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- [00:00]
Anthony Murphy
USAA knows dynamic duos can save the.
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Tristan
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Anthony Murphy
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Tristan
Hey guys, Tristan here and I have an exciting announcement. The Ancients will be returning to the London Podcast Festival. Now last year tickets they sold out at record speed. So this time we've been upgraded. We've got a bigger room and you, you can be there too on Friday 5th September at 7pm at King's Place. Now I've invited friend of the podcast, the fabulous Dr. Eve MacDonald to join me on stage where we will be exploring the gripping story of Ancient Carthage. Carthage, the Phoenician city that became a superpower, an empire that rivaled Rome for control in the Western Mediterranean and and ultimately had a terrible, traumatic demise. Of course, the Ancients is nothing without you, so we want you to be there in the audience taking part and asking us your burning questions. Tickets for the festival always sell fast, so book yourself a seat now at www.kingsplace.co.uk whatson or click the link in the show notes of this episode. The team and I cannot wait to see you there. Hey guys, I hope you're doing well. Welcome to this episode of the Ancients. All about the amazing topic that is Irish mythology. This is extraordinary. I love learning about all these stories that you're going to hear in the interview and how they're linked to certain ancient Irish prehistoric sites. I also love the fact that J.R.R. tolkien's Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings may well have been inspired by a particular supernatural creature from Irish mythology called Balor. And if that doesn't work to your appetite, then I don't know what will. Our guest is a man who's been researching, studying Irish mythology for decades. He's a brilliant storyteller. His name is Anthony Murphy. Such a privilege to get him on the podcast and I hope you guys enjoy. Let's go. Irish mythology. An incredibly rich corpus of tales written down by Christian monks in medieval times. But with its roots in Ireland's ancient past, it is mythology that includes stories of supernatural beings and creatures, of divine battles and scandals, of sacred rivers and epic heroes. Stories strongly linked to some of Ireland's most important prehistoric monuments and landscapes, like the 5,000-year-old passage tomb at Newgrange and the Hill of Tara. Irish mythology is rich and diverse, full of tales that have gripped people for centuries and remain as popular as ever. This is an introduction to the fascinating rich world of Irish mythology and its links to Ireland's prehistoric past with our guest, Anthony Murphy. Anthony, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Great to see you again, although not in person this time.
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Anthony Murphy
Yeah, we spent some time together along the Boyne. Was that last year. And it was. Yeah, enjoyed. I very much enjoyed that and enjoyed watching the. The result of that.
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Tristan
Well, you were part of our documentary on Prehistoric island on Bruno Boynia. And the links, not only your discovery of this extraordinary ancient henge and many other monuments like Dronehenge, but also the links to Irish mythology of that extraordinary prehistoric site. And I'm sure we'll be covering that in today's chat. But, Anthony, with. With Irish mythology, I had no idea just how rich a corpus of literature of different stories you had available that there was an Irish mythology. We can't cover all of it, but there is so much to explore.
- [04:04]
Anthony Murphy
Yeah. And I think this is something that even Irish people are only coming to grips with in recent years. Like, you know, a generation ago, when I was being educated, we were taught classical studies in secondary school. And, you know, we learned all about. Well, we learned Homer and Virgil and the Iliad and the Odyssey, and we learned about the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. But I suppose in a way, when I left school, I didn't realize that Ireland had a body of mythology that would easily rival the classical world and have spent the intervening years trying to catch up on that serious deficiency in my knowledge. So, you know, it is truly vast. There are stories, you know, from. Well, I suppose they've been categorized into different cycles, as it were. But we're very lucky because an awful lot of what we have in terms of mythology, the stuff that was written down, it mostly survives because of Christian monks in the Middle Ages. And without that, I think an awful lot of what we have today wouldn't have survived. And then separate to that, there's an enormous body of folklore and folk traditions which have survived orally not just into the 20th century, but, you know, in parts of Ireland, there are stories still being told in the 21st century that are certainly centuries old, if not a lot longer than that.
- [05:46]
Tristan
And just to give a sense of the rich, diverse stories that you have from mythology, and some of them, no doubt, we'll cover today, Anthony. I mean, so you've got stories of saints, of kings, of warriors, of heroes, supernatural races, and mythological creatures as well. It's a diverse range of Topics and stories within this mythology.
- [06:05]
Anthony Murphy
Yeah, I've often said that if you were to become a mythologist, whether an academic one or like myself, you know, a non academic scholar, you could choose a specialty, you could specialize in a particular area of Irish myth and devote probably your entire life or your entire career to that one branch of mythology. So for instance, our origin myth is given to us by the monks in a sort of convoluted form, a book called Laurgawala Aaron, the Book of the Takings of Ireland, commonly known as the Book of Invasions. And in that we have this sequence of imagined events beginning at an unknown time, at, you know, beginning in biblical terms with the creation of the world and the Great flood and all of that. And there's enough in Lara Gawala runs to six volumes. The scholarly translation of it runs to six volumes. So there in that story, it's, it's, it's not a story as such, it's a sequence of stories. In that series of stories, one could embed oneself and go down a very, very deep rabbit hole and not emerge for another 10 or 20 years. But so the, the scholars, I mean, I'm talking about the academic scholars have for a long time recognized four distinct cycles. Now a caveat to trying to push various myths and legends into cycles is that they are not tightly defined. They're not very well defined in time, most of them, and they often stray one into the other so that you get the, the old gods of what is called the mythological cycle, what is envisioned or imagined to be the first, first of the cycles. You often get the old gods straying into the later cycles coming back, you know, as it were. So if the mythological cycle, we then have the, the Ulster cycle of tales, which includes, you mentioned, the great saga Toynbo Kulya, the cattle raid of Coolie, which is one of Ireland's probably greatest stories in terms of its breadth and its size. It's not quite Homer's Iliad, but you know, it would be sort of the Irish equivalent. Then we have the Finn cycle, the cycle of tales relating to Finn and the Fianna, the warrior band of Ireland. And then of course we have the kings, the king's cycle. And we know of course from history that there were actual historical high kings and kings of Ireland. But as I say, trying to neatly fit them into boxes is something that academic scholars like to do. But in fact you find that they're not necessarily neatly constrained in that. So for instance, one