The Sts.Diarmaid & Donnán represent the Gaelic God of the Afterlife, who was once (in one guise, at least) the First King. Best known as Donn but with many other names, he is the Gaelic lord of the dead, who guests his descendents upon their deaths, until they are ready for whatever comes next.

This issue is full of delightfully rich detail; it’s big. And, it will include some sections that are for subscribers only, but I’ll be keeping the essential details on the Gaelic gods free to read because it’s Donn/Diarmaid’s first issue. Subsequent issues will be more gated, as per my current experimental policy.

As ever: I do not use Automated Infringement chatbots to ‘research’ or slop out any of this. You’re reading only what I, a human, have written, based on what I’ve read and researched according to the best of my (improving) ability.

Established and Recent Work on the Gaelic God of Death

It’s by now well-established that the god ‘Donn’ represents the Irish form of Hindu Yama, or Greek Hades - the God of the Afterlife. While Hades has very sparse mythology, his peers elsewhere such as Yama/Jamshid have quite a rich mythos - including much about their lives before becoming Lords of the Dead. Sadly, little is recorded of Donn’s mythos - so we haven’t had a good idea of whether he was viewed as a revered pioneer-ancestor (like Yama) or an impersonal Underworld-God, like Hades.

However, there’s some hope of reconstruction: Taliesin’s Map (AKA J.Dolan) identified another identity of Donn’s, ‘Diarmaid’ (or ‘Diarmuit’, ‘Diarmuid’, etc.). Using comparative methods against Hindu Yama, Iranic ‘Yima’ & ‘Jamshid’, Greek Hades & Orpheus, and Roman Pluto/Plouton, Dolan & co demonstrated that Diarmaid (of the Fianna) corresponds closely to various Ancestor-Kings and Gods of the Dead in other religions.

Subsequently, I have found that a number of other characters and saints can be drawn into the same category, providing many more lenses on the Gaelic Lord of the Dead.. particularly his living role as a Legendary King or Ancestor. These include Connla, Bran mac Febail, Conaire Mór, and St.Gerald of Mayo.

The Arc that Ends All Arcs

Some further prefacing: this god’s mythology prior to his own death is usually richer than his post-mortem role as a Lord of the Dead.

There’s also a pattern, I think, where his life-story and myths can seem to match those of other sovereign-type male deities. This turns up so much, that I think there may have been an older layer of tradition (pre-Proto-Indo-European, but out of vogue before the divergence of the PIE peoples) where the various Sovereign gods were more explicitly understood as stages in a greater Ur-Narrative, first played out by the original ancestor-king. In this model, the Death-God’s core myth is chiefly his death, and the rest of the details are more properly the ‘First King’ whose rule prefigures all subsequent kings.

This might have had astrological associations during the yearly/daily course of the sun, or the moon - so that, for example, Orion’s story of death and resurrection may indicate the yearly time-period of the Solar/Lunar King’s death. Theories like this have been put out before, surrounding the Solar Zodiac and the Adityas of Hinduism - each stage/identity being an archetype of an overarching Solar Sovereign, and the surrounding constellations being his allies, lovers, enemies.

Whether that’s so, there are huge areas of overlap between the God of Death (as a Legendary King), and other Sovereign deities like the Lughs, Dagdas, and Nuadas. Also, interestingly, the ‘Wild Marches’ god.. Then again, there’s overlap between any sovereign deity and another, and there is certainly a calendrical progression of these sovereigns. So maybe this ‘overarching narrative’ is simply an illusion!

Anyways; as we’ll keep seeing in this issue, the Death God’s story can be overlapping in various places with various other Sovereign or Sky gods, especially the ‘Twilight’ Sky-God whose earliest appearance may even represent a ‘Primordial Sky-God’.

This pattern’s not just for kings, or even the sun, by the way - one of the greatest overlaps with the Death God is with the Moon God. At times they are literally the same person, simply in different roles.

Case Study: Eber Donn vs. Orion

To demonstrate just how ambiguous this can get, let’s take a juicy example of a well-known seasonal constellation that’s strongly suggestive of a death-god, yet falls short of being openly called one at any point: Orion.

This section is for subscribers only, and should be visible only in emails or for logged-in buttondown subscribers. Starting from a characteristic death-mytheme shared by Eber Donn and Orion, I look deeper at Greek and Egyptian Orion to examine him as a highly suggestive candidate Death God.

The Archetypical Death God

So let’s try to outline what we’re looking for. Some of this comes from well-established tropes, some from the comparative work of Taliesin’s Map, some from my own research. I’ll then give examples of other death gods, and we’ll see where and how these features pop up.

The Gods of Death tend to come in two flavours (which may be different points in a single journey); one, a solitary hunter or primordial-man wildling; the other, an ancestor-king. Sometimes, these two archetypes may appear as two brothers or close companions.

In either form, he may have a taboo sexual relationship, particularly one where a woman urges him into it. Somehow in relation to this, he may partake of a forbidden or taboo drink or food. The foodstuff may be linked to longevity or restored youth. Somehow these two taboo acts often seal his doom. At other times, he simply has the life-food/drink (perhaps in a magical vessel), or has a lifespan that’s extraordinarily long by virtue of the gods’ favour.

In particular, his taboo (usually woman-incited) relationship may be with his own sister (less commonly, mother/daughter), or he may be a child of incest. In some variants, they’re the ‘first people’ (or ‘last survivors’) and so their union is required to repopulate mankind. This union or another transgression may anger the Destroyer/Waters/Night-Sovereign God.

In relation to his marriage, or kingdom, or both in symbolic linkage, he may experience a triple-failure or a triple-loss of legitimacy - which brings about the end of that marriage or kingship, and/or his death.

His lover or wife may die, and he must travel to the afterlife to retrieve her. But somehow she is forsaken/left-behind as he leaves.

The life of a loved one, especially a son, may be restored, but the secret of doing so is lost or kept secret somehow. This common myth isn’t always tied to the ‘Death God’ but is usually close-by.

