If in seeking for a path through this maze6 we grasp the skirt of the genealogist7 and follow his steps for a clue, we shall find ourselves, in tracing into the past the ancestry8 of any Milesian chief, invariably landed at the foot of some one of four persons, three of them, Ir, Eber, Eremon,[1] being sons of that Milesius who made the Milesian conquest, and the fourth being Lughaidh [Lewy], son of Ith, who was a nephew of the same. On one or other of these four does the genealogy of every chief and prince abut9, so that all end ultimately in Milesius.
Milesius' own genealogy and the wanderings of his ancestors[Pg 45] are also recounted for many generations before they land in Ireland, but during this pre-Milesian period there are no side-genealogies10, the ancestors of Milesius himself alone are given, traced through twenty-two apparently Gaelic names and thirteen Hebrew ones, passing through Japhet and ending in Adam. It is only with the landing of the three sons and the nephew of Milesius that the ramifications11 of Irish genealogies begin, and they are backed up by the whole weight of the Irish topographical system which is shot through and through with places named after personages and events of the early Milesian period, and of the period of the Tuatha De Danann.
It will be well to give here a brief résumé of the accounts of the Milesians' wanderings before they arrived in Ireland. Briefly12 then the Gaels are traced back all the way to Fenius Farsa, a king of Scythia, who is then easily traced up to Adam. But beginning with this Fenius Farsa we find that he started a great school for learning languages. His son was Niul, who also taught languages, and his son again was Gaedhal, from whom the Gaels are so called. This Niul went into Egypt and married Scota, daughter of Pharaoh. This is a post-Christian14 invention, which is not satisfied without bringing Niul into contact with Aaron, whom he befriended, in return for which Moses healed his son Gaedhal from the bite of a serpent. Since then says an ancient verse—
"No serpent nor vile15 venomed16 thing
Can live upon the Gaelic soil,
No bard17 nor stranger since has found
A cold repulse18 from a son of Gaedhal."
Gaedhal's son was Esru, whose son was Sru, and when the Egyptians oppressed them he and his people emigrated to Crete. His son was Eber Scot, from whom some say the Gaels were called Scots, but most of the Irish antiquarians maintain that they are called Scots because they once came[Pg 46] from Scythia,[2] to which cradle of the race Eber Scot led the nation back again. Expelled from Scythia a couple of generations later the race plant themselves in the country of Gaethluighe, where they were ruled over by one called Eber of the White Knee. The eighth in descent from him emigrated with four ships to Spain. His son was Breogan, who built Brigantia. His grandson was Golamh, called Miledh Easpáin, i.e., Warrior19 of Spain,[3] whose name has been universally, but badly, Latinised Milesius, and it was his three sons and his nephew who landed in Ireland and who planted there the Milesian people. Milesius himself never put foot in Ireland, but he seems in his own person to have epitomised the wanderings of his race, for we find him returning to Scythia, making his way thence into Egypt, marrying Scota, a daughter of Pharaoh, and finally returning to Spain.
Much or all of this pre-Milesian account of the race must be unhesitatingly set down to the influence of Christianity, and to the invention of early Christian bards20 who felt a desire to trace their kings back to Japhet.[4] The native unchristianised[Pg 47] genealogies all converge21 in the sons and nephew of Milesius. The legends of their exploits and those of their successors are the real race-heritage of the Gael, unmixed with the fanciful Christian allusions22 and Hebraic adulterations of the pre-Milesian story, which was the last to be invented.
The genuine and early combination of Irish myth and history centres not on foreign but on Irish soil, in the accounts of the Nemedians, the Firbolg, the Tuatha De Danann, and the early Milesians, accounts which have been handed down to us in short stories and more lengthy24 sagas25, as well as in the bold brief chronicles of the annalists. No doubt the stories of the landing of his race on Irish soil, and the exploits of his first chieftains were familiar in the early days to every Gael. They became, as it were, part and parcel of his own life and being, and were preserved with something approaching a religious veneration26. His belief in them entered into his whole political and social system, the holding of his tribe-lands was bound up with it, and a highly-paid and influential27 class of bardic28 historians was subsidised with the express purpose of propagating these traditions and maintaining them unaltered.