example of that is in Toynbo Kulge, which we're told belongs to the Ulster cycle of tales. We have some of the Toa, the Danan, featured within that story. You know, a very good example of that. It is Cuchulainn, the great warrior, the hero of the tale, the protagonist of the town or one of the. He meets his supernatural father, who is Lou Samuel Dana or Lou Macathlin. And Lou we would know from the mythological cycle, the Tuathedanan. And this is something that could become an obsession of sorts, you know, and those who have tried quite admirably, I might add, and I'm talking about, you know, university scholars, professors, and great minds of the 20th and 21st century, they have tried admirably, you know, to pick those apart. But I suppose if you think more generally in terms of mythology and the meaning and purpose of it, I would tend myself to lean towards a Jungian and, you know, a Campbell Eska, as in Joseph Campbell, a view of some of the functions and interpretations and meaning of myths. And then, of course, there's the fact that myths which ostensibly look like stories, pure mythology, oftentimes have historical references in them, right? And some of those historical references, historians have gone back in time and said that's actually a fact, you know, so in the myth, we get glimpses, as it were, into a reality, a real lived existence of a people of the past. So just before we carry on, I suppose a major, major caveat, and it's something that anybody who tries to study Irish mythology must get a clear view of straight away, is the fact that nothing was written down in Ireland until Christian monks, basically not invented, but brought writing to Ireland in around the 6th century A.D. and in fact, in terms of Irish mythology, what survives in manuscripts, about 300 of them in libraries and private collections in Ireland and Britain and on the continent of Europe, what survives is probably a fraction of what was there originally. But our greatest difficulty is, I believe, in the 21st century, is trying to disentangle what is clearly heavily influenced by that ecclesiastical hand and the mindset of the Christian scribe, who is in some cases writing down incredibly pagan, as it were. And I put that word in quotes. It's a word I do not use in my own writing because it's such a pejorative word when it's used from a religious standpoint. But they were writing down what were ostensibly pagan myths, and that would have been extremely challenging and testing because remember that an ecclesiastical scribe who professes a faith in one God and his son, Jesus Christ, and who does his best to. To honor, as it were, and obey the Ten Commandments is in flagrant breach of the first commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. When he attempts to write, for instance, about the Tuatha Danan.
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Tristan
Yes.
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Anthony Murphy
Which is where it gets complicated because. Well, complicated, nuanced might be the word, because the scribes tried to demonize the Tuathed Danan. In some cases, they said that there were fallen angels, and in some cases, they tried to make out that they're mortal human beings who live mortal existences, who. Who are born, who live and who die, and who pass away. And you can see there are quite deliberate and really obvious insertions into the myths where, you know, the scribe talks about the one true God, or where the scribe tries to make out, for instance, in the famous story connected with Newgrange, Altramca Vater, which is the fosterage of the house of the two drinking vessels, in which one of the major figures of that myth, who is clearly a Tuatha de danan goddess, meets St Patrick in the latter part of the story, is baptized by St. Patrick, is removed from her old community, and basically dies in his arms, having professed the faith. You know, and for me, it's like that's a tale of two halves. The first part of that is, I believe, a pure view into the past. The second is sort of a contrivance made to, as it were, to baptize this.
- [14:06]
Tristan
A Christian figurehead.
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Anthony Murphy
Yes, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
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Tristan
So it sounds like. Yes. Although the medieval link is so clear in the fact that these myths, as you say, they are written down in medieval times and not all at the same time. I'm guessing it's over different centuries and you've got different Christian writers writing down these stories and these figures, you know, trying to, you know, reconcile, you know, their beliefs, but also to bring in the stories that. To our de Danan. And you mentioned St. Patrick there. So the. The Christian angle that you need to understand and you can see with some elements of certain myths. But, Anthony, how we get the ancient prehistoric island link here, Is it clear, then that actually much of this mythology is older than medieval times and may well have a historical basis in Ireland's prehistoric past?
- [14:55]
Anthony Murphy
That's a very good question. And the immediate answer from my point of view, is yes. So I suppose one of the advantages of not being an academically trained scholar in this discipline is having a sort of a wider. A wider view and a more holistic view. Having studied, you know, archeology and prehistory, and then, you know, looking at the detail of the stories, I'LL give you what I believe to be the best example of that, of the fact that, yes, there is information about the ancient past. I could give you several, but I'll try to give you a quick. Yeah, I know, we could be here all day. I'll give you a quick example. In the stories of Bruno Bonya, for instance, which I know we're going to talk about in more detail, there are references to incest. There are references to a king at Douth who makes love with his sister. And this causes a spell that she has cast on the sun to make it stand still in the sky to fail. They spoil the magic by committing incest. Five years ago in 2020, genetic scientists who've been studying ancient DNA from Trinity College in Dublin revealed that a man buried inside the chamber of Newgrange, which is the Sister monument of Douth, was the product of first degree incestuous union. That his parents were probably brother and sister, most likely brother and sister, if not father and daughter or mother and son, but most likely brother and sister. And so right there in the myth of Bruno Bonje, we have something that 21st century science has actually proven to be true. And then consider the solar event at Newgrange, which many of your viewers will know about, but some of them may not. Newgrange, a little bit like Stonehenge. Stonehenge is famous for its summer solstice alignment. Newgrange here in the Boyne Valley is famous for its winter solstice sunrise alignment. Newgrange was blocked up for 4,000 years and nobody knew for 4,000 years, or they may have known, but nobody could see an entrance because the cairn had collapsed, as it were, had slipped out over the edge and buried everything. And that entrance was not revealed again until the late 17th century, 1699, actually. And it was only in 1967, when the roof box was finally cleared out and restored, that the sun was able to shine into Newgrange again. And archaeologists who, anybody with an expertise on Newgrange archaeologically who have studied it will all say the same thing, that Newgrange had been blocked up since about the late Neolithic or the early Bronze Age for around about 4,000 years. And yet in the 20th century, in the 60s, before the roof box was cleared out, the archaeologist Michael J. O', Kelly, who's excavating Newgrange, is being told by the locals, do you know that the sun shines in there once a year? Even though they couldn't have witnessed