Mél of Ardagh may be one face of Midir, Moon-Immortality God of Brí Leith (Ardagh Hill), son of the Dagda, fosterer of his brother Aengus, and close associate of Brighid. His feast day is 6th February.

I mentioned in the previous issue that Midir, the Irish "Moon-Immortality" god, has several saintly faces - suggesting a god who was important and much-beloved. But, he was downplayed in the sanctioned Mythology, except for his famous love-story with Étaín.

But how can I be sure that Mél of Brí Leith is Midir? Actually, compared to his other saint identities, Brendan and Mobhí, it's a far less certain thing. Indeed, the more I look at him, the more I think he's another heretofore-unknown deity - perhaps a "Fomorian Forerunner" to Midir. But let's get into it and present the case, because I think Mél, if he's part of Midir's identity or retinue, provides a lot of interesting colour.

This week's "Patterns" section is about Euhemerism and Hypostases - essential jargon for comparative mythology.

The Lord of Brí Leith

The most obvious thing about Mél is his location - as Bishop of Ardagh Hill, he's sitting on the site of "Brí Leith", and many references to Méls likely or habitual location in the Saints' Lives refer to the location, not as "Ardagh Hill", but as "Brí Leith" or "Cróchán of Bri Éile" (the latter part pronouncing similarly to "Brí Leith").

This stands out, because Brí Leith is most famously the Sídh mound (godly palace, sort of?) of Midir of the Tuatha Dé. It's presented as such in multiple branches of mythology, and even has more setting detail than most other Sídh mounds. For example, we know that he had three magical cranes that guarded the site, because they were (kinda) stolen by a malevolent poet, one time (1).

Now, I'm not prepared to say that every saint situated on a Sídh mound is automatically the pre-Christian representative of that site, but it's interesting how explicit Mél's situation here is. Mél has no (surviving) early "Vita" or "Life" of his own. He appears as a supporting character in other Lives, such as Brigit's and Patrick's. It's possible be was never a "main character" who would have merited the full "Vita" treatment.

Associations with Saint Brigit

I said in the previous issue that Brigit seems to be born and raised with a brother, Saint Brendan, and Brendan is more definitely Midir (trust me, for now). And now I'm saying Mél is also Midir, maybe? This would seem to present an anachronism, because Mél is there to prophesy Brigit at her birth, and later performs her ordination.

Well, gods' lives are full of anachronisms; Greek Pan is a Son of Hermes, but is also elder teacher to Hermes' older brother Apollo. Ancient writers grappled with this kind of thing; even for the living Greek religion it was a point of confusion. Still, Mél making prophesies prior to his own birth would be quite out there even as Gods go.

A simpler possibility is that, just as Brighid herself is multi-aspected, perhaps even multi-generational, it's possible that Midir was also. At least one of his international parallels, Soma, has several different origin or birth myths. Midir could have been a Celtic Triple Deity, but nothing in the Legendary matter says so.

Anyway, Mél associates a lot with Brigit and it is to him she goes to become a nun. When, by divine intervention, he ordains her as a Bishop in some accounts, he is then rebuked, but Mél upholds her ordination. On several occasions, Mél is simply mentioned as a person Brigit is visiting, or travelling with, and nothing more is said. Whatever the dynamic, they are clearly close.

On one occasion however, a precious chalice of the "King of Teffia" is broken and Mél takes the pieces to Brigit, and she repairs the chalice. This could recall Brighid as a Goddess of crafts, but it's also possible that it recalls Étaín instead, who I speculated last issue might be an aspect of Brighid. Étaín is repeatedly implied circumstantially to be a cupbearer or apportioner of the sacred drink at godly feasts. So, perhaps she has innate power over the chalice, too.

By itself this event gives little information. But if Mél were an incarnation of the Moon-Immortality god, we could speculate more about his relationship to the Chalice, too; why it's he that brings it to Brigit.

Mél: Bald or Sweet?

I call this god the "Moon Immortality" god, but that glosses over something that's more explicit in Dolan's version; the "God of the Sacred Liquid. This god is identified with the drink that restores the immortality (e.g. of the Gods) (2).