As an Ancestor-King, he introduces new arts or customs, especially introducing castes - particularly the Nobility/Priests, Warriors, and Labourers. Seafaring, Mealtime, or Sacrificial practices, Justice and Punishment, and Wine, Mead, or Beer making (sacraments?) may also figure.

He faces several challenges during his rule, and he usually acts justly and fairly but often fails to permanently solve the key problem. He can be fatalist - seeing his doom and accepting it. Or, taking actions he knows may ruin him.

A distinctive challenge is overpopulation, which he may attempt to solve by out-providing the problem - more space, food, etc.. This doesn’t work forever, and a cataclysm strikes. The cataclysm may be sent for other reasons. Regardless, when it strikes, he and his Wife/Family/Friends, possibly with a cache of animals/plants/seeds, survive thanks to a boat, bunker, or a supernatural hideout, and emerge to begin anew.

He often has various appearances within the same mythology, often understood to be the same character. Their deaths and fatal flaws may differ - as if to tell multiple incompatible or syncretic traditions, or perhaps establishing his domain over many stereotyped ‘ways to die’.

One of these ‘ways to die’ is beheading, but where the head continues to talk, sing, recite, entertain, or prophesise. Despite apparent sapience, the head seems to lack agency.

Other traits of his death include: a prolonged & dignified death; the head/body buried facing an enemy; entry into the afterlife or ‘heaven’ with body intact; and (in Greco-Roman or North African tradition) being torn apart.

In his death, a Goddess (or several) may be implicated: this may be a food-sex-fertility consort contested by the Destroyer deity, or it may be spurned or offended women.

Through his archetypical or first death, he may be credited as a pioneer of death who finds the way to a Happy Afterlife and becomes Lord of the Afterlife. He may be credited with relaying the proper ways to live and die back to the mortal world, so others can follow.

After death, the Death God becomes the host of souls in the afterlife. Usually, that’s the ‘normal, pleasant afterlife’, rather than the special afterlives of the particularly virtuous, prepared, or blessed. This is an intermediate place before the reincarnation or onward progression of the soul - a place without want, or hunger, or sadness. In this afterlife, the soul may ‘forget’ its worries and traumas, (perhaps eventually forgetting everything), in preparation for a new beginning.

He may also be judge of the fate of souls. To the righteous, a welcoming and paternal figure - the sinful, a frightful yet fair punisher. When he is duplicated within a mythology, perhaps by syncretic absorption of another mythos, one may remain ‘God of Death’ while others become judges or administrators.

The Death God is usually married to the Death Goddess - who’s often associated with grain or early seasonal fertility in some way, and may be secretly a chthonic form of the Celestial/Dawn goddess. Their marriage may be seasonal. She and He rarely die together - one precedes the other, though she’s rarely the credited Pioneer. She is an equal monarch of Death, however, often seeming more intimately connected to sovereignty over the Death-Realm itself.

The Other Death-God(s)

Looking at Donn, Yama, et al, we’ll keep seeing another set of gods pop up nearby - the Nuada-Nechtan or Varuna group of gods (which includes Poseidon & Óðinn), and the related ‘Fionn/Rudra’ group (also Óðinn). I covered Nechtan previously. I also covered his wife, Boann, in Eithne’s issue - and I think they’re best understood together. In brief, the Nuada-Poseidon-Varuna gods are Sovereigns of Winter/Night and ‘The Waters’, Wise-Destroyers akin to more kingly forms of Fionn/Rudra/Apollo. I explored Fionn/Nuada’s cosmogonic roles in the issue for St.Fionn Bharra.

In Mycenian Greece (Even-Ancient-er Greece), it seems that Poseidon was considered the primary underworld-god. In Vedic hymns, Yama feasts in the afterlife with Varuna. In Norse myth, Óðinn seems to be the ‘official’ male death-god (parallel to Freya and Hel), whereas the Donn-shaped myths are found moreso with Mímir and Heimdall, but only in alloyed form with the Nechtan-type mythos (1).

So, the Donn and Nechtan type gods share or trade the Afterlife in various mythologies. Sometimes they’re blended in different ways, sometimes united, sometimes appearing singly with the other absent. How does it look in Celtic Myth? Similarly ambiguous!

In Celtic myth, the Donn-type gods may be beheaded, yet still talk/sing. Meanwhile, the Nechtans can carry their own heads home, to be revived or to die permanently there. In the Voyage of Bran, we find both gods on the voyage, with different fates. In Tochmarc Treblainne we find a Nechtan subordinate to Midir, the Moon-Elixer god who acts like the death-god (and confusingly, in parallel to Donn) in this tale. In the folkloric record, the Sídh-Lords (Gods) Fionnbharra and Donn Fírinne have several myth-types where they appear interchangeably. Eber Finn is part of Eber Donn’s expedition to Ireland and outlives him; Diarmaid Ó Dhuibhne is part of Fionn’s Fianna and nearly equal to Fionn.

So, as elsewhere, they’re ambiguous - but apparently not confused, and neither is consistently greater than the other. Looking at their personalities, I think the Donns are usually (in life) more productive-creative and giving, and the Nuadas/Fionns more consumptive-destructive and taking (nb: not ‘receiving’).

Generally, when they appear together, the Donn-shaped character dies first. Donn’s usually-earlier death is, I think, due to a seasonal succession, as explored below.

Other Other Death Gods!

And, that’s all ignoring the other death-gods, the gods of the Kingly/Blessed afterlives - Manannán and Lugh. Their afterlife seems comparable to the Greek Isles of the Blessed, the idealised location for the naturally blessed or initiates of sacred rites. Though, we only have vibes to suggest that Manannán’s Emain Abhlach is distinct at all from the ‘usual’ Land of Promise, and perhaps it wasn’t.