it, it was impossible for them to have seen it. And according to Archeologists hadn't, it hadn't been seen for 4,000 years. And then look at the dungeonicus and look at the stories pertaining to Bruno Bonia. And in there you will see that the Dogda, who is the builder of Newgrange, the king of the Tuatha Dana, the chief of the gods, the one who controls the weather and the harvest, he's like a sky God or a sun God, he desires Bowen, the goddess. And by the way, Bruno Bogna is named after her, as is the Boyne River. He desires her. And they make love inside Newgrange, but in order to do so, and this is the exact translation of the Irish, they make the sun stand still in the sky. And so in that, and I've written about this, there's a lengthy article about it on the Mythical Ireland website, you have basically the sun God meeting with the earth goddess. And it's all very sort of organic and symbolic in that Newgrange is very womb like and swollen belly like, you know, you know you've got the sun, that shaft of light, you know, entering that monument. And in that process the new sun God is born. Angus Og, the, the child, the divine child, who, when his mother was asked why is he called Angus the young Angus Og, she said, well, because young is the son who was conceived and born in the same day because of the magic that they had wrought at the time of his conception, that Dagda and Bowen slept together inside Newgrange. The child was conceived and he was born before nightfall on the same day. And so I just believe that. Remember that though that story, that story was written down in the Middle Ages. Most of what survives in terms of Irish mythological material, not, you know, there's plenty of ecclesiastical material, you know, prayer books and the Gospels and all of that. But in terms of just the Irish mythological material, most of that was written between the 12th and the 15th centuries A.D. so I mean, we're not even talking a thousand years ago, we're talking between 500 and 800 years ago. Now the critical thing here is that as those stories were being written down, nobody knew that Newgrange had a chamber nobody knew that the sun used to shine in, or at least nobody could see it in the era in which the, the stories were written down. So the only possible plausible explanation for that is that either it's a fantastic coincidence, which, you know, I think is nonsense, or in the Middle Ages there is a memory there of something that happened with Newgrange, not just centuries, but millennia previously.
- [20:59]
Tristan
No. Yes. No, exactly. Given that Newgrange is built some 5,000 years ago in the Stone Age. And also there you mentioned I'm going to butcher the pronunciation of it, but the Dundasenkas. Anthony, can you say the name correctly for me and then I'll continue my question?
- [21:14]
Anthony Murphy
So an acceptable Dynicus is how we would say it. But if you want to, just say Din Shanachus. Dynacus.
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Tristan
Dynacus.
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Anthony Murphy
Yeah.
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Tristan
Okay.
- [21:25]
Anthony Murphy
Dynacus is a remarkable collection of lore pertaining to eminent places. It's exactly what it means. A dinned Shanachus. Shanaches is lore or folklore or lore would be a better word. And dinned sacred places. Important, eminent places. And so it's basically a collection pertaining to old monuments and places where important things happened in the past. Gas, groceries, eating out. It all adds up fast. With the Verizon Visa card, you get rewarded every time you spend. Get 4% in rewards on gas, dining and at grocery stores. And you can put those rewards toward your Verizon bill or on new tech like a smartwatch and earbuds. Apply today at Verizon. Application required. Subject to credit approval. Must be a Verizon mobile account owner or manager or FIOS account owner. See verizon.com Verizon Visa card for terms and restrictions. The Verizon Visa signature card is issued by Synchrony bank pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. Land a Viking longship on island shores, Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our.
- [22:49]
Tristan
Special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords.
- [22:53]
Anthony Murphy
And shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories.
- [23:05]
Tristan
Listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits.
- [23:10]
Anthony Murphy
There are new episodes every week.
- [23:31]
Tristan
Well, you hit the nail on the head there, because I was going to say if, if that's the what these stories are. It seems that there are these extraordinary prehistoric sites like you've mentioned. Brune Boyne, Newgrange, Passage to Nowh and Douth. I've also got the Hill of Tara in my notes as well. But there are actual places and sites and landscapes in Ireland that we know held huge significance and importance to Stone Age Stone Age populations in Ireland, Bronze Age, Iron Age and so on that are strongly linked with stories from Irish mythology. And I think that's an extraordinary part of Ireland's mythology.
- [24:06]
Anthony Murphy
Yeah, and I agree, an extraordinary part and a very important part. So something that, again, non scholars, people who, you know, have just read some stuff on the Internet or read a few books, may not be aware of is Dunchanicus was obviously extremely important for this reason. Dunchanicus material is found in at least 12 manuscripts. Now, just to compare, for instance, the story of the Salmon of Knowledge, which. Which we may get time to talk about, which happened at Bruno Bonya, by the way, in the Bend of the Boyne, that episode is only written in one manuscript, or at least it only survives in one manuscript. I think the fact that Danchanicus is found in so many of the manuscripts indicates how important it was, that it was an extremely critical part of the corpus of material and I suppose the cosmological worldview of the people who wanted it written down. And when I say the people who wanted it written down, it's important for your viewers and listeners to understand that, you know, the Enchanicus was written down by people who were mostly Christian scribes. Now there were lay scribes, but it's a monastic environment in which these stories are being written down. Why did Christian monks labor long and hard on cold stone slabs, writing under candlelight for long hours of the day? You know, why did they exert all this labor writing down what was ostensibly pagan mythology? And the answer is this, and this is the briefest explanation I can give for it. But it is important that the reason is because without an affiliation, a relationship with the pagan kings, the monastic communities could never have thrived in Ireland. It was with the say so of the local or provincial or even the high king that the monasteries could become established in the first place. They needed land to farm and for their ecclesiastical structures, their churches, and of course, their buildings and the places where they lived. And in return for that, the kings said, well, hey, we just want you to write down our lore. And that included, I suppose. Well, it. What it included was a justification of that king's right to rule, which would include, for instance, genealogies, a lot of genealogical material, you know, affirming the king's descendants, usually from the first Milesian high king. And Milesians are mostly mythological, I believe, part historical. And Eremon was the first Milesian king. And there's this major effort on behalf of the genealogists to. To contrive, in some cases, a family tree that linked that king back to Eremon, you know, and then the Dunchanicus. Because if a king, a Tara, is A great example, the Hill of Tara, where the overking Ardrina harem, the Over King, or the High King of Ireland ruled from. You've