Ruadán is the Irish Prometheus - but with a twist. The god of the lost golden-age of ignorance and effortless plenty, the well-meaning god whose fault it is that mankind now toils.

This issue will cover an internationally mysterious deity, whose alignment with regard to the other gods seems quite variable, and whose moral alignment (whether a beneficient trickster-protector (Mesopotamian Enki), or a primordial trouble-maker (Greek Prometheus)) is likewise very divisive.

I can say with reasonable confidence that Ruadán is the Irish Prometheus because of two key myths, and because of the involvement of a king representing the Irish "Adam" in one of them. But the way one of these myths plays out looks very different from the international parallels - it seems that maybe the Irish Prometheus Ruadán was an ambivalent god - perhaps at once friend and foe to the first humans.

Some Prelude, Cancelling Sts. Ibar & Carthach

This newsletter is still very small and quiet: I've been putting a lot of effort into each issue, but it's not yet clear whether this is something that actually has much of a potential audience. I enjoy writing this and sharing it, but I need to ensure I'm not over-committing myself.

So, I am going to cancel issues for a few upcoming God-Saints, and one of them is the next issue, for Bishop Íbar, one of the pre-Patrick saints. Another will be "Mochuda" or "Carthach the Younger".

By way of reminder: I do not use generative LLMs (commonly, mistakenly, called "AI") and I do not use email-analytics (for your privacy, I do not know whether you've opened or clicked-through). I'm also strident about approaching comparative mythology from an open-minded, pluralist, and humane point of view, which is sadly not at all guaranteed in this field.

If you appreciate hand-written and socially-respectful mythology work, share it about: it would really help. And, let me know what you found interesting, or if you think I've made any errors - I'm open to feedback.

On to Ruadán

Ruadán is a saint whose name apparently means "little russet one" (English orth: "Rew-awn"). Rua is an Irish word often translated as "red", but more accurately it's lighter reds & oranges. When describing a person, it refers to red hair.

The name turns up in a few corners - it's the name of Brighid and Bres' son who attempts to assassinate Goibniú in the run-up to the Battle of Maigh Tuired, but who is instead killed by Goibniú. "Áed Ruadh Ró-fhessa" is also one of the Dagda's many names, joining the names Áed and Ruadh together (In fact, the Dagda is also called "Donn", unifying three of the names we'll be seeing a lot of in this story). Another "Áed Rúad" is a high king who co-rules with his brothers, and is succeeded after his death by his daughter Macha Mong-Ruad.

Macha's father Áed Rúad dies in some miraculous way in Eas Ruadh ("The Falls of Ruadh") - but before he drowned there, it was called Eas Duinn - "The Falls of Donn". This is mysterious but noteworthy - the Ruads, Aeds, and Donns are names or archetypes that seem to eccentrically orbit one another.

Ruadhán himself is an interestingly pluripotent god - he has fire myths, he has water myths, he grants skill at medicine, and he's tied up in the Promethean myths this issue will explore. He's described as handsome and 12 feet tall. He associates closely with Brendan, in an intriguingly ambiguous way - imagine if Dionysus were just sort of hanging around Prometheus, showing moral support.

"Who" is Ruadhán? He's Ruadhán. Just as Prometheus doesn't seem to be clearly any other god wearing a disguise, and Mātariśvan isn't clearly just Agni by another name, either. If any international Promethean god resembled Ruadhán, it would be Enki - but while Enki is consistently on the side of humanity, it doesn't look like Ruadhán is. And who's representing Humanity in Ruadhán's tale? Firstly his Monks, and secondly, the High King, Diarmait.

Diarmait, King of Ireland

During the story of Ruadán's floruit, the king is Diarmait mac Cerbaill.

Diarmait is the "last pagan king" according to the pseudohistories. He's a descendent of the Uí Néill dynasty, who in many ways appear to be a kingly-dynastic representation of the primordial gods, with Néill himself as the "Lugaid", and his sons as the god-named founders of various dynasties (1).

If his ancestors are "gods", is Diarmait a "god"? The answer isn't straightforward - based on comparative work by Taliesin's Map, it appears very clear that "Diarmait" should be considered an epithet of the god Donn, one of the Irish gods of the dead. But, the gods of the dead are often ancestors of humanity, having an origin mythos that either explicitly or implicitly frames them as ancestors of mankind prior to their death.