And flitting around all these archetypes, we have the mercurial Moon God, Bréanainn/Midir, who can be identified and aligned partially with all of the above in various ways. The Moon God is sometimes literally the same as the Death God, but seems to represent a different soul-fate (he’s also the god of the Elixir of Immortality) - like his sister-consort, who’s sometimes the Dawn (& Dusk) Goddess, other times apparently the same Underworld Goddess as the Death Goddess. And as alluded to in Ailbhe’s issue, I think there are strong reasons to interpret Bréanainn/Midir as the ‘Nocturnal’ face of solar-fire characters Ailbhe/Ailill and even perhaps Manannán (similarly, Étaín as a nocturnal face of Brighid/Fand). These celestial trickster-initiators, they don’t like to be pinned-down.

If these Celestial Tricksters can be Death-Gods of a sort, then they’re doing something different to the ‘Core’ Death-God. In the Solar case, they seem to offer the Blessed/Chosen/Initiated a sort of eternal blessed afterlife, like the Isles of the Blessed. Whereas, the Lunar cases seem to offer a different sort of transcendence of death, perhaps something more ecstatic and ego-shedding. I explore this further in a subscriber-only section below.

To cover just a few examples of ambiguous Death/Moon overlap:

• We have attestations from initiates of certain Greek mysteries that they understood Hades and Dionysus (Elixir & cryptic Moon god) to be the same underlying character.

• The consorts of Dionysus & Hades, Ariadne/Persephone, can be identified through various chains of reasoning - and Ariadne was later identified in at least one sacred site with Proserpina, the Roman Persephone.

• The Ulster-Cycle Moon-Elixir character ‘Furbaide Fer-Bend’ is also known as ‘Diarmaid’ (a key Death-God name). The island where he slays Medb, Inis Clothrainn, is named for his mother - but the patron saint there is ‘Diarmaid the Just’.

• In Tochmarc Treblainne, Midir arranges Treblainne’s death, but is later able to return her to the living world from his own Sídh mound.

One could imagine the Moon as being a psychopomp (a bearer of souls), yet I’m not aware of any P.I.E. mythology that makes the moon-god directly a guide to souls. However, the Moon may have been seen as a faster-cycling version of the Solar cycle and the sovereign that represented. Perhaps this is why plausibly lunar characters seem to orbit the Summer/Day Kings, as shown in the Bréanainn issue? Yet, the Moon refuses to stay dead for as long as the Solar King does, and mythically the Moon may therefore seem uncommitted to a permanent afterlife identity.

Enough preamble; let’s examine a few actual death-gods!

Exemplary Death God #1: Hades (& Orpheus)

In Western culture, the best-known God of the Dead is probably Hades. He’s paralleled in Roman mythology as Pluto. In the Greek Mythology, Hades is assigned to the underworld shortly after being vomited up by his father Cronus. He gets almost no screen-time as a living God, and very little myth afterwards either - except as ‘Persephone’s Husband’.

The rest of this section on Hades is preserved for subscribers, who can receive it by email or read it here when logged into Buttondown.

Exemplary Death God #2: Yama

Hindu Mythology preserves a colourful and explicit ‘Death God’, whose role has vascillated between a kind-but-fair judge of the dead, to a judge-punisher who only takes the wicked souls. Yama is fully identified with the personification-god of right-action/morality, ‘Dharma’, and may have always been - it’s a matter of debate.

Several scriptures describe Yama being tempted sexually by his sister Yami, but arguing against her that they would be caught by Varuna (c.f. Delgnat, Topa, and Partholón), or that it would be immoral, etcetera. Yet ultimately it seems he gave in - later scriptures suggest he died to beget children with her, and his equivalent character ‘Yima’ in Persia indeed has a fertile relationship with his sister.

Yama is described in several funereal hymns as a kindly host of the souls of the dead, before they’re ready to take on another body and live again (reincarnation). Interestingly, he feasts with Varuna (Poseidon/Nechtan/Nuada) in his afterlife domain.

Yama has several important incarnations in the Mahabharata. In fact, his main incarnation, Yudhishthira, is the main character of the epic. Yudhishthira becomes an early ‘Golden Age King’ whose indulgent actions (of gambling) lead to him losing his wife and his sovereignty (he gets to keep his wife after all, though). He and his family must escape a burning palace (a sort of cataclysm?) and hide in disguise for a time from their enemies, perhaps expressing the ‘Enclosure’ or ‘Ark’ myth in very abstract form.

Later, after his victorious return, he and his wife and brothers embark on a journey to the afterlife - only he makes it there without falling prey to some vice or moral failure, and enters with his body intact. This may be an epic retelling of the original ‘Death-pioneering voyage’ of Yama himself; Yama’s own story is not related anywhere, I think.

Exemplary Death God #3: Jamshid

Jamshid’s name derives from Yima (AKA Yama, above) with the adjective ‘shining’. So, this is the same Persian character, but in a later and more euhemerised tradition.

Jamshid is one of the earliest mortals, and the first real culture-hero King. He introduces various arts and traditions, and he rules justly. In his rule, none die, and there is abundance of all kinds.

Faced with overpopulation, he increases the size of the earth several times to accommodate more people. Ultimately however he is warned of a coming cosmic winter/flood by the gods and flees to an underground enclosure with his family and a large array of animals; they emerge to re-establish his kingdom.

His reign sours as he begins to ‘delight in words of falsehood’, and falls into hubris. His loss of sovereignty is three-part, with each part of his sovereignty going to a different divinity or hero other than himself (sovereignty being literally a special glowing thing bestowed by the gods, in this case)

Among his inventions are social castes and sea travel. He also introduces wine-making after it’s discovered accidentally in a cellar by a suicidal banished lover of his. Jamshid owns a magical cup that gives drinks of eternal youth.

Exemplary Death God #4: Abraham

Here’s a non-Proto-Indo-European ‘god’: Abraham, patron of the ‘Abrahamic’ faiths, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The rest of this section on Hades is preserved for subscribers, who can receive it by email or read it here when logged into Buttondown.