got a monumental landscape there. It's an archaeological landscape containing monuments from as long ago as the Neolithic. And so in the early medieval period, when we know there were actual kings who really existed, they're pointing to these monuments and saying, here is the story of these monuments. And this helps to legitimize his power because he's saying, basically, our ancestors have been buried here for not just decades and generations, but for centuries and possibly thousands of years. So it's against that backdrop that you get an insight into why it was that Christian scribes were writing this material down. And it's really crucial to understand that to get a flavor of what was involved. Dinsenicus, I suppose from an academic scholarship point of view, Dinchenicus is funny because with many of the stories, there are almost always two explanations as to how the place got its name. It's either this or it's that. And the two are very, very different and sort of seem to argue with each other. That has led modern scholars. I'm talking specifically, of course, about academic scholars. That has led the modern scholars to say, well, this is, you know, this is. This is a contrivance. Some of it looks a little bit kitsch and, you know, it loses vitality, it loses credibility because it says, well, it's either this or that. And the two stories are very different. But I suppose what I've been doing for the past 25 years or so is I've been looking into some of those stories, not all of them. There's so much material. I've been looking into those stories that pertain particularly to Bruno Bonya, and I've been finding glimpses of a true history of the place. You know, that despite this contradiction, as it were, that these stories appear to sort of contradict each other. In there, in the detail, I believe, is information about the past. A good friend of mine said recently is, remember, Anthony, that in the Middle Ages, this is what they were writing down. This was a principal component of the mythos, the worldview of the people who were relating this to the. The scribes, you know, the, the bards, as it were, the ones, the olives, the poets, the. The. The ones who knew this material by heart, who, who. Who would never even think about writing it down for them in a way that was anathema. But of course, the. The scribe needs to have had a reference point. Where are they getting this information? From, to write it down in the first place, there's a bard standing or sitting beside them relating this material. And the bard in the Middle Ages is saying, well, here are all the monuments of Bruno, here are their names and here is the origin story for each of them. And in the Middle Ages we've got this collection of stories telling us all about the various monuments that were then visible at Bruno and the stories behind them. Some of them pertaining to gods and goddesses, some of them pertaining to heroes, some of them pertaining to animals and even mythological creatures. And yet fast, fast forward to the 19th and particularly the 20th century and we've removed all that and we're now producing maps of Bruno Bonia that have mound A and mound B and standing stone C and letters on all the monuments, completely depriving them of that mythological import. But if you were to go back in time, travel back to the Middle Ages and, and, and have a bard stand at Newgrange looking down across the, the various still standing monuments, that bard would be able to tell you the name of each of them and the story pertaining to each of them.
- [31:32]
Tristan
And also of course, you know, with natural landscapes as well, you mentioned also the River Boyne and I think the River Shannon is similar as well, that there's mythology connected to these rivers, hence why they're considered like the most sacred rivers in Ireland as well. So hopefully we'll get to that. And you mentioned earlier the salmon of knowledge, so I'm definitely going to get to that later in this chat. But you've also highlighted something which I love doing on the ancients with various kinds of mythology and various stories that have survived is exploring myths and then exploring whether there is historical basis or some slivers of prehistoric remembering in the stories. And you've already highlighted there these big monuments and how they are linked to certain mythological tales. One tale I'd like us to really explore now, Anthony, if you don't mind, because you mentioned near the beginning the Tuathe Danan and can we therefore go to in the mythology the creation story of Ireland and how we get to this, these people of the Tua de Danan, but also people who you also mentioned in passing the Milesians, who ultimately the kings of Ireland claim descent from. So I know it's a multi volume story of how you get there, but would you mind kind of giving us an overview of what the mythology tells us about how we get to these, these godlike creatures, the Tuatha de Danan and then ultimately the Milesians.
- [32:51]
Anthony Murphy
Yeah. So the Tuatha de Danann are, I suppose, one. One aspect or one chapter in the story of La Gawala, the book of invasions. And the idea is very. To summarize very briefly, is that the history of Ireland according to what was written by the monks, remember, they're using. Part of this is. Is. Is real Irish mythological tradition, and part of it, of course, is contrived history. They imagined that Irish history began with the. The great flood of Noah, that Noah's granddaughter was refused entry onto the ark and was told by her grandfather to come to a place where there was no sin, where there were no people living, because that land would have no sin in it and would not be subject to God's vengeance or God's justice, as it were, with the coming flood. And that's how it begins. She comes to Ireland. Now, there are six distinct arrivals, according to Laura Gawala, one of which is the Toa de Danan, now the Tuatha Danan. And this is a, I suppose, a peculiarity, as it were, if you think that these are gods and goddesses, a peculiarity is that they don't emerge from the land. They're not created here. They don't come, you know, they don't come out of the earth as much as they're given this distinct arrival. Now remember that always, always be very careful when you're reading Irish mythology, because you have to. You have to always remember there's a Christian monk writing this down. And the Christian monk, of course, if you're standing, talking to a bard who only speaks what was then early or middle Irish, you know, and that bard has never seen writing before, doesn't know how to write his own name. You know, he's. He's not going to know that the monk is kind of changing things as he's writing it down. But we're told that the Tuatha, the Danan, had studied the occult and mysterious arts in the Northern isles of the world, and they had arrived into Ireland in a fleet of ships and that Ireland was already occupied by a race of beings called the Fir Volog, which has been translated as the Bagmen. I know, yeah. Don't think a Martin Scorsese movie. Oh, we could go down so many rabbit holes. But the Fir Volog basically occupy Ireland. And in order to sort of take it over, the Tuatha Danan have to go to war with the Fir Volog, which they do, and they defeat them. Now, as they arrive in Ireland, just to clear up something you'll see on the Internet and social media, you'll see all these remarkable claims that the Tuatha Danan were aliens because they came down from the sky. They were said to have descended from the sky. But Lara Gawala has a very distinct reason for that impression. It is because when they arrived, they burned their ships because they were so brave. You see, that any idea that they would retreat in the face of an enemy was anathema to them. Cowardice. Complete cowardice.
- [36:07]
Tristan
And if you want to take the island, burn the boats kind of thing.
