Irish Parallels to the Myth of Odin's EyeAuthor(s): John CareySource: Folklore, Vol. 94, No. 2 (1983), pp. 214-218Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1260494 .

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Folklore vol. 94:ii, 1983 214

Irish Parallels to the Myth of Odin's Eye JOHN CAREY

ONE of Odin's better-known attributes is his one-eyedness, a trait already alluded to in the earliest Norse poetry.' Snorri Sturluson's account in the Gylfaginning of how the god lost one of his eyes contains all of our information on this subject:

... there is Mimir's well, in which wisdom and knowledge are hidden; and Mimir is the name of the one at the well. He is full of lore, because he drinks from the well out of the horn Gjallarhorn. All-father [i.e. Odin] came there and asked for a drink from the well, but he did not get it until he left his eye as a pledge, as it says in the Viiluspd:

I know all, Odin: where (your) eye is hidden in the famous well of Mimir; Mimir drinks mead every morning from Valf6br's [i.e. Odin's] pledge- would you know more, or what?2

The significance of this motif, which appears to have no Scandinavian or indeed Germanic parallels, is not immediately evident. It is the aim of this paper to call attention to various Irish legends which seem analogous, and to see whether a comparison of the different accounts will be of assistance in better understanding the underlying theme.

In the Old Irish Life of Brigit the saint's brothers, indignant because her intention to remain a virgin is depriving them of her bride-price, wish to betrothe her against her will. When she insists that she will not marry, she is told that her eyes are so beautiful that she will not be allowed to remain unwed.

Thereat suddenly she thrust her finger under her eye (adaig-si a mmr foa siiil). 'Here is that lovely eye for you,' said Brigit. 'It seems to me,' she said, 'that no one will ask you for a blind girl (filiam cecam3 ).' Her brothers rush around her at once, but they had no water to wash the wound. 'Let my staff,' she said, 'be planted upon the sod before you.' That was done. A stream burst from the earth ...4

The resemblance which we are investigating will be clearer when it is recognized that the motif of water springing from the ground when an eye is plucked out is not integral to this episode: the life of Brigit in the Book of Lismore contains a version of the story of her blinding in which no spring appears and her eye is healed as soon as she lays her hand upon it.' It is at least possible, therefore, that what we may for convenience call an 'eye-and-well' motif has here been grafted onto a story of voluntary mutilation of a more widespread type.6

The tale Talland Etair, which probably assumed its present form in the eleventh century,' deals with the extortionate behaviour of the poet Aithirne Ailgesach. On a tour of Ireland, he demands the single eye of the Munster king Eochaid mac Luchta:

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IRISH PARALLELS TO ODIN'S EYE 215

Then the king put his finger under his eye (dorat in ria mirfo sfil), so that he plucked it from his head and gave it to Aithirne. 'Lead me, servant,' said the king, 'toward the stream, for the washing of my face.' Then he poured three waves of the water (tri tonna dond usciu) on his face. 'Is the eye plucked from my head, servant?' said the king. 'Woe is me!' said the servant. 'The hollow is red (is derg in derc) with your blood.' 'Be that its name forever,' said the king, 'namely, Dergderc.' Thus the king wrought generosity, namely, giving his only eye for the sake of honour. As a miracle of generosity God gave him two eyes.8

The second recension of the Dindshenchas (late twelfth century)' contains a version of the story in which the poet is named Ferchertne. Here as in the Brigit story no water can be found with which to wash away the blood, but a spring bursts from the ground when the king pulls up some rushes (lNachair); he immerses his head three times and miraculously receives two eyes. A more recent prose version tells the same story.'0

The Sivi-fJtaka, a tale which presumably assumed its present form a few centuries before the birth of Christ and and exists in various early Buddhist and Jaina versions, relates how Sakka, king of the gods, tests the generosity of a king Sivi by assuming the shape of a blind brahman and asking Sivi for one of his eyes; Sivi gives him both. Sakka later returns and tells Sivi that he will regain his sight if he utters truths; he recounts the circumstances of his gift in two verses, and with each verse an eye is restored."1 I think that Myles Dillon, who first drew attention to the similarity of this story and the story of Eochaid, was correct in suggesting that the idea of the 'act of truth,' well known elsewhere in Irish narrative, was part of the original tale:12 if so, the eye-and- well motif again appears as an autonomous story-element, added to the Irish legend from some other source.