Exemplary Death God #4: Bran the Blessed

Again, credit here to Taliesin’s Map. Bran the Blessed is a noble king (and giant) of Britain when the king of Ireland Matholwch comes asking for his sister Branwen’s hand in marriage. Things go awry when their brother Efnisien sabotages the arrangement.

In the ensuing war, Bran suffers a fatal wound to the foot - and instructs his comrades to sever his head, and go to an island South-West of Britain. There, they’ll feast with no memory of their hardships, and his head will entertain them - until one of them opens a forbidden door, bringing all their memories back.

Bran’s Island is similar to that of Donn: Teach Donn also being to the far South-West of the story’s main landmass. From the point of view of the Celtic Isles, South-West is where the Sun and Moon set.

Exemplary Death God #5: Minos

Sneaking under the radar as merely ‘mortal’ kings, several Greek kings fit the mythic profile of ‘Death Gods’. None more than King Minos, most famous for his wife’s monstrous offspring, the ‘Minotaur’.. But there’s a lot more to Minos!

For starters, he’s one of three or four brothers, sons of Zeus and Europa. One is Sarpedon, who is given extraordinarily long life (itself a Death God mytheme..), dies in the Iliad, and whose body is borne away intact by the gods. The other three, Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus, end up as the three judges of the dead in the Underworld.

Mythemes of the First-Ancestor/Death-God can be found for all three of these judges, including Rhadamanthus’ noteworthy judgement and moral inflexibility, Aeacus’ kingdom that is populated by the gods essentially ex nihilo (an anthropogenic myth shared by Deluge-survivors Deucalion and Pyrrha), and Minos’ credit for inventing a caste system and navies (possibly originally sea travel itself).

Minos also has a myth of his son Glaucus being found drowned in a cask of honey by either Polyidus or Asclepios. His discoverer is ordered to revive him, but can’t - until he observes one snake reviving another with a herb. Copying this act revives Glaucus. This snake-and-herb construct appears with other ancestor-kings who challenge death, such as Gilgamesh. However, the Death God himself is, I think, rarely or never revived. A character returned to life is, in my view, more likely to represent the Moon God, and I think Glaucus can indeed be read in this way.

At a slight push - Minos is the commissioner of the Labyrinth, which may be a mythic proxy for the Underworld itself. His daughter Ariadne (mapped overall to Persephone) is the one who helps Theseus to navigate this perilous trap - resembling Hecate in this role. Minos seems in some way a creator of the Underworld itself.

Much of Minos’ legend makes him look like his father, the Day-Sky/Thunderer god Zeus, who directly tutors/advises him, and smites people at Minos’ request. A key sky-god role is to be parent of celestial gods and objects, and with Ariadne interpretable as a Dawn-Dusk goddess, and Glaucus as a Moon god, that seems to fit here also. Yet as a Judge of the Dead, he’s ultimately a Death-God, and his other mythemes align with other Death-Gods. As we’ll see, the Death God is frequently a sort of Sky-God, too.

Parallels to Minos’ Bull in Hindu Legend

Seeing that Minos seems to show traits of Sky-Gods and Death-Gods, let’s zoom in on a particular myth of his and its parallels in Hinduism. Minos prays to Poseidon and is given a superlative bull, so that he can sacrifice it, but he covets the bull and keeps it. This causes Poseidon to curse Minos’ wife, Pasiphaë, so she lusts for the Bull, leading to Minos’ central drama with the Minotaur.

In fact, Minos’ curse from Poseidon over a coveted sacrificial bull strongly resembles a pair of other Hindu myths that concern explicit or suggestive Sky-Gods. These are Kashyapa and Prabhasa.

The first, Kashyapa, is the ‘sage’ form of the Cosmic Tortoise who supports the universe from beneath, making him plausibly a continuation of the overhead Sky-Dome. Further supporting this idea is the way that Indra (Thunderer/Day-Sovereign) is son of Dyeus in the earlier Vedas, but subsequently is son of Kashyapa.

Anyway, in a parallel tale to Minos’, Kashyapa is given a sacrificial bovine by Varuna (parallel of Poseidon), and his refusal to return it leads to him being cursed to be reborn mortal. While mortal, most of his children are murdered at birth, only for three to survive: Krishna (Aengus, Mercury, Hermes), Balarama (Áed/Cúchulainn/Ferdiad, Mars, Ares), and Subhadra (Brighid, Venus, Aphrodite). These three are celestial archetypes, usually children of a Sky-God. Kashyapa’s own stories and death-tales, however, aren’t very ‘Death God’.

The latter Minos-parallel is the Vasu ‘Prabhasa’ (who is variously AKA Dyaus, the Sky-Father God) who covets a cow owned by Vasistha (who parallels Nechtan, therefore indirectly Poseidon/Varuna), as urged by his wife. Note that Minos’ wife Pasiphaë covets Poseidon’s bull after Minos refuses to return it, so the order of the female character’s involvement in the theft is swapped, here.

Prabhasa/Dyaus’ story’s similarity to Kashyapa’s gets stronger: as punishment, he and the other Vasus are forced to incarnate as human children of Ganga (goddess of the Ganges). Ganga makes her (mortal) husband swear not to question her actions, then drowns them all at birth to return them to godhood. When she goes to kill Prabhasa/Dyaus, her husband can’t bear it, and begs an explanation. She explains, but leaves him, taking their son. So there’s sequential-infanticide like for Kashyapa, but for Dyaus it’s his siblings (2).

This son becomes Bhishma, the Mahabharata parallel to the Iliad’s Sarpedon (Minos’ brother) - an extraordinarily long-lived, wise, notably noble hero who’s reluctantly fighting for the ‘wrong’ side and dies in a drawn-out tragic scene. Bhishma has a curiously death-aspected power to choose the moment of his death. Just before he dies, he dispenses Dharmic wisdom to (among others) Yudhishthira, who is the incarnation of Dharma/Yama himself. That the Sky God would have anything Dharmic to teach the Dharma God is noteworthy - unless we understand these archetypes as essentially the same, differing chiefly in their flavour and fate.