- [36:10]
Anthony Murphy
Yeah. To utterly prevent any notion of them being afraid, they burned their ships, meaning they had no exit should they face a despicable enemy. And the cloud of smoke billowed over Ireland for three days. And Lara Gawala very specifically tells us that this led to the impression that they had descended from the sky. They brought four mysterious sacred objects, or what have been described as talismans with them, and they are the Sword of Nuadu. Nuadu, as it happens, was their first king or leader, Nuadu Aragat Love, which translates as Nuadu of the Silver arm. Now, there's a very long. I could potentially spend an hour telling you that story, but I'll summarize it. In the battle against the Fir Volog, he had his arm chopped off, which meant he had to. He had to abdicate the kingship, because a king could only rule if he was pure of body and mind and had no blemishes. And a healer of the Tuathedanan Dian Kecht made him a silver arm. The first mention in mythology, I believe, anywhere in the world of prosthetics.
- [37:21]
Tristan
Prosthetics, yeah.
- [37:22]
Anthony Murphy
And if you're thinking Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, you're on the right track, because apparently that myth inspired that whole episode in Star wars where Luke has his arm chopped off by his father and then has a robotic arm fitted in its place. That's entirely based, apparently, on this story of Nuadu. Then the other weapon was the Spear of Lou. So the characteristics of these weapons were that they would never miss their mark. The Sword of Nuadu, when brought into battle, would guarantee success. The Spear of Lugh. Lugh was another of the great luminaries previously mentioned of the Tuatha de Danann, known under various epithets, Lou Samil Danak Lugh, the many gifted. He came to Tara while Nuadu was celebrating returning to the throne. We don't use the word throne in Ireland. We don't have marble thrones. It's not that kind of kingship. He, you know, Nuadu has been able to retake the kingship because he's got a new arm and he's no longer blemished. And Lou comes to Tara at that time announcing his gifts. And Lugh is the one who basically takes over from Nuadu in the preparations for the next war against the Fomorians, the evil sort of pirate giant cyclopean race that has occupied Ireland since the earliest times and who have forever been the enemy of the Tuath Adana. So that spear was said to have never missed its mark. You brought that into battle and you threw it it, it would kill an enemy full stop, no matter how badly you threw it. The third object was the dogdas cauldron, the undry, it's called, which I think is very funny in Ireland. Well, I think we've kind of got a wicked sense of humor about some things. We call it the undry instead of just calling it the wet. You know, the belief was that the cauldron would provide food and drink in unending measure. No matter how much you gorged from it in terms of eating and drinking, it was always full. And for me that's deeply fascinating because remember what I said earlier, Dagda, who is the later the king of the Tua de Danan, there were only a few built Newgrange owned Newgrange and you know, was clearly some sort of a sun slash sky God. You know, for me he belongs to, his memory belongs to the, the Neolithic, that period of time in which farming arrived into Ireland and into Britain, you know, in the same era when we have the first cattle and goats and sheep and when we have the first crop husbandry that, yes, an agricultural community depending on, you know, the weather. And in Ireland, you know, the reason we're so green is because we get a lot of rain. But we need the right mixture of sun and rain for the crops to grow out to their full potential and to ripen. And of course it makes sense to me that their sky God would have this cauldron of plenty, because that's what you're hoping for from the harvest, that in bringing farming you have a reliable source of food that enables you to settle that, that, that enables you to evolve from this hunter gatherer lifestyle that has been in existence, well in Ireland since the Ice Age. But in Britain and in Europe, you know, across the Paleolithic for, you know, maybe 200,000 years, all of a sudden you've got this source of food that you can grow locally, you know, and you've got cows and you can get milk from them and then, you know, when they expire, you eat their meat and everybody's happy. And the last object, leaf oil, the so called Stone of Destiny at the Hill of Tara. But the explanation that is clearly given in Laura Gawala is not that it is the Stone of Destiny. Of course it's the destiny in a way. It was said its principal property was that it was said to have screamed under the rightful candidate for kingship. So if the community of Tara at various times in the past, and I believe the kingship right at Tara goes all the way back, not just into prehistory, but to the Neolithic, that's my own belief. Can I prove it? Of course I can't. But this stone was said to be Leah foe oil that foil f a father il and according to Laura Gawala was consistent. It was a compound word consisting of two separate words. Faux oil, the understone, because of the fact that when the king stepped on her or they candidate for kingship stepped on it, it would roar or scream so that all in Tara could hear it leading to today, the actual stone, which stands on a monument called On Fora, the royal, the royal enclosure or the royal seat that visitors to Leofoil, you'll see them, you know, touching it and hoping that they will hear the scream and that they will be announced as the new High King of Ireland.
- [42:25]
Tristan
Yes, Anyone? Guitar? Don't kick it too hard though, okay? Please be aware that it is an actual monument. But y. Great story.