Dionysus and Soma, for example, are both identified not only as being gods of the drink (Wine and Soma, respectively), but also literally being the drink itself. Compare with how Jesus literally is the food and drink that give Everlasting Life; same idea.

There are numerous hints in Irish mythos that the "sacred drink" has three primary forms: Milk, Well-Water, and Mead. At sacred feasts, it's "Hazel Mead" that is drunk. This chimes with the Germanic equivalent, the "Mead of Inspiration". It's interesting then to consider the name "Mél" - it's often read as a form of "Mael" meaning "bald", but nobody else's name containing 'Mael' gets rendered 'Mél' in this way. Another speculated origin is "Mil" (or "Mel"), meaning "Honey".

Ó'Hanlon in "Lives of the Irish Saints", writes with frustration that people can't agree on whether his name implies "Honey" or "Bald", and that people also kept identifying Saint Mél with female saints having similar names. I find this tendency amusing because Midir's parallel Dionysus, at least, is also fairly Gender-queer (from a Greek POV).

There is a more direct meaning of "Mél", which is "Shame" - I deem it unlikely, but there is a myth that might support that - his hinted relationship to his kinswoman.

Suspicious Cohabitation

In the Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick, a story appears where Patrick comes to judge whether Mél, and a "Kinswoman" (per Whitley-Stokes) or "Sister" (per Hennessy) with whom he's cohabiting, are engaged in inappropriate conduct. In retellings it seems to be assumed that this woman is Lupait, Patrick's sister, and Mél's aunt - but the original story doesn't seem to say.

Patrick finds Mél catching fish in the rain-filled furrows of a field. The woman meanwhile, carries a hot coal in her clothes without burning them. Both miracles show their continued favour with god, so Patrick separates them to either side of Brí Leith just in case, and leaves (3).

This feat of carrying a coal harmlessly seems, to me, a common Brighid-type myth - Gobnait and her sisters (next issue!) do this also, for example, and some folkloric allusions have Brigit herself doing this on some occasions.

The "Catching Fish in a Field" mytheme is interesting to me, because the Midir-Dionysus-Soma cluster of gods we're looking at here seem to be associated with the fruitfulness of vegetation and sea. Brendan, for example, is also associated with Fish-miracles, and the parallel god of the Norse (as identified by Dolan) is Njorðr, primarily understood as a patron god of fishing. Fishing in the Fields seems like an interesting blend of the two domains, though Patrick seemed sceptical of it.

Aspect or Forerunner?

Mél's relationship to Midir is interesting - thematically and situationally they seem to match, kinda. But Mél is presented as distinctly Elder to Brigit. And if I'm right about her birth scene and the Bríd of Brendan's childhood, then Brigit and Brendan (e.g. "a" Brighid and Midir) are approximately the same age.

So does this make Mél an older aspect of Midir's, or a forerunner who cedes the site to Midir? Well, there are clues to suggest that it's the latter. But both can be true; the forerunner becoming identified fully with the later god, as an aspect.

Mél's mother is named "Darerca", and for a few reasons I already suspect that she may represent Tailtiú. That is, the presumed earth-goddess of the Fir Bolg who survived the First Battle of Maigh Tuired, and remarried within the Tuatha Dé. Tailtiú would later go on to foster Lugh, and seems to have some implied role in the establishment of fruitful agriculture. Darerca and some seeming duplicates of hers may collectively hit all of these story beats, and we'll address them in future issues. Tailtiú must have been a big deal; Lugh established the "Talitiú Games" at Lughnasa in her honour. But we now know little about her.

If Mél's mother Darerca is Taltiú, then Mél is a Fir Bolg.

Mél of the Fir Bolg?

Let's assume that the Fir Bolg, as the immediate predecessors of the Tuatha Dé (that is, the Gods of Civilisation), are somewhat akin to the Titans in Greek Mythology, or the Jotunn of Germanic mythology. These deities are forerunners in the sense that they occupy the world, and their powers define the world in the same way that the Gods' will, someday. But, they're coarser, less inclined toward "Civilisation". Some will be "good" or "neutral" and may join the ranks of the Gods of Civilisation, later. Others will be hostile, and must be subjugated or replaced.