Everything around him recalled to the early Gael the traditional history of his own past. The two hills of Slieve Luachra in Kerry he called the paps of Dana,[5] and he knew that Dana was the mother of the gods Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba, the story of whose sufferings, at the hands of Lugh[Pg 48] the Long-handed, has in later times so often drawn29 tears from its auditors30. When he beheld31 the mighty32 barrows piled upon the banks of the Boyne,[6] he knew that it was over the Dagda—an Irish Jupiter—and over his three sons[7] that they were heaped; and one of these, Angus of the Boyne, was, down to the present century, reverenced33 as the presiding genius of the spot. The mighty monuments of Knock áine in Limerick, and Knock Gréine, as well as those of Knowth, Dowth, and New Grange, were all connected with his legendary34 past. It was Lugh of the Tuatha De Danann, he knew, who had first established the great fair of Tailltin,[8] to which he and his friends went from year to year to meet each other, and contract alliances for their grown children. The great funeral mound35, round which the games were held, was sacred to Talti, the foster-mother of Lugh, who had there been buried, and in whose honour the games in which he participated were held upon the day which he called—and still calls, though he has now forgotten why—Lughnasa or Lugh's gathering36.[9] His own country he called—and still calls—by the various names of Eire, Fódhla [Fola], and Banba, and they, as he knew, were three queens[10] of the Tuatha De Danann. The Gael of Connacht knew that Moycullen, near Galway, was so named from Uillin, a grandson of the Tuatha De Danann king Nuada; and Loch Corrib from Orbsen, the other name of the sea-god Manannán, slain37 there by this Uillin, and each of the provinces was studded with such memorials.
The early Milesian invaders38 left their names just as closely[Pg 49] imprinted39 upon our topography as did their predecessors40 the Tuatha De Danann. The great plain of Bregia in Meath was so called from Brega, son of that Breogan who built Brigantia. Slieve Cualann in Wicklow—now hideously41 and absurdly called the Great Sugar Loaf!—is named from Cuala, another son of Breogan; Slieve Bladhma, or Bloom, is called from another son of the same; and from yet another is named the Plain of Muirthemni, where was fought the great battle in which fell Cuchulain "fortissimus heros Scotorum." The south of Munster is called Corca Luighe from Lughaidh, son of Ith, nephew of Milesius. The harbour of Drogheda was called Inver Colpa, from Colpa of the sword, another son of Milesius, who was there drowned when trying to effect a landing. The Carlingford Mountains were called Slieve Cualgni, and a well-known mountain in Armagh Slieve Fuad, from two more sons of Breogan of Brigantia, slain after the second battle with the Tuatha De Danann, while they followed up the chase. The sandhills in the west of Munster, where Donn, the eldest43 son of Milesius, was shipwrecked and lost his life—as did his whole crew consisting as is said of twenty-four warriors44, five chiefs, twelve women, four servants, eight rowers, and fifty youths-in-training—is called Donn's House. So vivid is this tradition even still, that we find a Munster poet as late as the last century addressing a poem to this Donn as the tutelary45 divinity of the place, and asking him to take him into his sidh [shee] or fairy mound and become his patron. This poem is remarkable46, as showing that in popular opinion the early Milesians shared the character of sub-gods, fairies, or beings of supernatural power, in common with the Tuatha De Danann themselves, for the poet treats him as still living and reigning47 in state, as peer of Angus of the Boyne, and cousin of Cliona, queen of the Munster fairies.[11] Wherever he[Pg 50] turned the Gael was thus confronted with scenes from his own past, or with customs—like the August games at Tailltin—deliberately established to perpetuate48 them.
In process of time, partly perhaps through the rationalising influences of a growing civilisation49, but chiefly through the direct action of Christianity, with which he came into active contact in perhaps the fourth, or certainly in the fifth century, the remembrance of the old Gaelic theogony, and the old Gaelic deities50 and his religious belief in them became blunted, and although no small quantity of matter that is purely51 pagan, and an immense amount of matter, but slightly tinged52 with Christianity, has been handed down to us, yet gods, heroes,[Pg 51] and men have been so far brought to a common level, that it is next to impossible at first sight to disentangle them or to say which is which.