- [42:30]
Anthony Murphy
Oh yeah, yeah. So they're. They're the four objects and I suppose they're the. They're the sort of mystical beginnings of the Dedanans who remain mystical. There's an aspect to the Tuatha de Danan. Sometimes they appear very human, of course, but there's an aspect to them that's very full of mystique and intrigue because, you know, when the Milletians come and this is the battle, then that is referred to by modern scholars as the conquest of the gods by mortals, which is a lens through which the ecclesiastical scribes of the Middle Ages were very uncomfortable with. For then it was very much, we need to make these mortal so that whatever happens, for instance, in the battle of Tultu, which is the critical battle between the Milesians and the Tua, the Danan, the Milesians win. But the real question is how do mortal men beat or defeat gods and goddesses in a battle? And when you look into the nuances of La Regawala and other tales and some folklore, you will find that in fact, what has happened is they haven't been mortally wounded and dropped dead, their corpses littering the battlefield. It is a different type of defeat. They agree with the Milesians upon defeat that we are now going to retreat into the she. Now that word is spelt in Middle Irish. S I fada. D, like father for your non Irish viewers would be like an axon. You know, in, in French, she. It looks like Sid with a father on the I, but it's pronounced she, like she for woman, which is interesting, but there's no adequate translation of that word into modern English. You will often see that translated in, especially in 19th and 20th century translations, you'll often see it translated as a fairy mount, but that's inadequate because the fairies, of course, are a much later survival of earlier beliefs in deities. The best translation I've seen is otherworld Mound, because now what happens is the Tour de Danan retreat into the she mounds and occupy the subsurface land, as it were, realm that is coexistent with this one. It's very much we're sharing the same realm in a way, but the Milesians are given the surface territory of Ireland. And the Milesian story is fascinating because they come from Spain. There are eight brothers who are the sons of the king of Spain, and they come to take Ireland from the Tua de Danan. And as I said much, much later, kings try to say, well, we're descended from them. Because it was the first Milesian High King, Eremon, whose wife Tia had chosen Tara as the place from which they would reign. And you got this effort because they were clearly heroic in that they had defeated the gods. But here's the catch, and it's a very major catch. The gods and goddesses of the Toa de Danan never really went away. Yeah, weren't. They weren't killed, they didn't die, they are ever living. And in the folk beliefs of recent centuries in Ireland, we have these prophecies that they're going to come out of the she mounds again at the end of time or some great tumultuous end times battle, or some time of great struggle for Ireland and will bring glory to Ireland. So this belief that it's a little bit like those tales that you find in Britain and in other parts of Europe, the ones that we call King Under Mountain, a little bit like the dead army in Lord of the Rings, especially in the movie, not so much in the book, but this idea that, you know, Aragorn is able to rouse this sleeping army and we've got these stories in especially the early 20th century, which have probably survived orally for generations and centuries before about, you know, enchanted armies of sleeping warriors in monuments subsurface, you know, in subterranean areas beneath the hills and monuments of Ireland. And it's against that backdrop that you begin to realize why it is that there is so much mystique and intrigue and modern day interest in the Tour de Daman.
- [46:54]
Tristan
So it's not. You mentioned the she mounds there and I immediately thought so could the she mounds of Irish mythology be a reference to the great Stone age Neolithic mounds like Newgrange and the like that you see in Ireland today? Or do we think that there's the link there?
- [47:08]
Anthony Murphy
No, it's not a question. It's absolutely the case. It is absolutely the case. So for instance, many of your viewers and listeners may not know this, but Newgrange is a 12th century name, 12th century A.D. it is not the original name of that monument. It derived the name Newgrange from the Cistercians who established a very major monastery called Mellifont Abbey in the year 1142 A.D. just a few miles away and were granted by the local king, Donnacha o' Carroll, who said, yeah, sure, you can come in and you know, set up your monastery and farm the land. I'll give you loads of land. Gave them tons and tons of land. And because they're a French order, they, they establish what are called granges. Grange in, in French. And there are four townlands in the immediate vicinity of Newgrange. Newgrange is the name of a townland. It's the name of a unit of land, as it were, around Newgrange, that is, you know, 12th century in orange, just before the Anglo, Anglo Norman invasion of Ireland. The old name of the monument was is she Dembroga? She on Vrouw. So literally we have, in the name of the original name of the monument, we have that word she. So we've got one tale from the Middle Ages where, you know, a guy goes to Newgrange, Gillalugam goes to Newgrange to talk to Angus, you know, who's said to haunt the monument every year at Samhain. Samhain, of course, incredibly superstitious and important moment as it were, in the annual calendar. I love that idea that people are going to Newgrange in the Middle Ages to talk to the gods, you know, the gods and goddesses of the Theoda Danan. Indefatigable, indefeatable, live in the mythological memory and mindset. They never died. They were never vanquished. They're always there. And of course, that survives in a way into modern and, you know, late medieval belief in the fairies. And the fairies really we should look at as diminished forms of those gods and goddesses they had just become small, as it were. How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount, Safe driver discount, new vehicle discount, storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com autodiscounts restrictions apply. Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our.
- [50:01]
Tristan
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Anthony Murphy
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Tristan
Listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by hitting History Hits.
- [50:22]
Anthony Murphy
There are new episodes every week.
- [50:42]
Tristan
And of course you get later on the, you know, the fairy forts on there. We went to Rathgow, which has got a Bronze Age story but also a medieval story. And I think they're called fairy forts. But I digress because I don't think we can talk about that in this chat. One more question about that kind of the Tour de Danan before we move on to the Fena and heroes of Irish mythology. Anthony, is you mentioned Lord of the Rings earlier and of course you do ask. We get the Tua de Danan versus the Milesians, the mortals. But before that, and you mentioned them in passing, how the Tuathedanan almost have like, what is the Irish equivalent of the ancient Greek gigantomachy? You know, the fight between the Greek gods and the giants, the Irish Tuathed Danann and the Fomorion giants. And can you explain to me a little bit about this link to the eye of Sauron, of all things, with the Fomorians and their leader?