For example, Yama and Yami of Hinduism are the ancestors of mankind, but in choosing to procreate they also "choose" death, becoming mortal. When Yama dies, he is the first to trace a path to the pleasant afterlife where his descendants will follow.

The nature of this First-Ancestor, God-of-Death character sometimes includes the idea of him being the "first king", and often a generally very wise character whose death comes about because of hubris or failures of judgement.. but where the character thereafter returns to the status of moral paragon or judge. And indeed, Hindu Yama becomes a judge of the dead, and we might infer that his parallel in Ireland, Donn, is not only the one who greets the trasitioning dead in his feasting hall, but also perhaps judges them and determines their fate.

Indeed, there is good reason to imagine that there may have been a mythic cycle where Donn was viewed as the First Ancestor and a Primordial King, as previously explored by Kuno Meyer with regard to the older textual sources on Donn, and subsequently by Müller-Lisowski in regard to widespread folklore. It seems that Donn was regarded as an Ur-Ancestor and King, and some of his folkloric epithets such as "Donn Fírinne" (perhaps "Donn of Truth") sound very like the Hindu "Yama", who is AKA "Dharma" and a judge of righteousness - perhaps even remembered in the Irish phrase "Ar Slí na Fírinne" or "On the path of Truth", a euphemistic way to refer to death.

Donn-as-Primordial-King fits well with Diarmait's remarkable granting of kingship by none other than Cíarán, the creator-Deity - as related in Cíarán of Clonmacnoise' Life, when Diarmait is there to help Cíarán lay the very first foundation of his temple near Uisnech (the very heart of the world).

Wait Where Was I

Why is this relevant to Ruadhán? Well, if Ruadhán is Prometheus, then he's a catalyst-god - one whose role is to participate in establishing mankind's relationship to Death, Toil, Sentience, and the Gods.

These are Ancestor-myths. These myth attach to the earliest traceable ancestors of mankind, whether the first humans created, or the last survivors of the latest godly cataclysm.

Sometimes, these stories are separated out, so that some of the stories attach to the first-created, and others to the latter survivors.

For example, the story of Adam and Eve masterfully blends all but the Flood/Plague Myth into one story: there are two fruits that are forbidden to Adam and Eve, one gives Sentience and the other Immortality. A divine trickster, the serpent, helps mankind win "Mind", but the punishment is the imposition of toil by Yahweh. And, in being kicked out before they can taste the other fruit, Mankind lose access to immortality - effectively, mortality is the consequence. The Flood myth happens later, becoming attached to the survivors and "most recent common ancestors": Noah and his family.

I've covered previously where there might be an echo of the Flood and Plague myths in the story of Féichín of Fore. And, Taliesin's Map has shown how the story of Diarmuid and Gráinne in the Fenian Cycle covers a great deal of the "Yama" or "Adam & Eve" cycle of the figure who:

1. Gains sacred sovereignty, but loses it through wrongful speech or judgement
2. Enters a taboo relationship that creates tension with the gods
3. Hides in a sacred tree or wood
4. Has, but loses, access to the food of immortality
5. And, Restores peace (with assistance from anthropophilic gods) with the fiercer gods, but with a newer, tense dynamic

If Diarmuid Ó'Duibhne (AKA Diarmuid Donn, or Diarmuid mac Donn Uí Dhuibhne) has this myth because he's a representation of a god, then it's safe to say which god that would be: Donn. Éber Donn also loses the favour of a sovereignty goddess by insulting her, and he subsequently becomes the first "mortal" (that is, Milesian) to die in Ireland (2).

These give us (Eber) Donn and Diarmuid Ó'Duibhne as the carriers of the ancestral myths of loss of sovereignty, loss of immortality, and death. While, Floods and Plague appear later (but also at the urging of a King named "Diarmait"!). That still leaves the myths of the imposition of toil, and the confiscation & theft of Fire. We find those stories with Ruadhán and King Diarmait mac Cerbaill; completing the set, with a Donn or Diarmuid/Diarmait involved on every occasion.

Ruadhán's Tree

After Ruadhán has left the tutelage of Finnian and wandered a bit, he settles in Lorrha. We then encounter an interesting tale - a tale that also appears in the life of Finnian, so it's not simply an invention of the Ruadhán writers.

