Second Battle of Mag Tuired- Celtic EventEvent

Causes of the Conflict

The Second Battle of Mag Tuired arose from the disastrous reign of Bres mac Elatha over the Tuatha Dé Danann. After the First Battle of Mag Tuired, in which the Tuatha Dé defeated the Fir Bolg for possession of Ireland, their king Nuada lost his arm in combat. Because Irish custom required that a king be without physical blemish, Nuada was forced to abdicate. The Tuatha Dé chose Bres, a man of extraordinary beauty and half-Fomorian parentage, as his replacement.

Bres proved a tyrannical and ungenerous king. He imposed Fomorian tribute on the Tuatha Dé Danann, forcing their greatest figures into menial servitude: the Dagda was compelled to dig trenches and build fortifications, while Ogma, champion of the Tuatha Dé, was reduced to carrying firewood. Bres violated the fundamental duty of an Irish king by offering no hospitality. When the poet Cairpre visited Bres's court and was given a bare, dark chamber with no food, he composed the first satire ever made in Ireland, shaming Bres so thoroughly that boils rose on his face. A blemished king could not rule, and Bres was compelled to abdicate.

Stripped of kingship, Bres fled to his Fomorian kin. His father Elatha refused to support an unjust cause, but Balor of the Evil Eye and Indech mac Dé Domnann rallied the Fomorian host for an invasion of Ireland, determined to impose their dominion permanently.

Lugh's Arrival at Tara

With Nuada restored to the kingship, his arm having been replaced with a silver one by the physician Dian Cécht and later regrown in flesh by Dian Cécht's son Miach, the Tuatha Dé Danann prepared for the coming war. During their deliberations, a young warrior arrived at the gates of Tara and requested entry.

The doorkeeper asked his skill, for no one without an art could enter Tara. The stranger said he was a carpenter. The doorkeeper replied they already had one. He said he was a smith. They had one. A champion, a harper, a poet, a sorcerer, a physician, a cupbearer, a brazier. Each time, the doorkeeper replied that Tara already possessed a master of that art. The stranger then asked whether Tara had any single person who possessed all these arts at once. It did not. The stranger was admitted.

This was Lugh Lámfada, grandson of Balor through his mother Ethniu, and possessor of every skill and art. He was given the epithet Samíldánach, "the Many-Skilled." Nuada yielded the command of the war to him, stepping down from the throne for thirteen days so that Lugh could lead the preparations.

Preparations for War

Lugh questioned each member of the tribe about what they could contribute. Every skill was pledged: the druids would send showers of fire and drain two-thirds of the enemy's strength; Dian Cécht would cast wounded warriors into the Well of Slaine, from which they emerged whole; and the smith Goibniu, the carpenter Luchta, and the brazier Crédne would repair every broken weapon overnight, so that spears shattered in battle were ready again by morning.

The Dagda Before Battle

Before the battle, the Dagda met the Morrígán at a river ford at Samhain. They coupled, and in return she pledged to fight alongside the Tuatha Dé Danann, promising to drain the blood and courage from the Fomorians' greatest warrior.

The Dagda also went to the Fomorian camp to spy on their preparations. The Fomorians, mocking him, dug a pit and filled it with an enormous porridge of goats, sheep, pigs, fat, meal, and milk. They forced the Dagda to eat it all or die. He consumed the entire meal with a ladle big enough for a man and woman to sleep in, scraping the pit clean with his fingers. He departed bloated and slow, but he had seen the Fomorian camp.

The Battle

The two armies met on the plain of Mag Tuired in the north of Connacht. The fighting was savage and sustained. The Fomorians held a crucial advantage: they could observe that wounded Tuatha Dé warriors returned to battle the next day, healed and whole. Octriallach, son of Indech, discovered the Well of Slaine and led a party of Fomorians to fill it with stones, burying the healing well and ending the Tuatha Dé's ability to resurrect their wounded.

The Fomorians also sent Ruadan, son of Bres and the Tuatha Dé woman Bríg, to spy on the miraculous weapon-forge. Ruadan watched Goibniu forge a spear-head in three strokes, Luchta shape the shaft in three cuts, and Crédne rivet them together in three turns. He seized one of the finished spears and hurled it at Goibniu, wounding the smith. But Goibniu pulled the spear from his own body and cast it back, killing Ruadan. Bríg came to the battlefield to keen over her fallen son, the first keening ever heard in Ireland.

The battle raged back and forth. Nuada fell in combat against Balor. Ogma died in the fighting. Macha, one of the war goddesses, was slain. The losses on both sides were enormous.

Lugh and Balor

The decisive moment came when Balor of the Evil Eye took the field. Balor possessed a single enormous eye whose lid was so heavy it required four men with a polished handle to raise it. When the eye was opened, its gaze destroyed everything before it. Entire ranks of warriors fell dead or were consumed. Balor turned this terrible weapon upon the Tuatha Dé Danann's battle lines.

Lugh advanced against his own grandfather. As Balor's men raised the lid of the evil eye, Lugh cast a sling-stone with such force that it struck the eye and drove it through the back of Balor's head. The eye, now facing backward, turned its destructive gaze upon the Fomorian host themselves, wreaking devastation on their own ranks. With Balor fallen, the Fomorian army broke and fled toward the sea. The Tuatha Dé Danann pursued them, driving them from Ireland.

The Aftermath

After the battle, Bres was captured. He begged for his life, offering first to ensure that the cows of Ireland would always give milk, which the Tuatha Dé rejected. He then offered the critical knowledge of agriculture: when to plough, when to sow, and when to reap. This knowledge was accepted, and Bres was spared.

Ogma found the sword of Indech mac Dé Domnann, called Orna, which recounted the deeds it had performed when unsheathed. Lugh, the Dagda, and Ogma pursued the Fomorians and recovered the Dagda's harp, Uaithne, which the Fomorians had stolen. The Dagda called to the harp, and it flew from the wall, killing nine Fomorians as it passed, and returned to his hands.

The Morrígán's Prophecy

After the victory, the Morrígán proclaimed the triumph to the royal hills, rivers, and sacred places of Ireland. Her victory proclamation begins: "Peace up to heaven, heaven down to earth, earth under heaven, strength in everyone." But the prophecy then shifts to a vision of the world's end: a time when summers would bear no flowers, cows would give no milk, women would be without shame, men without valor, trees without fruit, and the sea barren of fish. Old men would give false judgments, and every man would be a betrayer.