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and more. Go to Mirimaga.