The poem 'Sid Nechtain sund forsin tsleib,' tentatively attributed by Edward Gwynn and Thurneysen to

Cfian (ia Lothchain (died 1024),'3 is probably the earliest of the Boyne legends in the Dindshenchas. The well of Segais is hidden in a fairy mound, guarded by Nechtan and his three cupbearers. Both of the eyes of whoever gazes into it burst. Nechtan's wife B6and recklessly defies the well's power by walking around it three times, and in retaliation three waves (teora tonna) spring from it, tearing away one of her feet, a hand and an eye. She flees, and the water pursues her as far as the sea; thus the river Boyne (Bdand) is formed.14 The poem mentions that two of the reaches of the Boyne are called 'the arm and calf of N.adu's wife' (rig mnd Nuadat 's a colptha); that the ninth-century Immacaldam in Dd Thuiarad already uses the phrase 'the arm of Ni*adu's wife' (rig mnd Nuadat), explained as the Boyne in an appended gloss, may indicate the antiquity of a motion that the Boyne's length in some way corresponds to the limbs of the dismembered goddess."

Here too other versions of the tale, which seem to be older, do not include the eye- and-well motif. The poem about B6and just cited is followed by another beginning 'A Mailsechlainn mic Domnaill,' in which she goes to Segais in order to conceal the guilt of her adultery with the Dagda, and is drowned when the water surges over her; this latter poem would appear to have been written between 1012 and 1022,16 and to derive its version of the story from 'Sect o.f.n.,' ascribed to Cinded (ia hArtacain (died 987).17 Lucius Gwynn has argued that Cinaed's poem is itself 'an ingenious adaptation' of a legend recounted in the first recension Dindshenchas poems on the Shannon (Sinann), in which a fairy maiden journeys to Segais to learn 'the inspiration of science' (immas sdis) but is drowned when the water retreats before her and she follows it.'8 The likelihood that this is the story's earliest form is further indicated by the Avestan account, cited by Georges Dum~zil, of how the warrior Fra3 rasyan attempts to retrieve the Xvara nah, a kind of divine light, from the depths of a sea where it has been hidden. Here again there is no mutilation, and the Xvard nah retreats in front of

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216 JOHN CAREY

Fra 3 rasyan, eventually concealing itself in a river." In the three stories cited, therefore, the eye-and-well motif appears to be a secondary

addition to tales of which parallel versions supply the unmodified form. That it is a genuine motif, with a real place in early Irish narrative, is indicated by the shared elements in the three tales: three waves are responsible both for the healing of Eochaid and for the mutilation of B6and, and in the cases of both Brigit and Eochaid the spring furnishes water for washing. The association between loss of an eye and a clump of rushes in the Eochaid legend recurs in Togail Bruidne Da Derga, a composite tale going back in some form to the eighth century at least and finally redacted perhaps in the eleventh;20 apart from noting the similarities, however, I am able to offer no comment or interpretation. The one-eyed pirate Ingcl, peering into Da Derga's hostel, sees Le Fer Flaith, son of Conaire king of Tara:

'There were fifteen bulrushes (bonsibne) in the hand of that red-freckled youth, and a thorn's point at the end of every rush; and we were fifteen men, and our fifteen right eyes were blinded by him, and one of the seven pupils in my head was blinded by him,' said Ingcel.21

That the motif of plucking out an eye was current in Irish narrative is also obliquely suggested by a passage in one of the passions in Leabhar Breac, in which a man describes how his blindness was cured when Christ 'put his fingers under my eyes' (cor-chuir a mira fdm' fiiilib):22

here for the laying on of hands in the New Testament accounts (Matt. 9:29, 20:34) the Irish version substitutes an inappropriate and presumably stereotyped phrase similar to that which we have encountered in the stories of Brigit and Eochaid. It is possible that the line 'There is a finger in many an eye' (Is mir i n-imat sida) occurring in a poem in the Middle Irish tale Aithed Emere23 belongs here as well, but its significance in context is obscure.