The Sky of the Underworld

Is this Sky-God-to-Death-God line visible in Celtic Myth? Yes! Diarmaid’s familial name is ‘Duibhne’, and ‘Dubhthach’ seems to be a name of The Dagda. The Dagda’s (successful) quest to revive his son Cermait Honeymouth somewhat resembles Minos and his Honey-drowned son Glaucus. The Dagda contests with Nechtan/Elcmhar over Boann, paralleling the contesting over Partholón’s consort Delgnat and Fionn’s would-be consort Gráinne. Déaglán, Saintly form of The Dagda, also suffers a crippling foot injury, like Bran and Yama (indeed, perhaps the poisonous injury that eventually killed The Dagda was to the foot; it’s never specified).

In other ways, these characters are distinct:

• Déaglán recovers from his foot-injury, healed by Patrick/Lugh. Yama’s cursed foot is mitigated by his father, Sun/Demiurgic god Vivasvant - but not cured. But Bran accepts that he will die of his foot-injury, and arranges his own death and burial.

• The Dagda escapes apparently without harm or lasting danger from his liasons with Boann, unlike Diarmaid/Topa.

I mentioned in Déaglán’s issue how one could view the varying success or failure of the Thunderer myths vs. Water as representing the success of the gods during the Cosmogony, set against their failure in the Apocalypse. But the Death God is an inversion of this pattern, because he’s meant to die early, while his living-world Sky-God parallels are meant to succeed and survive. Perhaps their different outcomes are typologically what separates them?

Which Sky is the Death-God When He’s Not Dead?

I currently operate on a sort of ‘3.5-Sky’ model: Night, Day, and Twilight (Morning, Evening). The Twilight skies of Morning and Evening are sometimes considered distinct, which would give 4 skies. At other times, Dusk and Dawn seem to be considered the same, or the same character in a different mood or outfit, or a King whose rule is interrupted and restored, giving 3 skies. Hence: 3.5-Skies.

This differs from Dumézil’s famous “Mitra-Varuna” model (fruitfully used by Taliesin’s Map, with modifications) where Mitra (Day) succeeds from Varuna (Night), without gaps.

So which of these three or four skies is the Death God, if we assume he’s a Sky of our world, who then dies and becomes the Afterlife Sovereign-god? Because of the curious relationship of the Nechtan/Varuna god to the death-god, I’d suggest that they’re understood usually as distinct - so it’s probably not them. Because of how the Day-Sovereign seems to generally be associated with the Superlative afterlife of initiates or sacred kings, and also has a distinct Life and Death pattern, I think it’s not him either. That leaves two remaining possibilities. In one, it’s a forerunner ‘Primordial Sky’ who precedes the subsequent, cyclical 3.5-Sky triad. In the other possibility, it’s simply the Twilight Sky from start-to-finish.

In the Primordial-Sky model, there is a singular sky at the primordial scene, who doesn’t recur later, giving way instead to the cyclical sky-gods of Twilight-Night-Day. This Primordial Sky is (e.g.) Ouranos (overcome by Night-god Cronos), or Eochaid mac Eirc (overcome by Night-god Nuada).

Now, I’ve drawn parallels above to sky-gods who aren’t apparently primordial, including An Dagda (a Twilight Sky god) - and to Zeus (mostly a Daytime Sky god). Overall, if the Primordial Sky god is a distinct god, he nevertheless seems most-like the Twilight Sky god. As the First-Sky, this would make sense, because the dynamic universe appears to begin with the Dark Phase (Night), whose predecessor ought to be Evening. And as the First-to-Die, this would make sense taking the view that the Day-Cycle ‘dies’ at Dusk.

In that vein of course, one could ask whether the ‘Primordial Sky’ exists as a separate character at all: is the Twilight Sky simply the Primordial Sky, continued? I’ve previously called Eochaid an alter-ego of The Dagda, which I think now may have been a premature judgement. Looking particularly at these two, I could now point to the way that Eochaid is credited with a number of cultural ‘firsts’, whereas The Dagda is not. This presents Eochaid as more of an ‘Ancestor-King’, while The Dagda seems instead to be a king over an essentially fully-developed society. If he’s a ‘continuation’ of Eochaid, he’s nevertheless not the original culture-hero ancestor-king.

Whatever the case, it’s clear that they share a death-time in the calendar. Conaire’s death is at Samhain, and the feast-days (which generally celebrate their deaths) of various ‘Erc’ saints (i.e. The Dagda) are clustered around Samhain, also. Samhain is also when Fionn, closely related to the Night-Sovereign Nuada, comes into his power - suggesting that the Twilight part of the cycle ends at this point.

The Irish Gods of Death

OK, it’s past time we met the Irish death-gods. Some are clearly more related thematically than others; and some exhibit more crossover with other gods of the afterlife, too.

Donn (Donn Fírinne, Éber Donn)

Donn is uncontroversially considered ‘the’ Gaelic Death God - some of the scholarship on this is by now quite old. Christian dabbling to reduce Donn’s possible role as an ancestor has been suggested: Kuno Meyer speculated that Donn may have been considered the Ur-Ancestor of the Gaelic people, which would align with the ambiguous presentation of Yama as possibly being also an ‘ancestor’ of mankind.

In the Leabhar Gabhála, the tale of Donn’s (Donn mac Milid, son of Galamh/Míl) kingship of ‘Spain’ is never detailed prior to the invasion of Ireland, and he’s presented buffoonishly as he accrues ill will and death-curses from all around - ultimately dying when he his ship sinks. However, Eber Donn’s death has a variant Dindshenchas tradition where he is part of the magical defence of his people, is cursed by the Tuatha Dé, and develops a disease onboard the ship. He instructs his brothers to bury him on the southwestern island which will become Teach Duinn (Donn’s house) so as to spare everyone in Ireland from his sickness - there his/their ancestors will come to feast with him.

