The Ever Living Ones
continued...

In the meantime, Octriallach had found a mystic spring on the other side of the Plain of Towers at which stood Dian Cecht, the God of medicine, with his daughter Airmid at his side. When ever on of the Children of Danu were slain, they were brought to the spring and Dian Cecht and his daughter plunged the body into the spring and they re-emerged alive again. In a rage, Bres ordered Octriallach to destroy the healing spring.

Ruadan returned to the forge and asked for a javelin form Goibhniu, who gave it without suspicion, thinking Ruadan was one of the Children of Danu. No sooner was the weapon in his hand than Ruadan turned and cast it at Goibhniu. It went clean through the smith-God's body. Mortally wounded as he was, Goibhniu picked up the spear and threw it back, wounding Ruadan, who crawled away back to his father and died at his feet. The Fomorii set up a great caione, or keening, which was the first ever heard in the Island of Destiny.

Goibhniu also crawled away and came to the spring, where Dian Cecht and Airmid plunged him in, and he emerged healthy and healed..

That night, however, Octriallach, son of Indech, and several of his companions, came to the spring and each took a large stone from the bed of a nearby river and dropped it into the spring until they had filled it. So the healing waters were dispersed.

Bres, satisfied the Children of Danu were now mortal, and angered by the death of his on, determined that a pitched battle should be fought. The next morning, spears and lances and swords smote against buckler and shield. The whistle of darts and rattle of arrows and shouting of warriors made it seem as if a great thunder was rolling over the :lain of Towers. The River of Unius, which cut through the plain, was stopped up, so filled was it with dead bodies. The plain was red with blood, so cruel was the battle.

Indech of the Fomorii fell by the hand of Ogma. And Indech was not the first nor the last of the leaders of the Fomorii to feel the steel of the Children of Danu.

Neither did the Children of Danu go away from the battle unscathed.

To the field of slaughter came Balor of the Evil Eye, son of Buarainench, the most formidable of the Fomorii champions. He had one great eye, whose gaze was so malevolent that it destroyed whosoever looked upon it. So large and awesome was this eye that it took nine attendants, using hooks, to lift the mighty lid to open it for Balor. It happened on that fateful day of the battle that Balor came upon Nuada of the Silver Hand, the leader of the Children of Danu, and hard and fierce was the contest. Yet in the end, after shield was shattered, after spear was bent and sword was broken into pieces, it was the blood of Nuada that gushed in a never ending stream into the earth of the Island of Destiny. And not content in this slaughter, Balor tuned upon one of Nuada's beautiful wives, Macha the Personification of Battles, Goddess of warriors, and slew here also. Nor did Dian Cecht have the means to restore life to them.

At the death of their leader, the Children of Danu wavered and became fearful.

It was then that Lugh Lamhfada, Lugh of the Long Arm, approached the battlefield. Now Lugh was the son of Cian, which means "Enduring One", who was in turn son of Cainte, the God of speech. Now the council of the Children of Danu had forbidden him to come to the battle, for Lugh was all-wise and all-knowledgeable and it was thought that his life was too valuable to risk in battle, for his was the wisdom needed to serve humankind.

Indeed, so wise was Lugh that Nuada had let him become ruler of the Children of Danu for thirteen days, in order that they might receive his wisdom. Therefore the Children of Danu had him imprisoned, for his own safety, during the battle, with nine warriors to guard him. But on hearing Nuada was slain, Lugh escaped his prison and his guards and, leaping into his chariot, he hurried to join his brothers and sisters on the Plain of Towers.

Bres was standing triumphantly with his Fomorii warriors when he saw a great light in the west.

"I wonder that the sun is rising in the west today," he muttered, scratching his head.

One of the Fomorii shamans approached Bres, trembling. "It is not the sun, mighty Bres. The light stems from the countenance of Lugh Lamhfada! It is his radiance."

Lugh, with his weapons sheathed, drove his chariot out from the lines of the Children of Danu; straight he drove up to the tightly packed lines of Fomorii champions. "Where is Balor?" he cried. "Let him who thinks himself a great warrior come forward and be taught the truth!"

The lines of Fomori parted and the great figure of Balor was seen, seated on a gigantic chair. His one mighty eye was closed.

