In the Metrical Dindshenchas, an ancient collection of Irish placename lore, there exists a strange story detailing how the Berba (the Barrow River) got its name.
In the prose version of the tale, a figure name Méiche, a son of the Morrígan, had three hearts, and each heart contained a serpent. If allowed to grow, these serpents would lay waste to Ireland and consume all life upon it. Dian Cécht, physician of the Tuatha Dé, slays Méiche and cuts out his hearts, burning them to ashes, along with the deadly serpents. He then scatters the ashes in the Berba, which causes the waters to bubble up and all the life in the river to die, thus why the river has been called "Berba" ("boiling") ever since.
The design of this piece was inspired by ornaments found in the Book of Kells, which is renown for its complex and intricate illustrations, often depecting different kinds of animals. Where the hearts meet in the center, they take the shape of a triskelion, a type of three-armed spiral featured in Neolithic and Iron Age Celtic art.
Okay, so a while ago I came across this weird story:
From The Metrical Dindshenchas, poem 13
“Berba
The Barrow, enduring its silence,
that flows through the folk of old Ailbe;
a labour it is to learn the cause whence is called
Barrow, flower of all famous names.
No motion in it made
the ashes of Mechi the strongly smitten:
the stream made sodden and silent past recovery
the fell filth of the old serpent.
Three turns the serpent made;
it sought out the soldier to consume him;
it would have wasted by its nature all the kine
of the indolent hosts of ancient Erin.
Therefore Diancecht slew it:
there was rude reason for clean destroying it,
for preventing it for ever from wasting
above every resort, from consuming utterly.
Known to me is its grave where he cast it,
a tomb without walls or roof-tree;
its evil ashes,–no ornament to the region
found silent burial in noble Barrow.”
And from this, was quoted a different version:
“Into this river were flung the three snakes that were (found) in the heart of the Morrìgan's son Méiche after he was slain by Diancécht on Magh Méichi: which plain's name at the first was Magh Fertaige. The three hearts that were in Méiche bore the shape of three serpents' heads and, had not the killing of him come to pass, those snakes would have grown in his belly and eventually left no animals alive in Ireland. When he had slain Méiche Dian Cécht burned the snakes and their ashes he committed to that current, with the effect that it seethed and digested (i.e. boiled to rags) all living things that therein were.
Méiche’s hearts, hard the wound
Have been drowned in the Barrow; Their ashes, after being burnt by you, Mac Cécht, slayer of a hundred, cast in.”
So this is all very weird, because a) the Morrigan has a son? and b) where on earth did this end-of-the-world thing come from? Irish myth doesn’t really have the sense of future doom as say, Norse mythology does. And it’s just...a cool little story here with the doctor-hero fighting a guy made of snakes. And it’s been driving me crazy because I don’t know quite what to make of it.
Same paper quoted above (which tries to do the weird all myths-are-connected-look-at-these-far-fetched-connections thing) points out the discrepancy between whether it’s Dian Cécht or his son who kills Méiche, but Dian Cécht is more likely. It then goes on to talk about the Morrigan (Morrígu), Méiche’s mother, essentially distilling her name to “Ghost Queen” (note: I’ve also seen her name described as “Great Queen” so take that with a grain of salt) and linking her with destruction and the underworld (referencing her prophesy after the second battle of Moytura, meeting the Dagda on Samain, etc...).
For the record, the Morrigan’s prophecy about the end of the world in Cath Maige Tuired, the Second Battle of Moytura, is given after she announces that there will be peace. So it really feels like something spoken about the future, implying that the peace at the end of the battle is only temporary, and will be broken again:
"I shall not see a world
Which will be dear to me:
Summer without blossoms,
Cattle will be without milk,
Women without modesty,
Men without valor.
Conquests without a king . . .
Woods without mast.
Sea without produce. . . .
False judgements of old men.
False precedents of lawyers,
Every man a betrayer.
Every son a reaver.
The son will go to the bed of his father,
The father will go to the bed of his son.
Each his brother's brother-in-law.
He will not seek any woman outside his house. . . .
An evil time,
Son will deceive his father,
Daughter will deceive . . ."
Still no mention of any evil world-destroying snake sons, though.
From the texts we’ve got that Mechi/Méiche was killed by probably Dian Cécht and thrown into the river, and he’s associated with serpents (either is a serpent or has three hearts containing serpents). Dude also seems to have been likely to destroy everything alive in Ireland, so it’s probably good he’s dead.
What I’m interested in, though, is where this Méiche-destroying-eveyrthing comes from. He’s not mentioned in other texts, outside of a few different versions of the same story. And there’s really never much mention of world-destroying anyway, so why is he here?
MEICHE, MIACH, AND THE DOCTOR DIAN CECHT
Another interesting observation made while searching for clues: Dian Cécht has two children, Miach and Airmid, both of whom are in the family business of medicine. When Miach make a better prosthetic hand for Nuada than Dian Cécht himself, Dian Cécht is jealous and kills his son (which is a little crazy, right?):
Dian Cecht did not like that cure. He hurled a sword at the crown of his son's head and cut his skin to the flesh. The young man healed it by means of his skill. He struck him again and cut his flesh until he reached the bone. The young man healed it by the same means. He struck the third blow and reached the membrane of his brain. The young man healed this too by the same means. Then he struck the fourth blow and cut out the brain, so that Miach died; and Dian Cecht said that no physician could heal him of that blow.