Ruadhán and his "monks" (perhaps, Mankind) have a tree that provides all of their sustenance, producing a magical resin that feeds them and keeps them healthy. The "other saints" (gods) complain to Finnian (probably a Saint of "Fintan", who, at this stage of the Saintly cycle, sits very much like a peaceable-Fionn-type king of the gods. A bit like Óðinn, if he left his spear at home). They don't like how Ruadhán's monks don't have to toil in the fields, and complain that their own monks won't work for them and are defecting to Ruadhán.

This reads a bit like the gods complaining that mankind won't pray or sacrifice to them, because they need nothing from the gods. Anyway, Finnian takes this complaint onboard, and he and a few others go to Ruadhán's place, and "sain" (bless) the tree, so it no longer supports Ruadhán's people. They trash the tree, OK.

Ruadhán helps to support his monks for that evening with miraculous fish and blessed water, but Finnian instructs him that he and his monks must toil on the earth from now on. Out of fondness for Ruadhán, he blesses them with fertile soil, so they won't have to work too hard.

That rough accounting is agreed in the lives of Ruadhán and of Finnian - it's an important enough myth to be shared between them. It certainly reads like an "imposition of toil" myth, but not one arising out of punishment, necessarily. Possibly, you could read the idleness of the "monks" as implying hubris, but it's also simply possible that the gods wanted mankind to be less self-sufficient for selfish reasons.

For example, Enki creates mankind essentially as workers so that the gods needn't toil - perhaps the Irish myth similarly situates humanity, who seem to be under Ruadhán's benevolent patronage, as a group who were simply convenient to impose the Gods' own work upon.

Ruadhán's Theft of Fire

The second myth is where things get harder, in comparison. It's a coded fire-theft myth, apparently, but one where Ruadhán-as-Prometheus seems to be in the role of Fire-Confiscator rather than Fire-Thief.

In brief, the story works like this (remember: Áed, or variants such as "Aodh", literally mean "Fire"): 1. Diarmait sends a messenger named Áed Baclámh to ostentatiously demonstrate his power (sovereignty) over the kingdoms of Ireland by ensuring none have an enclosing wall without a large gap in it. 2. One of the Kings, named "Áed Guaire" kills this messenger, and flees. 3. He bounces around a few people giving him sanctuary while Diarmait tries to capture him, but eventually ends up with Ruadhán. 4. When Diarmait comes to capture him from Ruadhán's care, Ruadhán cannot lie to him (3) but says "I do not know where he is, unless he be under your feet" - this is a trick, because Áed is literally hiding in a chamber beneath Ruadhán's temple. 5. Diarmait figures this out - in one version, because he sees torchlight from Áed's hideaway, in another, simply because he sees through the trick in hindsight. 6. Diarmait captures Áed and keeps him in Tara. Ruadhán and a number of other saints lay siege - Diarmait has a prophetic dream that his kingship will fail, and goes to parlay. 7. Diarmait and Ruadhán exchange a bruising series of prophetic-curses on one another - interestingly for this King-versus-Saint exchange, Diarmait is by no means without power to prophesy-curse terrible things on Ruadhán. But in the end, Diarmait concedes and returns Áed.

This seems to be a Fire Thief myth, with Fire personified as a mostly-passive person named "Áed" ("Fire"). When I first read it, I assumed that Diarmait here represented the king of the gods, and that he was trying to confiscate fire from "mankind" (Ireland), and Ruadhán helped to recover it from him.

But, that would be ignoring the signs that Diarmait mac Cerbaill does indeed inherit also from the Donn/Diarmuid mythos, in being granted sovereignty by the highest gods but losing it, in dying a sacred-seeming death, and having his head separated, and so on. If a "king" god archetype was needed, there were other saints and kings who could have stolen fire for Ruadhán to recover it - but it's Diarmait, of all people, who is the opponent. And, the Prometheus and the Primordial Human are expected to interact, so this shouldn't be surprising.. but it seems to go against the grain that in this myth, the seeming Prometheus deity is the one who's concealing fire from the ancestral-human character.

Oh, and if Diarmait represents Donn, note again the confluence of those three names: Áed, Ruad, Donn.

What's Brendan Doing There?