Now, the immediate problem with this comparison is that, firstly, at least some of the Titans or Jotunn seem to be ancestors of the Gods in their respective religions, but the Fir Bolg are presented only as cousins of the Tuatha Dé. It's the Fomhoire ("Fomorians" in many translations) who have among their ranks the ancestors of the Gods of Civilisation. But, as many scholars have noted before, the Fir Bolg may not have been distinct from the Fomhoire in the first place (for examples in the bibliography, Rhys & MacAlister, or Sjoestedt). In fact, the Fir Bolg don't appear in pseudo-histories prior to the Leabhar Gabhála Éireann at all.

If the Fir Bolg simply are a subgroup of Fomhoire, how would this support a positioning of Mél as a "forerunner" of Midir?

Fragmented Genealogies

Midir is son of the Dagda, and brother of Aengus. Those are the only two clear and explicit familial links in the mythologies. We infer that he has a bunch of other siblings including Brighid, and we can presume that his mother was the Dagda's wife: Mórrígan. Their saintly counterparts support this presumption, because a "Bishop Erc" brings Saint Brendan to be "fostered" by Saint Íta, the Mórrígan.

Tailtiú is married to "Eochaid mac Eirc", and the two parts of his name seem to bridge the "Eochaid" of the Dagda's epithet "Eochaid Ollathair" and "Erc" of the Bishop, above. Indeed, the name "Erc" seems to be an old epithet of the Dagda (4). Mél's mother's name, Darerca, seems to literally mean "Woman of Erc" (that's not why I suspected her to be Tailtiú but it helps) (5).

So, Mél's mother's name does support an indirect match to Midir's own parentage, but points to a prior generation. Interestingly this would help explain another link of Mél's: if Mythic-Mél were a son of Tailtiú, he'd be a foster-brother to Lugh. Mél, for his part, is a nephew of the preeminent Lugh-Saint, Patrick.

But are there any links in the legendary material to support this idea? Kinda: there is an alternative, perplexingly incompatible, genealogy for Midir: "son of Induí son of Échtach son of Etarlam". This would make Midir a brother to "Neit", who's in turn an ancestor or Uncle of The Dagda. Clearly, not compatible with "default Midir". This genealogy seems to belong to someone entirely different; perhaps a forerunner, like our speculative Mél.

So we have one possible genealogy among the Fir Bolg, another among the Fomhoire, and maybe these groups weren't even distinct before the pseudohistory got padded out to match the Christian idea of a six-aged world. And if Mél did number among the Fomhoire as brother to Neit, that could explain another saint; the mysterious Mélchú.

Melchú - Reflection or Protection?

Mél has a brother named Mélchú, who seems to just follow Mél wherever he goes. They usually share Mél's feast-day. It's debated whether this person is distinct from Mél himself, but it's unusual for a saint to be duplicated in-place - usually duplicates are separated in space and time.

But if we accept Mél as being a possible brother of Neit, then perhaps Neit could explain Mélchú. Dolan links Neit to Cúchulainn, suggesting that Neit is his higher essence, aligning with the "Warrior Gods" Ares or Mars, or with the Hindu deity Vishnu.

Now, I've mentioned before: I consider the "Vishnu" type to mostly be an expression of the Warrior archetype of the Divine Twin gods. In my model, Cúchulainn is best understood as a Warrior twin, and Aengus as a "Peaceable" twin. There are several saints that will help me make this all clearer. Something Dolan and I don't disagree on, is that the Warrior god's usual role is "Defender of the Sacred".

The Moon-Immortality god is a frequent ally of the Divine-Twin god, but usually it's the Peaceable archetype. Midir and Aengus, Brendan and Moling, Chyavana and the Ashvins. However, maybe it isn't always so. If Mél is an earlier mirror of Midir and has similar parent-archetypes, it's possible that his brother, too, is a similar character to Midir's brother - a Divine Twin. But, Neit seems to be a Warrior archetype. And the "Cú" in Mélchú's name is a strong sign that he, too, may be a Warrior (6).

But Aengus, Moling, and the Ashvins don't hang around all the time. The former grow up with the Moon-Immortality god and then "graduate" to their own mythic arcs. Why does Mélchú shadow Mél?