Very probably there was, even before the introduction of Christianity, no sharply-defined line of demarcation drawn between gods and heroes, that, in the words of Pindar, ?ν ?νδρ?ν ?ν θε?ν γ?νο?, "one was the race of gods and men," and when in after times the early mythical53 history of Ireland came to be committed to parchment, its historians saw in the Irish pantheon nothing but a collection of human beings. It is thus, no doubt, that we find the Fomorians and the Tuatha De Danann posing as real people, whilst in reality it is more than likely that they figured in the scheme of Gaelic mythology54 as races of beneficent gods and of evil deities, or at least as races of superhuman power.
The early Irish writers who redacted the mythical history of the country were no doubt imbued55 with the spirit of the so-called Greek "logographers," who, when collecting the Grecian myths from the poets, desired, while not eliminating the miraculous56, yet to smooth away all startling discrepancies57 and present them in a readable and, as it were, a historical series.[12] Others no doubt wished to rationalise the early myths so far as they conveniently could, as even Herodotus shows an inclination58 to do with regard to the Greek marvels59; and the later annalists and poets of the Irish went as far as ever went Euhemerus, reducing gods and heroes alike to the level of common men.
We find Keating, who composed in Irish his Forus Feasa or History, in the first half of the seventeenth century, and who only re-writes or abbreviates60 what he found before him in the ancient books of the Gaels now lost, distracted between his desire to euhemerise—in other words, to make mere61 men of the gods and heroes—and his unflinching fidelity[Pg 52] to his ancient texts. Thus he professes62 to give the names of "the most famous and noble persons of the Tuatha De Danann," and amongst them he mentions "the six sons of Delbaeth, son of Ogma, namely, Fiacadh, Ollamh, Indaei, Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba,"[13] but in another place he quotes this verse from some of his ancient sources—
"Brian Iucharba and the great Iuchar,
The three gods of the sacred race of Dana,
Fell at Mana on the resistless sea
By the hand of Lughaidh, son of Ethlenn."
These whom the ancient verse distinctly designates as gods, Keating makes merely "noble persons," but at the very same time in treating of the De Danann he interpolates amongst his list of their notable men and women this curious sentence:[14][Pg 53] "The following are the names of three of their goddesses, viz., Badhbh [Bive], Macha, and Morighan."[15]
There are many allusions to the old Irish pantheon in Cormac's Glossary63, which is a compilation64 of the ninth or tenth century explanatory of expressions which had even at that early date become obscure or obsolete65, and many of these are evidently of pagan origin. Cormac describes Ana as mater deorum hibernensium, the mother of the Irish gods, and he adds, "Well used she to nourish the gods, it is from her name is said 'an?,' i.e., abundance, and from her name is called the two paps of Ana." Buanann, says Cormac, was the "nurse of heroes," as "Anu was mother of the gods, so Buanann was mother of the 'Fiann.'" Etán was nurse of the poets. Brigit, of which we have now made a kind of national Christian name, was in pagan times a female poet, daughter of the Dagda. Her divinity is evident from what Cormac says of her, namely, that "she was a goddess whom poets worshipped, for very great and very noble was her superintendence, therefore call they her goddess of poets by this name, whose sisters were Brigit, woman of smith-work, and Brigit, woman of healing, namely, goddesses—from whose names Brigit[16] was with all Irishmen called a goddess," i.e., the terms "Brigit" and "goddess" were synonymous (?) The name itself he derives67 fancifully from the words breo-shaighit, "fiery68 arrow," as though the inspirations[Pg 54] of a poet pierced like fiery arrows. Diancécht Cormac calls "the sage69 of the leech-craft of Ireland," but in the next line we read that he was so called because he was "Dia na cécht," i.e., Deus salutis, or god of health. Zeuss quotes an incantation to this god from a manuscript which is, he says, at least a thousand years old. His daughter was Etán, an artificer, one of whose sayings is quoted by Cormac. Néith was the god of battle among the Irish pagans, Nemon was his wife. The euhemerising tendency comes out strongly in Cormac's account of Manannán, a kind of Irish Proteus and Neptune70 combined, who according to him was "a renowned71 trader who dwelt in the Isle72 of Man, he was the best pilot in the West of Europe; through acquaintance with the sky he knew the quarter in which would be fair weather and foul73 weather, and when each of these two seasons would change. Hence the Scots and Britons called him a god of the sea. Thence, too, they said he was the sea's son—Mac Lir, i.e., son of the sea."