Lugh's challenge rang out again.

This time Balor heard it and said to his attendants, "Lift up my eyelid, that I may gaze upon this prattling little man."

The attendants began to lift Balor's eye with a hook. They stood well out of range: for anyone on whom that eye fell upon would perish immediately.

Lugh was ready with a sling and in it set a tathlum, a slingshot made of blood mixed with the sand of the swift Armorian sea. As the lid was lifted, Lugh hurled his shot int the eye. It struck it, went through the brain and out the back of Balor's head. The great Fomorii champion's eye was knocked out and fell on the ground. In its dying glint, thrice nine companies of Fomorii warriors were destroyed, for they saw its malignant gaze.

Balor fell screaming to the ground in blindness.

A great anxiety fell on the Fomorii.

Lugh now raised his sword, and the Morrigan set up a paean of victory, "Kings arise to the battle...! " And so the Children of Danu took heart and, echoing the song, they began to move forward. Great was the slaughter now as they pressed back on the Children of Domnu. It is said that more Fomorii were killed on the Plain of Towers than there were stars in the sky or grains of sand on the seashore, or snowflakes in winter.

And Lugh came upon Bres who was fleeing for his life from the battlefield.

"Spare my life, Lugh, great conqueror," cried the son of Elatha, sinking to his knees, for he no longer had the strength nor spirit to fight. "Spare it, and I will pay whatever ransom you require."

"What ransom?" demanded Lugh, his sword held at the throat of the Fomorii leader.

"I will guarantee that there will be no shortage of milk from the cows of this land," offered Bres.

Lugh then called the Children of Danu to him.

"What good is that if Bres cannot lengthen the lives of the cows?" they demanded.

Bres could not grant longer lives so he offered, "If my life is spared, every wheat harvest in Inisfail will be a good one."

"We already have enough good harvest. We need no other guarantees."

Finally, Bres agreed to instruct the Children of Danu as to the best times to plough, sow and reap and for this knowledge, which they had not, they spared his life.

And when the battle was over, when the Fomorii were pursued back int their undersea fortresses, and they accepted the right of the Children of Danu to live in peace in the Island of Destiny and rule over it as Gods and Goddesses of goodness and light, the Morrigan went to all the summits of the highest mountains of the island and on each summit she proclaimed the victory of the Gods and Goddesses of light and goodness. And she sang in triumph a paean to the Mother Goddess, Danu.

And while Danu smiled on the victory of her children, her sister Domnu scowled from the depths of the earth and she chose the Goddess Badh the Crow as her mouth to utter a prophecy to Danu and her children.

"All life is transitory. Even your children are not immortal, my sister. The time will come when they will be defeated. The time will come when no one will want Gods and Goddesses to nurture them, when they will be driven into the darkness, like my children have been this day.

The time approaches when the summers of Inisfail will be flowerless, when the cows shall be without milk, and the men will be weak and the women shall be shameless; the seas will be without fish, the trees without fruit and old men will give false judgments; the judges will make unjust laws and honor will count for little and warriors will betray each other and resort to thievery. There will come a time when there will be no more virtue left in this world."

Indeed, there came that time when the Children of Mil flooded into the Island of Destiny and when the Children of Danu were driven underground into the hills, which were called sidhe, which is pronounced shee, and in those mounds they dwelt, the once mighty Gods and Goddesses, deserted by the very people who they had sought to nourish. The descendant of Mil, who live in the Island of Destiny to this day, called the Children of Danu the aes sidhe, the people of the hills, and when even the religion of Mil was forgotten, when the religion of the Cross replaced that of the Circle, the people simply called the aes sidhe by the name of fairies.

Of the greatest of the Gods, the victor of the battle on the Plain of Towers, Lugh Lamhfada, God of all knowledge, patron of all arts and crafts, his name is still known today. But as memory of the mighty warrior, the invincible God, has faded, he is know only as Lugh-chromain, little stooping Lugh of the sidhe, relegated to the role of a fairy craftsman. And, as even the language in which he was venerated has disappeared, all that is left of the Supreme God of the Children of Danu is the distorted form of that name Lugh-chromain . . .leprechaun.