Well, the Peaceable Twin's theological role might be to become a sort of priest or assistant of the religious or sacrificial rite (that is, the feast of the gods). This role is won through magic, trickery, or proof of canny wisdom. But the Warrior seems to earn a role of sacral-protector by combat: Cúchulainn earns his name and his first warrior role when he becomes the guardian of Culann's feasting-house, where the (euhemerised) gods gather for their mead-feast. If Mél is the god of the sacred drink, maybe literally is the divine sacrament in a sense, then his brother, his "hound", could be his divine protector - his bodyguard.

In Summation..

This whole model of Mél being the Fomhoire's earlier answer to Midir is based on circumstantial threads that keep reaching for each other, but never quite connect. The best connection I can point to is Darerca being Taltiú, a case I won't be presenting until March. But it's an interesting model because of what it could explain:

• Why we have a character who outwardly resembles a Midir-saint at Brí Leith.
• Why this character's mother seems to be Tailtiú, which implies his Fir-Bolg father would be Eochaid mac Eirc - possibly the Fir Bolg shadow of The Dagda.
• Relatedly, why this character has an ambiguous familial connection to Saint Patrick.
• And, why he has a brother who is his "hound" and shadow.

I'll leave it here - there's no certainty for now. But as a final tidbit: while there are no manuscript-attested Fir Bolg or Fomhoire with convincing-enough names to match Mél, there is a town named "Rinn Mhíl"... and one folkloric account of that name based it on a Fir Bolg chieftain, named "Mél".

Perhaps I've found their patron?

Wrap-Up

Ardagh Hill or "Brí Leith" is of course the most closely associated place for Midir. But, maybe Rinn Mhíl has some resonance too?

"Mél" or derivatives of it aren't widely used names, and it would be hard to distinguish from names that came from "Mael" meaning bald or tonsured, anyway. Perhaps we can fudge things and claim "Malachy" as being close to Mélchú, even if it's officially not.

Footnotes

1. It's often said that Midir's Cranes are a mark of his inhospitality because of how the poet uses them to keep away guests - but it's not clear that they did this for Midir. Midir appears highly hospitable, one time even offering his daughters in marriage to a trio of spoilt dilettantes.
2. The food and drink that restores the gods is implied in many mythologies to be provided by the sacrifices humans give. Its restorative power may esoterically link to the regeneration of souls for re-incarnation or transmigration. Cults of the gods associated with the divine drink (such as Dionysus or Jesus) seem to focus on the idea of a perfected death or a better sort of afterlife, won by consuming a sacramental food or drink.
3. Later on, Lupait (definitely this time) is found to be pregnant after a relationship with Colmán, and Patrick crushes her under his chariot repeatedly until she's dead. He scolds Colmán.
4. Erc seems to be an ancient or localised name of the Dagda (Kelly, 2024), and may be the Irish version of the Proto-Indo-European name for the Thunderer-deity (Lajoyea & Oudaerb, 2014). Dolan considers The Dagda primarily as a fusion of the Wind-Warrior deity and the Father Sky deity, but his euhemerised form "Fergus" in the Ulster cycle is more clearly a Thunderer. In Northwest Europe, it's not clear that the Wind and Thunder Deities were distinct: Thor, for example, has domain over both. I have a suspicion that the "erg" phoneme from "Fergus" and a few other names similarly derives from Lajoyea & Oudaerb's "Erc".
5. Am I saying Mórrígan is Tailtiú? Not really.. the more obvious successor to a probable "Land Goddess" is Mórrígan's sister, Ériú. But, Ériú is kinda subordinated to Mórrígan in a few accounts of her - not so much that I'd say Ériú had become an aspect of Mórrígan's, but enough that seeing Mórrígan step in isn't very surprising. The Father Sky god (Dagda) ought to consort with Land (Ériú) before being parted, while the Wind God (also Dagda) consorts with Primordial Water (~Mórrígan). But Dagda only has the latter for a wife - so Brendan (Midir) is son to Íta (Mórrígan) rather than a successor to Tailtiú. My suspicion is that Primordial-Water is the more apt origin for the Moon-Immortality god, anyway.
6. The name-part "Cú" is not unique to the Warrior-God incarnations. Cú-Roí, to pick one example, does not seem to be the Warrior-God (per se). But working in the other direction, it does seem to me that most Warrior-god incarnations indeed usually have "Cú" in their names. For example, Cúchulainn, who Dolan speculated to be the incarnation of Neit. The "Cú" is certainly a hint.