Another ancient Irish gloss[17] alludes74 to the mysterious Mór-rígan or war-goddess, of whom we shall hear more later on; and to Mach?, another war-goddess, "of whom is said Mach?'s mast-feeding," meaning thereby75, "the heads of men that have been slaughtered76."
From all that we have said it clearly appears that carefully as the Christianised Irish strove to euhemerise their pantheon, they were unable to succeed. If, as Keating acknowledges, Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba were gods, then à fortiori much more so must have been the more famous Lugh, who compassed their death, and the Dagda, and Angus óg. Keating himself, in giving us a list of the famous Tuatha De Danann has probably given us also the names of a large number of primitive77 Celtic deities—not that these were at all confined to the De Danann tribes.
It is remarkable that there is no mention of temples nor of[Pg 55] churches dedicated78 to these Irish gods, nor do we find any of those inscriptions79 to them which are so common in Gaul, Belgium, Switzerland, and even Britain, but they appear from passages in Cormac's Glossary[18] to have had altars and images dedicated to them.
We are forced, then, to come to the conclusion that the pagan Irish once possessed80 a large pantheon, probably as highly organised as that of the Scandinavians, but owing to their earlier and completer conversion81 to Christianity only traces of it now remain.
********
[1] In modern times spelt Eíbhear [?vir] and Eireamhóin [?ra-vone].
[2] It is just as likely that, as the only name of any people known to the early Irish antiquaries which bore some resemblance to their own was Scythia, they said that the Scoti came from thence.
[3] "The race of the warrior of Spain" continued until recent times to be a favourite bardic synonym66 for the Milesians. There is a noble war ode by one of the O'Dalys which I found preserved in the so-called "Book of the O'Byrnes," in Trinity College Library, in which he celebrates a victory of the O'Byrnes of Wicklow over the English about the year 1580 in these words:—
"Sgeul tásgmhar do ráinig fá chrióchaibh Fáil
Dá táinig lán-tuile i nGaoidhiltigh (?) Chláir.
Do chloinn áird áithiosaigh Mhile Easpáin
Toisg airmioch (?), ar lár an laoi ghil bháin."
It is to be observed that of the four great Irish stocks the descendants of Ith are often called the Clanna Breógain.
[4] Nennius, in the time of Charlemagne, quotes the Annals of the Scots, and the narrative of the peritissimi Scotorum as his authorities for deducing the Scots, i.e. Irish, from a family of Scythia, who fled out of Egypt with the children of Israel, which shows that the original narrative had assumed this Christian form in the eighth century. In the Book of Invasions—the earliest MS. of which is of the twelfth century—the Christian invention has made considerable strides, and we start from Magog, Japhet, and Noah, and from the Tower of Babel pass into Egypt. Nel or Niul is called from the Plain of Senaar to the Court of Pharaoh, and marries his daughter Scota, and their son is named Gaedhal. They have their own exodus82, and arrive in Scythia after many adventures; thence into Spain, where Breogan built the tower from whose top Ireland was seen. It would seem from this that the later writer of the Book of Invasions enhanced the simpler account which the Irish had given Nennius three or four centuries before. Zimmer, however, thinks that Nennius quoted from a preceding Book of Invasions now lost.
[5] Dá chích Danainne.
[6] Sidh an Bhrogha [Shee in Vrow-a].
[7] Aengus, Aedh, and Cermad.
[8] Now monstrously83 called Telltown by the Ordnance84 Survey people, as though to make it as like an English word as possible, quite heedless of the remonstrance85 of the great topographer O'Donavan, and of the fact that they are demolishing86 a great national landmark87.
[9] Or perhaps "Lugh's Memorial." Lúghnas is the 1st of August, and the month has received its name in Irish from Lugh's gathering.
[10] The Irish translation of Nennius ascribed to Giolla Caoimhghin [Gilla Keevin], who died in 1012, calls them goddesses, "tri bandé Folla Banba ocus Eire."