In addition to an early friendly interaction in the life of Ruadhán, Brendan also is his main wingman in laying siege to Diarmait - what's that about?

I'm looking forward to exploring Brendan's mythos in his own issue - he's Midir, the "Moon Immortality" god, corresponding to Dionysus or vedic Soma. But this god is only ever a breath away from the underworld god: the mythos of Hades and Dionysus, for example, are fully of esoteric details connecting them as faces of the same essential personage. And where does Brendan go on his famous voyage? The afterlife.

So, why is he there at the beginning of the end for Diarmait? Perhaps foreshadowing the trail that Diarmait himself will soon have to blaze: the path to the "pleasant afterlife".

In Closing

If Ruadhán's account is faithful to the original myth, then the Irish Prometheus did provide a source of perfect sustenance to mankind prior to the intervention of Finnian (a Fionn-type god, possibly identifiable with Fintan mac Bóchra), but is later the opponent of mankind's efforts to reclaim Fire.

In at least the Greco-Roman and Abrahamic view, the "Fire" is Knowledge, and the acquisition of this knowledge gives mankind Sentience but also introduces one of the great curses on mankind, that of awareness. Anxiety, if you like. Mankind knows more than a mere animal, and because of this, Mankind strives to live in a way other than a normal animal might; and this tension creates suffering that any other animal couldn't know.

The metaphor uses Fire because this is one of the deciding differences between "wild" man and "civilised" man: the cooking of food, the lighting and warming of dwellings, the baking of bricks and the preservation of wood and thatch. Fire is knowledge, and fire is the separation of man and nature.

Potentially, then, Ruadhán might still have been seen as an "ally" to mankind if he were trying to prevent this "fire" from being re-acquired in order to return mankind to a state of naturally ignorant bliss. This would help make sense in the context of a deity who's usually always on the side of Mankind (even if religions differ on whether they made things worse in trying to help). If we assume that this alignment with mankind is preserved here, it does suggest that the Irish might have had a "wistful" attitude to Fire and Knowledge.. but perhaps that they didn't blame the Irish "Prometheus" as the Greco-Roman and Abrahamic religions did: after all, it seems Ruadhán tried to return us to (blissful?) ignorance.

Wrap-Up

Ruadhán and variants thereof are current names in use, including in a shortened orthographic form as "Rúán".

Lorrha is the primary site associated with Ruadhán, though others exist. But the wider name "Ruadh" includes very storied sites like Eas Ruadh, a waterfall associated with Goll Eassa Ruadh, who might be a form of Fintan and might be the Salmon of Knowledge. This is also the place where Áed Ruadh dies mysteriously and magically. Unfortunately, Eas Ruadh is currently inundated thanks to a hydropower project - hopefully someday it, along with other rivers in Ireland, will be freed from this short-sighted form of power generation, in favour of the Good Stuff: Solar, Wind, and Batteries.

In terms of Sacred Animals, there's not much: there is a Boar when Ruadhán arrives at Lorrha, but it flees from him and it wasn't decisive in his choice to settle there - so it's not clear that it's our "Sacred Animal Indicates Site" myth.

The tree that Diarmuid Ó'Duibhne gains access to is a Rowan, and perhaps it should be read as being one and the same as Ruadhán's tree of sacred resin.

Indeed, Ruadhán, Rowan..huh. While the tree-name "Rowan" does not come from Irish or relate to the Irish name "Caorthann", the origin of "Rowan" does seem to come from a Germanic root that might be related to "Ruadh": "Raud" - who knows? Ask a philologist. It would be really cool if the Irish Tree of Immortality shared a name-root with the possible god of it, but only by such a circuitous route!

Footnotes

1. Did Néill exist as a historical figure? I don't know - as far as I'm concerned, that's outside the scope of analysing the mythology built around him and his contemporaries. The fact that his name isn't just "Lugaid" could be a small hint that his name was derived from a real break-through high king who later was assigned a Lugaid-ish mythos, sort of like how Patricious ("Patrick") was probably a real person but his hagiographical identity mostly isn't.
2. For the sake of this argument, let's say that Íth, whose murder incites the Milesian invasion, is something a bit higher-tier than the sons of Galamh. Also note Kuno Meyer's work finding "slips" in the Christianised version of the Milesian Donn, where some accounts make it clear that Donn was mankind's ancestor, rather than his surviving brothers.
3. The Hagiographical account is that Ruadhán simply wouldn't lie, presumably because he's a saint. It's more likely, I think, that this was originally about how Diarmait is a sovereign king, and in Celtic myth a real king can't be deceived. Indeed, the archetypical failed-king, Bres, loses his kingship in part because he makes a false judgement in a case where Aonghus and the Dagda are conspiring against him, as if to say that a real king would have been able to know the truth anyway.