This is also from Cath Maige Tuired, by the way. What’s really interesting here to me is that slight resonance between the names Miach and Meiche. There is also some evidence (page 113) to suggest that this case of filicide is a latter addition, not quite integrated into the older, better-established myth. It doesn’t show up in other accounts of Dian Cécht’s adventures, Miach himself doesn’t play a role in making Nuada’s hand in another version found in the Book of Leinster, Miach is alive again later in the same text, and there’s oddly no consequences for his action given here (which is weird in a mythology with so much focus on order and doing things properly, and where every wrong action results in at least a poet making fun of you). And the way they die is similar: through extraction of a vital organ (Miach’s brain, Meiche’s heart). This author (page 116) makes an argument that the Meiche story came first, and Miach is just a creative addition of that story to another. In which case this connection is interesting, but still doesn’t explain Meiche.
SNAKES IN THE WATER?
So what’s the deal with the serpents? There are other cases in Irish myth where a hero encounters a “water monster,” often described as a serpent, and has to do battle. Two examples off the top of my head:
1. Freach in Tain bo Freach - dude is tested by Ailill and Medb because he wants to run away with their daughter FIndabair. He’s sent into the river to fetch berries from the other side (Findabair admiring him the whole time from the riverbank), and encounters a serpent/monster. He catches the monster with a spear thrown to him by Ailill and cuts off its head with a sword from Findabair.
2. Fergus mac Léti - Gets the ability to breathe/swim underwater from the probably-leprechauns-who-live-underwater, dives into a lake and meets a water monster - muirdris - who frightens him so greatly it distorts his facial features. Since in Irish myth, kings have to be beautiful (king reflects the state of the land), this is a problem. So everyone tries to hide the horrifying changes from him for years, until finally somebody mocks him and he realizes what happened. Fergus goes back to the lake and doesn’t return until a fierce battle ends in him bringing back the monster’s head.
What these stories have in common with Meiche: water (in more stories than these, a place of testing and trial, also where invaders/things outside society come from), some sort of monster (not always so explicitly a serpent), and killing the monster via removal of vital organs (head, most often, but not the Meiche story). A lot of this is interesting, but I still feel like it doesn’t shed much light on Meiche, which isn’t much of a hero-trial story (Dian Cecht is already famous), and Meiche isn’t exactly a mindless beast encountered in the wilderness.
On a less serious note, Méiche delights me, because he presents a possible link to use in my modern-day Norse/Irish mythology crossover comic. World-destroying snake dude thrown into the water reminds me of a certain serpent-baby Jormungandr...and hey, it’s not that far-fetched to think that some aspects of the story could be imported - there’s evidence for influence in both directions in other stories.
So what is this story anyway? An intrusion from an outside tradition? A story invented by a later writer? A long-lost apocalyptic tale? Conflation of multiple stories? A metaphor? It doesn’t really matter. Stories resonate and change and become stranger with time, and this is no exception. It is fun to think about though, especially since we always want to make some cohesive narrative where we can.
I’ve been doing a bit of looking into the lore surrounding Crom Cruach. So now I’m going to ramble about my half-baked ideas about him.
Most of what I’ve found so far however, isn’t about Crom himself, but more his statue and Saint Patrick destroying it. Something I didn’t expect to find was his connection with the land, fertility, and a possible association with the sun. He was apparently given offerings to promote a good harvest (whether or not those offerings were human in nature, there is no evidence one way or the other, but personally I’d take any mentions of human sacrifice, written by Christians hundreds of years removed from those who practiced the religion, with a huge grain of salt). This leads me to believe he may have been more of a Harvest deity than anything, a John Barleycorn type figure.
Nowadays he can be equated with Meiche MacMorrigan, who we know nothing about except that he’s Morrigan’s son who had three snakes in his hearts and was killed by Dain Cecht, who’s notorious for killing sons and himself has harvest associations. AND if Meiche and Crom Cruach are indeed the same figure (which I personally hold to) it would make sense. He’s the the son of the Morrigan, who herself is a a sovereignty goddess with associations of life, death, and rebirth, so it would make sense that her son would have some connection with the land and also have some of these associations. But in a very different way, I think.
Snakes, serpents, are often seen as symbols of life, death, and rebirth so I’m getting two sides here, the harvest god in early autumn sunlight, and the serpent god, curled in a dark cave until spring. With all the associations that come with that. Maybe he’s one of these gods who was killed or sacrificed annually with the harvest and came back to life in the spring with the planting?
Honestly, I expected to get a Jormangandr type vibe from him, aside from the giant snake aspect of him, there’s not much else similar, imo. Even the giant snake vibe is different.
I don’t know. I may be totally wrong with this, but yeah.
