C.)
Nemedh, as I have said, forms one of the great epochs in the
mythological record. As will be seen, he and the earlier Partholan
have a common source:--
NEMEDH
son of
Sera,
son of
Pamp,
son of
Tath, PARTHOLAN (2000 B.C.)
son of son of
Sera,
son of
Sru,
son of
Esru,
son of
Pramant.
The connection between Keasair, the earliest of the Irish gods, and
the rest of the cycle, I have not discovered, but am confident of
its existence.
How this divine cycle can be expunged from the history of Ireland I
am at a loss to see. The account which a nation renders of itself
must, and always does, stand at the head of every history.
How different is this from the history and genealogy of the Greek
gods which runs thus:--
The Olympian gods,
Titans,
Physical entities, Nox, Chaos, &c.
The Greek gods, undoubtedly, had a long ancestry extending into the
depths of the past, but the sudden advent of civilisation broke up
the bardic system before the historians could become philosophical,
or philosophers interested in antiquities.
But the Irish history corrects our view with regard to other
matters connected with the gods of the Aryan nations of Europe
also.
All the nations of Europe lived at one time under the bardic and
druidic system, and under that system imagined their gods and
elaborated their various theogonies, yet, in no country in Europe
has a bardic literature been preserved except in Ireland, for no
thinking man can believe Homer to have been a product of that rude
type of civilisation of which he sings.
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