[11] It is worth while to quote some of these hitherto unpublished verses from a copy in my possession. The author, Andrew Mac Curtin, a good scholar and poet of Munster, knew of course perfectly88 well that Donn was a Milesian, yet he, embodying89 in his poem the popular opinion on the subject, treats him as a god or superior being, calls him brother or cousin of áine and Aoife [Eefi] and "of the great son of Lear [i.e. Manannán], who used to walk the smooth sea," and relates him to Angus óg, and Lugh the Long-handed, says that he witnessed the tragedy of the sons of Usnach, the feats90 of Finn mac Cool, and the battle of Clontarf, and treats him as still living and powerful. The poem begins, Beannughadh doimhin duit a Dhoinn na Dáibhche. It goes on to say—
"Nach tu bráthair áine as Aoife
A's mic an Deaghadh do b' árd-fhlaith ar tíorthaibh,
A's móir-mhic Lir do ritheadh an mhín-mhuir
Dhoinn Chnuic-na-ndos agus Dhoinn Chnuic Fírinn'?
Nach tu gan doirbhe do h-oileadh 'san ríogh-bhrogh
Ag Aongus óg na Bóinne caoimhe,
Do bhi tu ag Lugha ad' chongnamh i gcaoinsgir [cath]
Ag claoidh Balair a dhanar 's a dhraoithe.
Do bhi tu ag maidhm anaghaidh mic Mhiledh
Ag teacht asteach thar neart na gaoithe:
'S na dhiaigh sin i gciantaibh ag Naoise;
Do bhi tu ag Conall 'san gcosgar do bh' aoirde
Ag ceann de'n ghad de cheannaibh righteadh:
Budh thaoiseach treasa i gcathaibh Chuinn thu."
The allusion23 in the last line but one is to the heads that Conall Cearnach strung upon the gad91 or rod, to avenge92 the death of Cuchulain, for which see later on.
Curtin finally asks Donn to let him into his fairy mansion93, if not as a poet to enliven his feasts, then at least as a horse-boy to groom94 his horses.
"Munar bhodhar thu o throm ghuth na taoide
No mur bhfuarais bás mar13 chách a Dhoinn ghil," &c.
I.e., "unless thou hast grown deaf by the constant voice of the tide, or unless, O bright Donn, thou hast died like everybody else!"
[12] Hellanikus, one of the best known of these, went so far as to give the very year, and even the very day of the capture of Troy.
[13] Mac Firbis, in his great MS. book of genealogies, marks the mythical character of these personages still more clearly, for in his short chapter on the Tuatha De Danann he describes them as of light yellow hair, etc. [monga finbuidhe orra], and gives the names of their three Druids and their three distributors, who were called Enough, Plenty, Filling [Sáith, Leór, Línad]; their three gillies, three horses, three hounds, three musicians; Music Sweet and Sweetstring [Ceól Bind95 Tetbind], and so on, all evidently allegorical. See facsimile of the Book of Leinster, p. 30, col. 4, l. 40, and p. 187, col. 3, l. 55, for the oldest form of this.
[14] The following is the whole quotation96 from O'Mahony's Keating (for an account of this book see below, p. 556): "Here follows an enumeration97 of the most famous and noble persons of the Tuatha Da Danann, viz., Eochaidh the Ollamh called the Dagda, Ogma, Alloid, Bres, and Delbaeth, the five sons of Elathan, son of Niad, and Manannán, son of Alloid, son of Delbaeth. The six sons of Delbaeth, son of Ogma, namely, Fiachadh, Ollamh, Indaei, Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba. Aengus Aedh Kermad and Virdir, the four sons of the Dagda. Lughaidh, son of Cian, son of Diancécht, sons of Esary, son of Niad, son of Indaei. Gobnenn the smith, Credni the artist, Diancécht the physician, Luchtan the mason, and Carbni the poet, son of Tura, son of Turell. Begneo, son of Carbni, Catcenn, son of Tabarn, Fiachadh, son of Delbaeth, with his son Ollamh, Caicer and Nechtan, the two sons of Namath. Eochaidh the rough, son of Duach Dall. Sidomel, the son of Carbri Crom, son of Elcmar, son of Delbaeth. Eri Fodhla and Banba, the three daughters of Fiachadh, son of Delbaeth, son of Ogma, and Ernin, daughter of Edarlamh, the mother of these women. The following are the names of their three goddesses, viz., Badhbh, Macha, and Morighan. Béchoil and Danaan were their two Ban-tuathachs, or chief ladies, Brighid was their poetess. Fé and Men were the ladies or ban-tuathachs of their two king-bards, and from them Magh Femen in Munster has its name. Of them also was Triathri Torc, from whom Tretherni in Munster is called. Cridinbhél, Brunni, and Casmael were their three satirists."