A connection between the well of inspiration and loss of a hand occurs elsewhere in Talland Atair24 and in the eighth-or-ninth-century Brislech Mdr Maige Murthemni,2s in passages which seem despite pronounced divergences to be two versions of a single tale. The common elements point to a story about an invading king (Mes Gegra, Lugaid mac Con Rui), whose hand has been cut off under unusual circumstances, left behind with his charioteer by his retreating army. He pauses at a ford of the Liffey,26 becomes involved in eating food which comes from the river (a giant floating hazel-nut, a salmon), and is confronted by the warrior Conall Cernach, who agrees to fight him with one arm tied to his side. The rest of the episode, in which the king is killed, does not seem relevant to the present discussion. Hazel-nuts and salmon are of course both intimately connected with the well of Segais in its character as source of inspiration.27 The temporarily one-armed Conall perhaps appears here as a tutelary figure avenging a violation of the river; we may compare an anecdote in Harleian MS 5280, in which Cui Chulainn and his charioteer go to seek inspiration (inbuis) at the Boyne. Cui Chulainn first spears a salmon and is then challenged by the supernatural Elcmaire, lord of a fairy mound beside the river, to a fight in which Cui Chulainn cuts off his thumbs and great toes.28 A possible Brittonic parallel is the Breton saint Melorus, who has a right hand of silver and a left foot of bronze: the hand comes miraculously to life when he is presented with some nuts (nuces), and he subsequently hurls a stone which upon striking a boulder causes a spring (fons vivus) to burst forth.29

Each of the three stories first cited describes the violent removal of an eye as being simultaneous with, or directly responsible for, the bursting of a spring from the earth: the idea seems to be based both on the gush of blood (or tears) from the eye-socket, and

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IRISH PARALLELS TO ODIN'S EYE 217

on the resemblance between an eye and a pool-we may compare the Welsh phrase Ilygadyffynnon, literally 'eye of the fountain,' which W. O. Pughe renders 'the issue of a spring.'3 Although in one case taken over into a story celebrating the chastity of a saint, and in another included in an exemplary tale of kingly generosity, the motif in all three examples seems to supply a mythical explanation for the origin of a spring or pool through sympathetic magic.

The legend of B6and contains the added elements of loss of a hand and foot, and the specific identification of the well as the source of poetic inspiration. These ideas do not occur in the stories of Brigit and Eochaid, and occur in isolation in the stories of Mes Gegra and Lugaid, so that we may be inclined to take them as further extraneous elements. Nuts and one-handedness are, however, also connected with the emergence of a spring in the life of Melorus, and one-eyedness and magical knowledge are of course associated in the legend of Mimir's well: when we consider the instances in Irish literature of one-eyedness, one-handedness and one-footedness cocurring in magical and supernatural contexts,31 and the pervasiveness of the conception of inspiration as a drink (Indo-Iranian soma and haoma, Kvasir's mead in Norse, the cauldron of knowledge in the later Welsh legend of Taliesin and the Irish treatise called 'The Cauldron of Poesy'32), it seems reasonable to suggest that these elements all belong to a single complex of ideas, in which the semi-personified water of knowledge, associated with hazel-nuts and salmon, springs from a source identified with an eye and becomes a river identified with a single arm or leg.

I should like to suggest further that Germanic legend inherited or borrowed the same idea: that in an earlier version of the myth Odin's sacrifice of an eye magically caused the waters of knowedge to burst forth. The notion of Odin bringing wisdom to men is of course found elsewhere, as in the Skaldskaparmdl where he flies over the earth in the shape of a bird with Kvasir's mead dribbling from his beak.33 In the story of Eochaid the magical parallelism between the red socket of the king's eye and the red hollow of Loch Dergderc becomes ambiguity: the servant's exclamation Is aerg in derc could apply to either. In the Viluspd, where Mimir drinks 'from Valfd6 r's pledge' (af ve6 i

Valfd' rs), the lost eye has itself become the well.