Donn is succeeded by his three brothers Eber Finn, Erimón, and Amairgin, who seem to be our cyclical Sky-Sovereigns, in some way. The first of them to die is Eber Finn; whose name suggests the expected Winter sovereign.

The Folk traditions preserved a richer picture of Donn as a localised god. The best work on this is that of Müller-Liskowski, whose paper on Donn was published on Samhain in 1948, and collected various ‘cycles’ of Donn folklore throughout the country. These cycles presented a fair and generous Sídh-Lord who was nevertheless tightly associated with death, but also horses, storms, and conflict with neighbouring provinces to win the best harvest. Many who adventured with him died, however; sometimes seemingly just in consequence of exposure to his company. At other times, he was able to return the recently deceased to questors.

His several guises around the country include the best-known, Donn Fírinne, meaning ‘Truthful Donn’ or ‘Donn of the Truth’ - a name evocative of the Hindu Yama, also known as ‘Dharma’ (a Hindu concept of Right Action). See also St.Diarmaid the Just, below. Donn also appears folklorically as ‘Donn na Duimhche’, officially meaning ‘Donn of the Dunes’ - but it seems to me audibly similar to the familial name of Diarmuid Ó Duibhne.

Other Donns

The name appears in a few other characters sharing some mythos with our archetypical Death-God. One is ‘Donn Bó’, a character who dies on a battlefield but whose talking head is found - he says that he’d sworn to sing for his lord that night. So, he’s brought back to his lord, and all marvel at his head’s singing.

Another is ‘Saint Donnán’ (‘Little Donn’), who’s an abbot of Eigg. He’s beheaded by raiders in revenge of slighting the local queen - resembling Eber Donn’s death being connected to his insult to Ériú. NB: you don’t actually find that much violent martyrdom in the Gaelic Christian tradition (compared to the continent at least), and still rarer beheading.

Donnán’s myth of death arising from a slighted queen resembles another archetype: the Wild Marches god, exemplified particularly by Lailoken. I don’t think this is a mistake - Mesopotamian Ancestor-King-Death-Judge Gilgamesh is tightly tied to the Wildling Enkidu, whose death-fate is tied to hunting a great beast (c.f. Orion) and motivates Gilgamesh to seek immortality. Donnán moves to the ‘refectory’ - the eating-room - to be beheaded, which is a curious emphasis on food: both Suibhne and Lailoken both die in or immediately after scenes where they’re pointedly given food. I suspect the ‘Wildling’ might tend to die after Spring-Dawn, making him the mirror-image or alter-ego of the Autumnal-Evening god. So perhaps that’s why they share these mythemes? Maybe this is why Adonis (spring-ish vegetation deity) and Orion (autumnal ancestor-hunter) resemble one another, too?

Conaire

An especially Metal Gaelic epic, The Destruction of Dá Derga’s Hostel tells the story of Conaire Mór, of his wonderful reign of effortless plenty, and of his dramatically over-the-top demise in the mysterious house of Dá Derga.

Conaire is son to Mes Buachalla (daughter of putative death-goddess Étaín) and Nemhglan, a mysterious bird-god whose name evokes Nemhed, Eochaid’s predecessor whose name may mean ‘Heaven’. Conaire’s father directs him to walk naked to Tara. This happens to make Conaire fulfil a prophesy, so he’s made king, and his reign is a golden-age. However, he makes a sort of tripled-mistake when he fails to adequately deal with his three foster brothers’ banditry, merely banishing them. They later return with pirates, and it’s their raid that leads to Conaire’s demise.

This demise comes as Conaire is on his yearly sacred tour of the country and finds himself in need of accommodation before nightfall on Samhain. Making a detour to the house of ‘Dá Derga’ (possibly ‘Red God’), he meets a number of fellow travellers, each of whom force him to break one of the many geasa (sacred injunctions) laid on him by his father - before long, he seems resigned, knowing that he’ll die at Dá Derga’s hostel.

Because three ‘Red Riders’ approach the house ahead of him, who call themselves dead and say they’ve come from the house of Donn, this story is often referenced when discussing Donn as a death-god. Note that colour-association also: Donn, as a god and archetype, seems tightly associated with the colours Red, Russet, Brown ('Donn’ literally meaning ‘Brown’), and Black. Red Riders, heading to the house of the Red God.

Dá Derga haunts the narrative a bit - he’s the host of the house, but all we get concerning him is a description given by Lomna to the attackers. Attacker Fer Rogain elaborates that Dá Derga built the hostel himself, which has one door that never opens (resembling the feasting-house of Bran the Blessed). He also has a cauldron that’s always preparing food, resembling The Dagda. Lest we forget: Welsh Bran, too, has a magical cauldron, as does Midir.

I wouldn’t be the first person to suggest that Dá Derga is Donn, but I further assert that Conaire is ultimately the same as Dá Derga and Donn - repeating the death that lead to Donn/Dá Derga’s own fate.

Beheaded after being deprived of water from every river in Ireland (c.f. Eochaid mac Eirc), Conaire becomes a talking head, reciting praise-poetry for Mac Cecht, who finally, posthumously, quenches his head’s thirst. At the end of the battle, Conall Cernach, who in this and other ways resembles Fionn & Nuada, escapes but with his arm near-destroyed by the combat. Nuada loses his arm in the battle where Eochaid dies.

Connla, Bran mac Febhail

Connla and Bran mac Febhail both share a similar quest-inciting encounter with a goddess, who waltzes in with otherworldly apples/apple-branches and encourages them to come to her otherworld land. Both sail away, never to return (entirely). But whereas Connla just leaves, we get to follow Bran.

Bran and his crew have a miniature epic adventure, before reaching their destination, where they mostly lounge around, eat amazing food, and have sex with goddesses. The Goddess pulls him ashore with magical thread, another mythic detail connected to many underworld gods and goddesses in Ireland and elsewhere.

