Pictish Mystic · Lore · Book of Invasions
Partholón: the First Taking of Ireland After the Flood
Lebor Gabála Érenn, "the Book of the Taking of Ireland", is a medieval history put together by monastic scholars. It tells of the peoples who took Ireland one after another. After Cessair's people died in the Flood, the island lay empty for three hundred years. This is myth and medieval learning, not recorded history.
The Landing
Partholón son of Sera was the first to take Ireland after the Flood. The book says he landed at Inber Scéne in the south-west on a Tuesday, the fourteenth day of the moon, and traces his line to Magog son of Japheth. Keating's History says he sailed from Greece, and that he had fled after killing his own father and mother while trying to take the kingship from his brother. With him came his wife Delgnat and his sons Laiglinne, Slanga and Rudraige.
A Raw Land
He found only three lakes, nine rivers and one plain in Ireland, the Old Plain of Elta, where no root or twig of a wood had ever grown. His people cleared four more plains, among them Mag Itha and Mag Tuired. Seven lakes burst out in his time. Loch Rudraige and Loch Laiglinne were said to have gushed up as his sons' graves were being dug.
The First Battle
In the tenth year came the first battle of Ireland, at Mag Itha, against Cichol and the Fomoraig, described as men with single arms and single legs. Partholón won.
The First Jealousy
While Partholón was out touring his land, Delgnat slept with his henchman Topa. Afterwards they were thirsty and drank from his vat of sweet ale through its tube of red gold. When Partholón came home and drank, he tasted Topa's mouth and Delgnat's mouth on the tube. In his rage he killed her dog. Delgnat didn't apologise. Honey with a woman, milk with a cat, food with the generous, meat with a child, a tool with a craftsman, she said: leave one alone with another and they will take it. The blame was his. The poem calls this "the right of his wife against Partholón", the first judgement in Ireland. Keating names the place Inis Saimer, after the dog.
The Firsts
His people are remembered for a list of firsts. Four oxen were the first cattle in Ireland. Brea son of Senboth made the first house and cauldron. Samailiath brought ale-drinking and suretyship. Beoir kept the first guesthouse. There were three druids, Fiss, Eolas and Fochmarc, whose names mean roughly Knowledge, Understanding and Inquiry, and two merchants, Bibal, who brought gold, and Babal, who brought cattle. His four sons, Er, Orba, Feron and Fergna, made the first division of Ireland into four parts.
The Plague
Partholón died on the Old Plain of Elta. His people were struck down by a week-long plague on the kalends of May, five thousand men and four thousand women, and the poem says they died in crowds on Mag Elta. The texts disagree on how long after his death this happened. Keating thought it was three hundred years after the first landing.
The One Survivor
One man lived: Tuan son of Starn, Partholón's nephew. The book says God shaped him into many forms, and he survived alone until the time of Finnian and Colum Cille, when he told the takings of Ireland from Cessair onwards. Ireland lay empty again for thirty years, until Nemed came.
These are legends from medieval manuscripts, not recorded history.
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