The Book of Invasions

The Rule of Bres

Bres the Beautiful

The king they chose in the place of Nuada was their champion Bres, and he was the most beautiful of all their young gods. If they wanted to excessively praise any beautiful thing, whether it was a plain, a dun, ale, a flame, a woman, a man, or a horse, they would say, "It is as beautiful as Bres." He was the son of Eriu of the Tuatha de Danaan, but who his father was no one knew but Eriu herself.

Being the most beautiful of the gods he had naturally married the most beautiful goddess. He married Brigit the fair and clever daughter of The Dagda. However, in spite of Bres being so beautiful, his reign brought no honor or good fortune to his people. A Fomorian king, whose dwelling-place was beyond the sea, or as some say below the sea westward, began demanding tribute from them. He did this in a way that would place them under his own rule.

It had been a while, a long time, since the Fomorians had harassed those dwelling in Inis Fail. Indeed they felt they had a right to do so as they had no treaty with the Tuatha de Danaan. Dreadful the Fomorians were to look at, and maimed, many having but one leg and foot or one arm and hand, and they were under the leadership of a giant and his mother. There never came to Inis Fail an army more horrible or more dreadful than that army of the Fomorians. While they had been friendly with the Fir Bolg and content to leave Inis Fail to them, there was naught but hatred between them and the Tuatha de Danaan.

The Dark Side of Bres and the Chafing of the Tuatha de Danaan

The Tuatha de Danaan chafed under the hard taxes that the Fomorians put on them. They demanded a third part of the people’s corn, they demanded, and a third part of their milk, and a third part of their children. There was not smoke rising from a single roof in Ireland  but that it was under tribute to them. Bres in far off Teamhair though made no stand against them, he simply let them have their way.

As to Bres himself his concern was for his court in Teamhair and not with his poorer subjects. He introduced new taxes. He put a tax on every house in Ireland of the milk of hornless dun cows, or of the milk of cows of some other single color, enough for a hundred men. One time, to deceive him, Nechtan son of Nuada singed all the cows of Ireland in a fire of fern, and then he smeared them with the ashes of flax seed, so that they were all dark brown. He did that by the advice of the Druid Findgoll, son of Findemas. Another time they made three hundred cows of wood with dark brown pails in place of udders, and the pails were filled with black bog stuff. Then Bres came to look at the cows, and to see them milked before him, and Cian son of Dian Cecht, was there. When they were milked, it was the bog stuff that was squeezed out but given the illusion of milk; and Bres took a drink of it thinking it to be milk, and he became ill and remained thus for a long while. Never did he discover the cause.

Even within the court there was discontent for Bres’s rule; as he played favorites giving a little to those who pleased him and taking much from those who did not. The chief men of the Tuatha de Danaan grumbled about his decisions, for their knives were never greased in his house, and however often they might visit him there was no smell of ale on their breath. There was no sort of pleasure or merriment in his house, and no call for their poets, singers, harpers, pipers, horn-blowers, jugglers, or fools. As to the trials of strength, they were used to observe their champions, and the only use their strength was put to now, was to be doing work for the king.

The Demeaning of Many of the Great Gods

Ogma himself, the shining poet and champion, was under orders to bring kindling to the palace every day for the whole army from the Islands of Mod. He became so weak for want of food that the sea would sweep away two-thirds of his bundle every day. As to the Dagda, he was tasked to build raths (forts), for he was a good builder, and he made a trench round Rath Brese. He used to often be tired at the work, and one time he nearly gave in altogether for want of food. He used to meet in the house an idle blind man, called Cridenbel who had a sharp tongue, and coveted the Dagda's share of food, for he thought his own to be small beside it. So he said to him: "For the sake of your good name let the three best bits of your share be given to me." The Dagda gave in to that every night; but he was the worse because of it, for what the blind man called a bit would be the size of a good pig, and with his three bits he would take a full third of the whole.

However, one day, as the Dagda was in the trench, he beheld his son, Angus Og, coming to him. "This is a good meeting," said Angus; "but what is the matter with you, for you look ill today?" "There is a reason for that," said the Dagda, "for every evening, Cridenbel, the blind man, makes a demand for the three best bits of my share of food, and takes them from me." "May I give you some advice?" asked Angus. “Pray do, answered the Dagda. Angus put his hand in his bag then, and took out three pieces of gold and gave them to him.

“Put these pieces of gold into the three bits you shall give this evening to Cridenbel,” he said, “and though they shall be the best bits in the dish, the gold shall turn within him so that he shall die.”

So in the evening the Dagda did that; and no sooner had Cridenbel swallowed down the gold than he died. Some of the people said then to the king: “The Dagda has killed Cridenbel, giving him some deadly herb.” The king believed that, and there was anger in him against The Dagda, and he gave orders he be put to death. But the Dagda said: “You are not giving the right judgment as befits a prince.” He told all that had happened, and how Cridenbel used to say, “Give me the three best bits before you, for my own share is not good to-night.” “On this night,” he said, “the three pieces of gold were the best things before me, and I gave them to him, and he died.”

The king gave orders then to have the body cut open. They found the gold inside him, and they knew it was the truth the Dagda had spoken.

Angus came to him again the next day, and he said: “Your work shall soon be done, and when you are given your wages, take nothing they may offer you till the cattle of Ireland are brought before you, and choose out a heifer then, black and black-maned, that I shall tell you the signs of.”

So when the Dagda had brought his work to an end, and they asked him what reward he wanted, he did as Angus had bidden him. That seemed folly to Bres; he thought the Dagda would have asked more than a heifer of him.

There came a day at last when a poet came to look for hospitality at the king's house, this was Corpre, son of Etan, poet of the Tuatha de Danaan. He was put in a little dark narrow house where there was no fire, or furniture, or bed; and for a feast three small cakes, which were dry, were brought to him on a little dish. When he rose up on the morrow he was no way thankful, and as he was going across the green, and he said: "Without food ready on a dish; without milk enough for a calf to grow on; without shelter; without light in the darkness of night; without enough to pay a story-teller; may that be the prosperity of Bres."

From that day there was no good luck with Bres, for he had sunk lower and lower in the estimation of his people. This was the first satire ever made in Ireland. Click here to continue.

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