Bibliography

• Ó'Hanlon, John (1875), "Lives of the Irish Saints, Vol.2", Available on Archive.org
• Kelly, Eamonn P. (2024) "The Mysterious Bishop Erc", in Irish Lives Remembered, Issue 61, pp.57-67, published by Irish Family History Centre.
• Lajoyea, Patrice; Oudaerb, Guillaume (2014) "Percos/Ercos: An Unknown Celtic Theonym", The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Volume 42, No. 1&2, Spring/Summer 2014, p.50
• Stokes, Whitley (1887) "Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick" - Available on Archive.org
  • Regarding Mél and his Kinswoman: p.87-89
  • For Patrick murdering his sister Lupait by chariot: p.235
• Hennessy, William Maunsell (1874) "Tripartite Life". In: "The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick", Available on Wikisource
• Rhys, John; Macalister, R.A Stewart (1988), "" Ériu, Volumes 39–41. Royal Irish Academy
• Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise (1949) "Celtic Gods and Heroes". Dover Publications, 2000 ed.

Coming Up

11th Feb: Gobnait of Baile Mhuirne, Cork - an Irish Hearth-Fire and Bee Goddess who seems fairly clearly to be Brigid in her "Hestia" aspect.

15th Feb: Saint Berach, a Fintan Saint with a key role in the Childhood of Lugh.

An Intermission! March will be busy, and February's remaining saints are still obscure to me. So, I'm taking a break to catch my breath.

5th Mar: Cíarán of Saighir, representing an aspect of the "Demiurge" Creator-God.

Patterns in Celtic Comparativism, #5: Hypostases and Euhemerisms

I've used these words already, I should probably have given this introduction sooner.

"Euhemerised" deities are those that have been rendered as mortals in a retelling of a story. For example, in the Eddas, the Norse Gods are introduced as being very witchy mortal humans. And, in the Irish Leabhar Gabhála Éireann, the Irish gods and their rivals are likewise just described as weird magic humans. They've been Euhemerised.

Now, even within a healthy tradition that isn't being rewritten for the sake of religious suppression, you'll see euhemerism. Sometimes it's part of the structure of an Epic, where the Kings and Heroes that form the drama are, upon close inspection, apparently just winking, unacknowledged incarnations of the Gods, playing out a drama that requires them to adopt high-stakes like "Mortality".

Generally, it's a Euhemerisation if you have the same character, usually with the same name, being cast as, or claimed to be, nothing but a regular person. For example: the Early Saints of Ireland, which this whole newsletter is about.

Another related word I've been using loosely is "Hypostasis". This word has a bunch of theological baggage, but I'm just copying the looser use of other comparativists. A "hypostasis" of a god is a partial or full duplicate of the god in some other form, perhaps to serve a role that would be contradictory in the wider context. There are times when it's an overlapping concept with a Euhemerisation. But a common distinction is; if the character is meant to be read as their own distinct character, it might be a hypostasis rather than a Euhemerisation.

So, in the prior issue when I mentioned I read Theseus as being a Divine Twin; consider that the "official" Divine Twins, the Dioscuroi, are narratively really close by - they even rescue Helen after Theseus and Pirithous abducted her, but the two pairs of "Twins" never actually meet. The reader/listener isn't meant to see them as being identified characters, even if they seem to be. Theseus and Pirithous are hypostases of the nearby Dioscuroi. I might also say "incarnations of" but that wouldn't be quite accurate, in this case. Saying "hypostases" is a bit more like saying "Instances Of".

It's not always a matter of hidden relationships - it's just important that the hypostasis is understood to be their own person. The three gods who form a divine-union in Catholicism (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), for example, are hypostases of the overarching god, Yahweh/El.

Hopefully this explanation made sense, and didn't make the words seem even more obtuse.