Along the way, he encounters a few of the staple stop-over points of the afterlife voyages, like the ‘trap-happiness’ Island of laughter where everyone who lands becomes a laughing fool - akin to the Lotus-Eaters of the Odyssey.

After a while, Bran feels like returning, so he leaves against the objections of his Goddess-consort. When they reach Ireland, a crewmate named Nechtan tries to jump ashore and turns to dust, so Bran carves ogham staves explaining his voyage and throws them to perplexed witnesses in Ireland. He then leaves again, presumably returning to his paradise-island.

Bran discovers a plausible afterlife, and leaves instructions to others who might follow. This aligns quite well with Yama’s credit for discovering the way to the afterlife. Bran’s name, of course, happens to be the same as a key Welsh parallel; Bran the Blessed..As well as one of Fionn’s two hounds, who I’ve linked to the hounds of Yama.

For his part, Connla isn’t seen again, but the ‘ur-well’ of the Otherworld is named “Connla’s Well” - so whatever he was doing, it left a mark. The parallel curator of a fundamental chthonic wisdom-well in Norse tradition, Mímir, also appears to be a death-god, insofar as he’s beheaded but carries on being able to talk (quietly, to Óðinn). Though, Well-tending seems to be more of a Nechtan thing overall..

Key to this comparison is that, of all the characters who visit the Happy Afterlife, only one can’t return: Bran (and perhaps Connla). The most similar case is Oisín, but even he can return, he just withers into decrepitude. It’s tempting to link Bran to Conláed, the Actaeon-like saint who is cursed by St.Brigit with violent canine death if he leaves her. But Bran has the sense to return to his Goddess when she warns him of doom for leaving her!

Diarmaid son of Clothru

There are three Diarmaids to look at in our study. The most cryptic is one I’ve covered before: Furbaide Fer-Bend, whose death-infused birth mythos, noteworthy beauty, and role as the ‘slayer of intoxication’ marks him as a Moon-God incarnation. He’s also known as ‘Diarmaid’, and the island where he kills Medb (Inis Cloithrinn, named for Furbaide’s mother Clothru) has a patron saint known as ‘Diarmaid the Just’, once again evoking the Hindu Yama AKA Dharma.

The island also has several presumed-originally-Christian chapels, one of which has the curious name of the ‘Dead Chapel’, and another that is mythically associated with untimely death for any woman who visits.

Diarmaid Ó Dhuibhne

The next is the fenian character who is forced to abscond with Fionn’s wife-to-be, Gráinne. Note here how she has a possibly grain-based name (suggesting grain-goddess Persephone), and she entices and forces him to elope with her, even later mocking him for his chasteness and sexual reluctance - resembling the goading by Yami of her brother, Yama.

Taliesin’s Map have done some videos and live-streams exploring Diarmaid Ó Dhuibhne’s story. They compare him to Adam, Orpheus, and Yama/Yima/Jamshid - there’s a surprisingly large spread of mythemes in just this one character! An incomplete overview, to catch you up:

• His sovereignty-goddess sponsored (pseudo-) kingship, which he spoils by triply-insulting the goddess (c.f. Donn, Jamshid).

• She goes to ‘Land Under Wave’, seemingly her afterlife. When Diarmaid seeks her, he finds her mortally wounded. To heal her, he has to sacrifice their love, and leaves her behind when he departs (c.f. Orpheus).

• Later, Diarmaid is urged or forced to elope with Gráinne and cajoled into sexual intercourse with her.

• They spend time hiding from a supernatural winter in a cave, paralleling Persian Jamshid and the human survivors of Norse Fimbulwintr, who hide in Mímir’s ‘holt’.

• They later hide in a special ‘enclosure’ Diarmaid builds, at which they are later attacked by Fionn, also like Jamshid. This Enclosure’s many doors resemble Welsh Bran’s feasting-hall.

• They are urged to eat of a forbidden tree of youth. Diarmaid had sworn not to, and in turn was allowed an idyllic existence: eating the fruit of the tree ends this.

• It’s Gráinne who makes Diarmaid pick it. Fionn later smells them on the fruit, and knows what’s happened - linking this story to Topa, Delgnat, and Partholón’s forbidden wine (and to Eve & Adam, of course).

Diarmaid’s death comes at the tusks of his bane: a magically resurrected foster-brother who is fated/forced to kill Diarmaid in the form of a boar (c.f.: Adonis). Compare to Conaire, whose exiled foster-brothers are also forced to kill him.

Diarmaid’s life might have been saved if Fionn had given him a sacred drink in time - similarly to Conaire & Eochaid.

When Diarmaid Ó Dhuibhne dies, Aengus Mac Óg takes his body to Brú na Bóinne, where he may speak with him. So, while not a talking head, he’s still talking.

Diarmaid Mac Cerrbél

The third Diarmaid to examine is the legendary king, Diarmaid Mac Cerrbél. This Diarmaid is sponsored to the High Kingship by Cíarán of Clonmacnoise, during a scene where he helps Cíarán to place his first foundation-pile at the site (which is very near Uisnech; the spiritual centre of the world). This smacks of cosmogonic and anthropogenic myth.

Just as Eve and Adam are instructed by god to go and take dominion of the Earth; as Jamshid is given the sovereignty-symbol ‘Farr’ by Ahura Mazda; and as Conaire is instructed to go and become High King by his father Nemhglan: the Demiurgic God-Saint Cíarán tells Diarmaid to go and be High King.

During his reign, Diarmaid is warned that he’ll die a triple death, signalled by distinctive omens: similarly to Conaire. His omens are tied to food, clothes, drink, and architecture; marks of civilisation. One day he is at a feast and encounters his omens, then meets an old (exiled) enemy at the door who stabs him and burns the building around him. Hiding in a barrel of ale (c.f. Glaucus, and the desperation of Conaire/Eochaid for a drink, the death of Minos in a bath), he drowns when his bane, a particular roof-beam, (fated to fall on him) falls and traps him.