- [51:36]
Anthony Murphy
Yeah. So the leader of the Fomorians, an individual called Balor, Balor of the Baleful Eye, also known as Balor of the Stout Blows. That's B a l o r. And so the principal aspect of Balor is his very distinctive fearsome, abominable appearance. He's got one great eye in the center of his forehead. So we're thinking Cyclops, but his eye is so huge that he requires seven warriors to open it, to open his great eyelid. One aspect of his baleful or destructive eye is that according to how much he opens it, it's, you know, that the. The result of that is varying levels of. Of. Of damage and, and burning and death. And so we're specifically told that, in fact, there are seven stages to that opening, and that in the first stage it starts to get very warm, and in the second stage, you know, it gets very hot and things start to wither. In the third, you know, plants are dying. In the fourth, and it gets to the seventh where literally everything is ablaze, everything's on fire. And again, this sounds like some of what we find in classical mythology, which has led modern scholars, I think, too much to suggest that a lot of this is borrowed from classical mythology. And of course, the Jungian viewpoint on this is that similar themes emerge from the human unconscious in various disparate parts of the world. Another aspect is that it's a little bit like Medusa, you know, if he opens his eye and you're looking at him, you turn to stone. And we have a story of the famous cow and calf of Balor, which were stolen and brought down along the coast from his Ulster stronghold towards the Leinster stronghold. And one. In order to. In order to sort of allay the suspicions of the cattle, the thief makes the cow walk ahead of its calf. And unfortunately, they get to a certain point when they cross the River Boyne, when the. The calf. Am I right about that? It's one or the other, anyway. Yeah. No, the calf is ahead of the cow. When they cross the River Boyne, the calf strays behind the cow. The cow turns round to see where the calf is and suddenly sees, oh, we're very far away from Ulster and our home. And the cow lets out a scream and in order to see what's going on, Balor opens his great eye. And in that moment the cow and the calf are turned to stone. Which is the origin myth of two islands. They're. They're. It's one. It's considered one island, but they are two separate islands called Rockabill, off the coast of County Dublin, visible from the mouth of the River Boyne, I should add. And that's the origin story that these two rocks, the large one is the cow, which is to the south, and the smaller one, which is the calf, is to the north, reflecting the story. And lo and behold, in 1999, the first year I began my own researches in earnest, along with local artist Richard Moore, we discovered at Baltray, at The mouth of the river Boyne overlooking the Irish Sea, that there's standing stones there and one of them is aligned to Rockabill. And at Rockabille in the Neolithic, the winter solstice would have risen directly behind the islands. And there I believe we had the astronomical origins of the story where the sun would appear to rise directly behind the two rocks. And that's Balor opening his baleful eye and describes why it was that in the story, everything went well. This is exactly how it is related in early 20th century folklore. In Skerries, a village looking directly across at the islands. The woman I think was Mary Halligan in, I think it was 1904. It's the first decade or two of the 1900s. She says that this is the story pertaining to them, you know, that, you know, Valor opened his eye and that they are now as they were then, the cow to the south and the calf to the north, and that they were turned to stone when Valor opened his eye. But all went well until they cross the Boyne. And that to me is pointing that the Boyne is an important part of the story when you position yourself at those very ancient standing stones. Now, a lot of standing stones in Ireland are believed to date to the Bronze Age, but in this case, I think we can firmly push these back to the Neolithic because they're made of exactly the same stone as Newgrange is built out of. And for me, there are like a way marker on the journey from Clara Head, carrying the giant stones of Newgrange. And standing there on winter solstice, the sun, this baleful eye of Balor, appears to rise behind the islands. And when you see Lord of the Rings and you see the eye of Balor, I remember reading Lord of the rings 30 years ago and thinking, wow.
- [56:53]
Tristan
The eye of Sauron.
- [56:54]
Anthony Murphy
Okay, yeah, sorry, the eye of Sauron, Yes. It's very difficult to get a picture of that. Well, it's not difficult, but we all concoct different. You know, when we see a movie finally of a book, Gandalf looks a little bit different than we had imagined him, you know, and Aragorn, you know, because they're portrayed by actors. But. But here I believe we have a very good representation of the. The baleful eye of Balor. As you know, that is something you definitely did not want to see.
- [57:24]
Tristan
Anthony is absolutely extraordinary. As we hinted at at the beginning, we were never going to be able to cover all the various strands of Irish mythology in just one hour. And I do feel with the cattle Raid of Goolie, like this Iliad equivalent, we'll probably have to save that one for another day. And probably also myths associated like snakes and so on with. With St. Patrick and St. Brigid. However, I did say earlier we should talk about, you know, how Irish mythology isn't just the supernatural gods and these amazing creatures, extraordinary creatures and giants as well, but also these heroes and these warriors too. This feels a nice way to get into what we were talking about earlier in passing, which is this extraordinary salmon of knowledge in the River Boyne and its link to one particular hero. Anthony, almost to finish this interview, can you tell us about this story and how it relates to one of these particular well known heroes of Irish mythology?
- [58:22]
Anthony Murphy
Yeah, the Salmon of Knowledge. And it's, you know, in the only written version of it, it's a very brief tale. It only occupies, you know, what we would consider a couple of paragraphs in modern parlance, that there is a wise old druid. His name is Finagus. And Phineagus is waiting along the banks of the River Boyne at Brunobonia, by the way, in sight of the great monuments of Newgrange. And now because of the famed Salmon of Knowledge, which has been prophesied, would come, you know, to that place, a place known as Lyn Faig, which is, you know, an Irish name meaning Faex Pool or Fiacs Pool. And so he's waiting there, and he spent seven years waiting because he knows that if he eats that fish, he will gain all of the mysterious arcane knowledge basically of the universe. I mean, that's probably my own way of putting it. He will gain suddenly three major sort of talents is not even a good word but, but, but boons, and become the wisest person who ever walked the surface of the earth. The thing is that on the day the fish arrives, a young boy happens upon the druid. And his name is Jevne, which is an Irish word that means certainty. And I. Nobody, as far as I know, has ever tried to explain that. And my explanation for it is, Jevna, certainty is because of the certainty that he would become a great hero and a great, you know, warrior and a great cult figure. Jevna asks the druid, what are you doing? And he says, well, I'm. I'm waiting for the Salmon of knowledge. The salmon comes along, the druid catches it, and Jevna says to the druid, well, can I help you? And the druid says, yeah, you can. Will you cook the fish for me? And the boy says, yes, of course, master. Suddenly he's his master. And, you know, the boy is told to cook the fish, but very strictly informed or very strictly warned, do not eat any of it. The boy agrees. Puts the fish on a spit, turns it over the fire, and everything's going well. And. But as everybody who's ever cooked in that way knows, it's very hard to cook a fish on a spit without it blistering. And he wanted to present to his master the perfect cooked fish. A blister rose up on the surface of the fish, and Jevna, thinking, oh, I can't present it to him like this. It must be perfect. Pressed down on the blister with his thumb. And of course, he burnt his thumb. And immediately he put his thumb in his mouth. And at that moment, he gains all the knowledge of the salmon, of knowledge. And he becomes intimately wise in this. I think we're seeing a rite of passage, or what you might call it. What is it? A threshold or transformation myth, you know, where the young, innocent boy suddenly becomes the wisest. You know, he goes back when the cook is. When the. When the fish is cooked. He brings the salmon back to. To his master. And Finagus immediately can tell that there's something has changed and says, is everything okay in the bushes? Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Here's your fish. But I should tell you that there was a blister, and I pressed down on it with my thumb and I sucked my thumb. And of course, at this moment, Fineus realizes that he has lost out on the chance that all of the arcane and secret knowledge of the fish has passed to the boy. And he says to Jevna, he says, what did you tell me your name was? And Jevna says, I'm Jevna. And Finnega says, no, you are the Finn. And Finn is a word in Irish that means brightness. It means. It can mean whiteness and fair, like. It's often said that Finn was called Finn because of his fair hair, because of the episode in which she dived into a lake to rescue a woman's ring. But she had tricked him and put old age on him and the silvery hair. But it's an interesting one that that should be the case, because if you think about it, the sucking of the thumb is something we associated with infancy. You know, with babies and toddlers. They suck their thumb, right? But in that image, we've got both the baby and then that sudden transformation. You know, the child is no longer a child. The child suddenly has this wise old head on its shoulders. So it's on. It's it's only natural that sometime later we should find that he's referred to the Fin because the silvery hair, because no matter what age he was, even when he was young, he had silvery hair like an old man, because he had the wisdom of an old man, you know. And look, there's so much I could tell you about the Salmon of Knowledge. Just a couple of very brief things. The salmon, as you know, is speckled, it has spots on its back. According to Irish folk tradition, the more spots that a salmon has, the wiser it is because of the tradition that goes all the way back to the formation of the Boyne that the salmon actually spent its infancy years in the well known as the well of Segich, the well from which the Boyne river was said to have been born. That's where it grew up. And it ate these hazelnuts that dropped down out of nine sacred hazel trees that grew over the well, and it ate these to gain all its knowledge. The other thing is that one of the descriptions of the Dogda in medieval Irish mythology, and I'm saying medieval, that's when it was written down, he is called the King of Lyn Fake. I think that's fascinating, that the chief of the Tuathed Danan should be referred to as the King of Linfake, the source of all of the arcane, spiritual, mystical, scientific knowledge of yourself, the world and the universe. An extraordinary transformation.