Bibliography

• Plummer, Charles (1922) "Bethada Náem nÉrenn", Available on UCC Celt
• Stokes, Whitley (1890) "Lives of Saints, from the Book of Lismore" - Available at Archive.org (NB: Open at the spread in the Life of Finnian where he forces Ruadan to adopt a life of toil; line 2678)
• Ó Riain, Pádraig (2014) "Four Tipperary Saints: The Lives of Colum of Terryglass, Cronan of Roscrea, Mochaomhog of Leigh and Ruadhán of Lorrha". ISBN: 978-1-84682-550-7 Four Courts Press.
• Müller-Lisowski, Käte (1948) "Contributions to a Study in Irish Folklore: Traditions About Donn". Béaloideas 18, pp142–199.
• Meyer, Kuno (1919) "Der irische Totengott und die Toteninsel" in: Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften, pp. 537–546.

Coming Up

(I noticed yesterday that this section has been rendering badly because of how Markdown handles carriage returns: sorry!)

• 30th Apr: Bealtaine, the Rogue Sun, and the Mórrígan
• 1st May: Cellach (& Cúchongeilt) of Killala; the Divine Twins
• 6th May: Inghean Bhuidhe & Cróbh Dearg, Local Mórrígna of Munster
• 16th May: Brendan, or Midir, the Moon-Immortality God

Patterns in Celtic Comparativism, #13: Sovereignty

Much, much has been written on the idea of Sovereignty in Celtic mythology. There are some unique tropes that come up in the Celtic matter that have been maybe over-interpreted and over-emphasised, but despite that they remain really quite interesting.

Not every goddess is a sovereignty goddess, for one thing. Some goddess' favour is needed if you want to remain king, for sure, but that doesn't seem to put them in the same category as the Goddess who is Sovereignty, personified.

The outline of this goddess' myth looks like this: 1. A group of (generally men) are in a scenario where they need something; help, lodgings, that deer over there 2. A hag gate-keeps access to what they need, and she's outrageously ugly. She demands a sexual concession of some kind; a kiss, or actual sex. 3. Other men spurn her, but the True One Who Would Be King sleeps with her. Sometimes, it's suggested that he does so with gusto, or goes beyond the requirement; she asks for a kiss, he takes her to bed. 4. Surprise! She's beautiful now (usually not before the sex though), and she reveals that she is Sovereignty, and that the man who has her has the sovereignty over [LAND].

Generally, you don't get to sleep with the Sovereignty Goddess without becoming High King. But Diarmaid Ó Duibhne of the Fianna does; she just gives him a really rad house on a hill. It's probably safe to assume, given the parallel tradition of High King Diarmait mac Cerbaill, that Diarmuid's sovereignty escapades did originally feature a kingship.

It's also not universal or even common for a king to lose the Sovereignty, but Diarmuid does, by speaking ill of her three times. The house then disappears, he eventually loses the goddess as his beloved as well, and he returns to being "merely" a Fian. Interestingly, Eber Donn loses his life basically as a result of insulting Ériú, who (with her sisters Banba and Fódla) is acting as the Sovereignty Goddess of that story. So, Diarmuid Ó'Duibhne doesn't die as a result of his loss, but both of them seem to lose the favour of the Sovereignty Goddess as a result of insult.

There's one instance where Irish myth subverts the Sovereignty Goddess trope, as if making a self-aware parody: this is when Macha Mong-Ruadh (just one of the Macha incarnations) goes out to capture the sons of Díthorba. She dresses as a leper, and encourages the three sons (living as outlaws) to try and sleep with her; but each one gets captured in trying to do so. Macha therefore feigns the role of the Sovereignty Goddess who grants kingship to men, but instead captures them all and makes them build Emain Macha, the symbol of Macha's enduring godly sovereignty, instead. Nice.