[15] O'Curry, who, like his great compeer O'Donovan, naturally took the De Danann to be a real race of men, comically calls these goddesses "three of the noble non-professional druidesses of the Tuatha De Danann." ("M. and C.," vol. ii. p. 187). We have seen how the Irish Nennius calls the three queens of the De Danann goddesses also.
[16] The "g" of Brigit was pronounced in Old Irish so that the word rhymed to English spiggit. In later times the "g" became aspirated and silent, the "t" turned into "d," and the word is now pronounced "B'reed," and in English very often "Bride," which is an improvement on the hideous42 Brid-get.
[17] H. 2, 16, col. 119. Quoted by Stokes, "Old Irish Glossaries," p. xxxv.
[18] See the word "Hindelba" in the Glossary which is thus explained, "i.e., the names of the altars or of those idols98 from the thing which they used to make (?) on them, namely, the delba or images of everything which they used to worship or of the beings which they used to adore, as, for instance, the form or figure of the sun on the altar." Again, the word "Hidoss" is explained as coming from "the Greek ε?δο? which is found in Latin, from which the word idolum, namely, the shapes or images [arrachta] of the idols [or elements] which the Pagans used formerly99 to make."
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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eked
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| v.（靠节省用量）使…的供应持久( eke的过去式和过去分词 )；节约使用；竭力维持生计；勉强度日 | |
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genealogy
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| n.家系，宗谱 | |
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attesting
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| v.证明( attest的现在分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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genealogist
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| 系谱学者 | |
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ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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abut
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genealogies
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| n.系谱，家系，宗谱( genealogy的名词复数 ) | |
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ramifications
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| n.结果，后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
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briefly
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mar
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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venomed
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| adj.恶毒的，含有恶意的 | |
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bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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repulse
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| n.击退，拒绝；vt.逐退，击退，拒绝 | |
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warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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bards
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| n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
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converge
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| vi.会合；聚集，集中；(思想、观点等)趋近 | |
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allusions
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allusion
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lengthy
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sagas
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| n.萨迦（尤指古代挪威或冰岛讲述冒险经历和英雄业绩的长篇故事）( saga的名词复数 )；（讲述许多年间发生的事情的）长篇故事；一连串的事件（或经历）；一连串经历的讲述（或记述） | |
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veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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bardic
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| adj.吟游诗人的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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auditors
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| n.审计员，稽核员( auditor的名词复数 )；（大学课程的）旁听生 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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reverenced
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| v.尊敬，崇敬( reverence的过去式和过去分词 )；敬礼 | |
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legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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imprinted
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| v.盖印（imprint的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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warriors
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| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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tutelary
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| adj.保护的；守护的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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reigning
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| adj.统治的，起支配作用的 | |
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perpetuate
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| v.使永存，使永记不忘 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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imbued
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| v.使（某人/某事）充满或激起（感情等）( imbue的过去式和过去分词 )；使充满；灌输；激发（强烈感情或品质等） | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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discrepancies
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| n.差异，不符合（之处），不一致（之处）( discrepancy的名词复数 ) | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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abbreviates
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| 使简短( abbreviate的第三人称单数 )； 缩简； 缩略； 使用缩写词 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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professes
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| 声称( profess的第三人称单数 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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glossary
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| n.注释词表；术语汇编 | |
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compilation
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| n.编译，编辑 | |
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obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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synonym
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| n.同义词，换喻词 | |
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derives
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| v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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Neptune
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| n.海王星 | |
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renowned
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| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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alludes
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| 提及，暗指( allude的第三人称单数 ) | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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82
exodus
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| v.大批离去，成群外出 | |
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monstrously
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84
ordnance
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| n.大炮，军械 | |
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85
remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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86
demolishing
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| v.摧毁( demolish的现在分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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embodying
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| v.表现( embody的现在分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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feats
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| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
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91
gad
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| n.闲逛；v.闲逛 | |
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92
avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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93
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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enumeration
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| n.计数，列举；细目；详表；点查 | |
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98
idols
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| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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