- [64:17]
Tristan
And Anthony, almost as a teaser for potential future episodes on more parts of Irish mythology, I mean, is this Finn character, is this the same Finn that will be the hero who's associated with those warriors, the Fina, and the story? I think there's one story where he makes the Giant's Causeway to cross over to fight a giant. Hence the name, the Giant's Causeway. So this is. I said this is his transformation with the Salmon of Knowledge into becoming this very well known hero of Irish mythology.
- [64:43]
Anthony Murphy
Yeah. And even the scholars who've looked at that story will say, Finn Aegis Fin. Aegis means wise Finn. And it's like they're basically two versions of the same thing. By the way, we're seeing a repeating theme here in the mythology of Newgrange, Dogda is eventually sort of transplanted by his son, Angus Og at Newgrange. Angus becomes the new owner of Newgrange by tricking his father out of the monument. And it's a little bit like that, I suppose, if you think about it in terms of Mirce Eliade and this idea of the eternal return, that, that one thing that ancient cultures liked to think about was the resetting or the reimagining of the cosmological origins. And that often involves the replacement of a wise old deity with a youthful version, which is what we hope happens every year with the sun, I believe is the old dying sun is replaced with a vibrant new hope to, to use another Star wars term, new hope. Oh, look, you know, we have, in this short conversation literally scratched the surface. We could spend years talking and never get to the true depth and the true bottom of all this. But how fascinating is it to explore it and, and to, to reimagine and bring it back to life, you know, to revivify, to breathe life into those old stories and, you know, to give them some relevance in the 21st century.
- [66:14]
Tristan
Anthony Absolutely. And you've done such incredible work on this, as you say. Well, as, and as I've already mentioned, we haven't even really scratched the castle raid of Cooley or St Patrick, St Brigid and so on, and so many more of these stories. There's also this extraordinary creature, the martyr, which I know you do a lot of work around as well, so we'll have to save those for another days. It almost feels like, you know, Irish mythology could be a series in its own right. Anthony, last but certainly not least, tell us you've written books about this. Of course, you also have your website too, so, you know, give us a bit of background into all the work where people can find your work and learn more about these myths.
- [66:46]
Anthony Murphy
Yeah, well, the thing to say is I'm not difficult to find. So Mythical Ireland is the name of my website that's been in existence for 25 years now. Mythical Ireland.com or IE will work as well. So that is a very substantial resource. You could spend many a day reading the material on that website alone. I run a YouTube channel. Again, mythical Ireland is the key. YouTube.com Mythical Ireland or Forward slash Mythical Ireland. If you're on a browser, there are in total 1500 videos, but I do a weekly live stream which in the pandemic began as a daily livestream called Live Irish Myths. So if you're interested in Irish myth and legend and folklore. Monday nights, 8pm Irish time is when that's on. Join please the free newsletter, the email newsletter on the website. If you're interested in supporting Mythical Ireland, please become a paying patron because I couple of years ago finally decided that I was going to try and actually make a living from doing this work because it wasn't possible to have a career and to try and squeeze the two in. And then in terms of the books, I've written 10 books, mostly nonfiction, some fiction. Probably the best one to start with is the one called Mythical Ireland, New Light on the Ancient Past. It happens to be my bestseller and I think for good reason, because it provides a great overview into what we've been talking about. So it looks at archaeology and prehistory and the history of Ireland, it looks at the myths and legends, it looks at the astronomical alignments and tries to tie them all together. So that'd be a great place to start if you want a signed copy. Or you can order my books from the Mythical Ireland website and I will send you a signed copy. I'm also tour guide. I run tours, some public, and I'm a private guide as well, if you want to hire me as a private guide. And so especially during the summer season, if you're in Ireland or you're coming to Ireland, look out for my tours in which we talk about just these topics. You know, an exploration of archeology, myth and astronomy and how they all come together. Stars, stones and stories.
- [68:51]
Tristan
Well, Anthony, that's quite a pitch. Quite a resume you have there. A leading expert on Irish mythology. And it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.
- [69:00]
Anthony Murphy
Been an absolute pleasure, Tristan. Thank you very much for having me.
- [69:07]
Tristan
Well, there you go. There was Anthony Murphy introducing you to the extraordinarily rich world of Irish mythology and its links to Ireland's prehistoric past. I hope you guys enjoyed the episode and hopefully we like more episodes on Irish mythology, on other epic tales like the Cattle Raid of Coulee in the future. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Ancients. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour if you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, where we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of Historyhit's podcasts ad free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe@historyhit.com subscribe. That's enough from me. I'll see you in the next episode. Hey there. You hear that, right?
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