Compare this baneful beam to Diarmaid’s baneful brother-boar, and Conaire’s baneful brothers. Diarmaid won his sovereignty setting a foundation with Cíarán - his killing by a roof-beam in a burning building might be seen as his fate coming full-circle.

When Diarmaid dies, he’s not a speaking head - though his head is all that survives, and is buried back at his reign’s beginning: Clonmacnoise (Uisnech).

Gerald of Mayo

OK, here’s one that didn’t occur to me for a long time. This ‘Saxon’ saint of Mayo is a version of ‘Diarmaid’, based on mythic parallels.

The Ancestor-King often institutes Castes? Well, so does Gerald, who divides his monks into ‘priestly’, ‘defence-builders’ (e.g. warriors), and ‘field-laborour’ castes (c.f. Dumézil’s trifunctional hypothesis).

Several Ancestor-Kings face population crises that they may try to delay, eventually facing cataclysm - Gerald is the one who advocates for god to send more food instead of the cataclysmic disease (the ‘Buidhe Chonaill’) favoured by Féichín of Fore. Once the disease is inflicted upon the world, Gerald goes to a town and protects all the inhabitants under his ‘hood’ (c.f. Mímir’s Holt, Jamshid’s and Diarmuid’s Enclosures, etc.).

There’s more to parallel other characters I lack the space to include, including Froéch - both characters seem to be linked essentially to a special ‘Stone’, for example.

The name ‘Gerald’ may have seemed like a sensible proxy for ‘Diarmaid’: the proper pronunciation of Diarmaid might be rendered in English orthography ‘Jermadj’ - but in some dialects the ‘m’ may be so softened or glided-over that it comes out more like ‘Jer(oow)ad(j)’. If you’re a Saxon collecting local folklore of the local Gaelic god from Gaeilge-speaking peasants in order to construct a mythic church-founding saint, that probably already sounded pretty close to ‘Gerald’.

Looking at another mythologised ‘Gerald’ adds some support: the historical Gerald FitzGerald AKA ‘Gearóid Íarla’ (cf. ‘(Ga)roowidj’ sound again); who became mythologised as the son of the goddess Áine. His father is forbidden by Áine from remarking or asking about Gerald’s behaviour. When he does, Áine and Gerald disappear into a lake - the same myth as Ganges & Bhishma. He’s thereafter sometimes seen riding on the lake on a White Horse, a steed like Donn Fírinne’s.

While this Gerald may be a historical figure (his father is, anyway), he’s nevertheless attracting myths more associated with Sky or Death gods. Perhaps because of his name?

Bláthmac?

I’ve mentioned in prior issues how how many Donns, Diarmaids, etc. seem to come accompanied by a brother named ‘Bláthmac’ (possibly ‘Flower-Son’ or ‘Blooming Son’). In fact, Bláthmacs don’t seem to appear much without a Donn/Diarmaid brother.

Donn Bó has a brother Bláthmac, also a poet. On Iona the acting-abbot Bláthmac dies in place of his monastic ‘brother’, Abbot Diarmaid. The latter King Diarmaid, son of Áed Sláine, rules alongside his brother Bláthmac.

I’m as yet unsure what to make of the Bláthmacs - though it does stand out to me that the traditional veneration of Adonis/Tammuz included ritualistic planting, neglect, and mourning of plants. Perhaps Bláthmac is the springtime ‘Enkidu’ to Donn’s Gilgamesh?

Closing

Diarmaid is still a name in wide usage; Donn isn’t, though Donnchadh may be a related name. I think ‘Ó Dhuibhne’ is still a familial name in use. ‘Bran’ became better known as a Dog’s name, but it turns up in some family names. Potentially, the name ‘Brian’ is connected.

Teach Duinn, known in English as ‘Bull Rock’, is an island visible from the Southwest coast, and was felt to be where souls went to feast before continuing onwards. Or, perhaps that souls went through the sea-arch of the island to transit to the Otherworld. Other sites associated with Donn were included in Muller-Lisowski’s excellent paper, which is worth looking up on whatever legitimate or scurrilous libraries you favour and reading in its entireity. Some sacrificial rites to Donn Fírinne were recorded in the twentieth century, and Donn was still a key local figure in several parts of Ireland.

Boars seem to be somehow the enemies of the Death-Gods, if Diarmaid and Adonis are anything to go by. Dogs, on the other hand, are allies - and may share some identity at times, too. As to animals this god may identify or hold holy - insofar as he’s continuous with the Primordial/Twilight Sky-God in some sense, he may be a Horse sometimes. And he does seem to covet Cows or Bulls.

Samhain, of course, is a calendrical association, though one shared with several other gods. Celestially, Orion is the most obvious representative of the Donn-type, though this isn’t recorded or attested anywhere that I’m aware of.

Footnotes

1. Mímir’s associated with Wisdom-Wells (Nechtan), becomes a talking head (Diarmaid/Orpheus), and is patron of the refuge of humanity during Fimbulwinter (Yama, ~Diarmait). Heimdall is a watery ancestor-god (Nuada-Nechtan), institutes castes (Minos/Jamshid/Gerald), has Mímir’s horn / drinks from his well (Nechtan), and seems somewhat omniscient (Jamshid, otherwise a Varuna-Nechtan trait).

2. Note also the parallel to Zeus - who’s a Sky-God in his own right and even has the cognate name with Dyeus. Zeus, like Dyeus’ incarnation Bhishma, also has all of his siblings ‘die’ prior to his own birth.

3. Confusingly, this death-day is often called their ‘natalis’.

Bibliography

• Müller-Liskowski, Kate (1948) "Contributions to a study in Irish folklore - Traditions about Donn". Béaloideas, Iml. XVIII, pp. 142-199

Coming Up

Not sure! I’ve incorporated the planned Nov.2 issue for Erc of Slane into this issue with all my talk of Primordial and Twilight Skies. And, I have other commitments - so I’ll perhaps next write an issue for Fionnchú on Nov.25th.