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

NOTES

1. The earliest allusion of which E. O. G. Turville-Petre (Myth and Religion of the North, New York, 1964, 62) is aware in the phrase enum einygja/Friggarfa mbyggvi 'the one-eyed spouse of Frigg' in a poem ascribed to the early tenth-century poet Thorbjirn Hornklofi (Den norsk-islandske Skjaldedigtning, ed. Finnur J6nsson, Copenhagen, 1912-5, B.I.24, 12). Turville-Petre also cites such epithets as Blindr and Tviblindi ('Twice-blind'). Hdrr, which he derives from an earlier *Haiha-hariR ('the One-eyed Hero'), can be more simply explained as an adjective meaning 'gray-haired.'

2. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, ed. Finnur J6nsson (Reykjavik, 1907), 31; for the V6luspd passage cf. Saemundar Edda, ed. J6nsson (Reykjavik, 1927), 8-9.

3. Since caecus means simply 'blind' in Latin, never 'one-eyed,' it is most likely that the author had in mind the Irish cdech 'one-eyed.'

4. Betha Brigte, ed. Donncha 0 hAodha (Dublin, 1978), 5. 5. Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore, ed. Whitley Stokes (Oxford, 1890), lines 1332-40. Cf. the

account in Leabhar Breac, ed. Stokes, Three Middle-Irish Homilies (Calcutta, 1877), 64.

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218 JOHN CAREY

6. See the references under T.327 'Mutilation to repel lover' in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk Literature (Copenhagen, 1957). Henri Gaidoz cites in this connection a legend of St. Lucy (RC 5.129-30); and stories in which the protagonist is male occur in the Sanskrit Kathasaritsagara, the Travels of Marco Polo, and the medieval French Baudouin de Sebourg (RC 3.444-5).

7. Rudolf Thurneysen, Die irische Helden- und K'nigsage (Halle, 1921), 506. 8. RC 8.47. 9. TLS 12.114. 10. TLS 10.338-46, RC 15.461-2. Cf. the legend of Eochaid mac Mailugra, of the Eoganacht Caisil, and

the Scottish druid LobAn in Betha Ruaddin, ed. Charles Plummer, Lives of Irish Saints (Oxford, 1922), 1.329.

11. Jdtaka 499, trans. H. T. Francis and E. J. Thomas, Jdtaka Tales (Cambridge, 1916), 381-9. 12. 'The Archaism of Irish Tradition,' Sir John Rhys Memorial Lecture, 1947, 4. 13. TLS 10.480, ZCP 10.440. 14. TLS 10.26-32. 15. LL (Dublin ed.) lines 24340-2; for dating see Thurneysen, 520. 16. TLS 10,36; on dating see 481-2. The circumstances of the adultery are already recounted in the Old

Irish Tochmarc Etafne, Eriu 12.142. 17. Despite the arguments of G. O'Nolan (ZCP 8.516-9) and Thurneysen (ZCP 10.438-40), Professor

James Carney has in a recent seminar at the Dublin Institute for Advanced 'Studies advanced strong arguments for accepting the ascription. For the text see Eriu 7.219-29.

18. Eriu 7.215; the Dindshenchas poems are to be found in TLS 10.286-96. 19. Yas't 19.55-64, trans. Fritz Wolff, Avesta (Strassburg, 1910), 292-3; discussed by Dumezil, Celtica

6.53-7. 20. Thurneysen 627. 21. Togail Bruidne Da Derga, ed. Eleanor Knott, Medieval and Modern Irish Series 8.34. Ingc6l has

seven pupils in his single eye. 22. TLS 2, line 2787. 23. RC 6.184. 24. RC 8.56-80. 25. LL lines 14057-61, 14090-5, 14131-4,14147-65; for dating see Thurneysen 548. 26. This is not specifically stated in Talland Etair,but cf. Edmund Hogan, Onomasticon Goedelicum

(Dublin, 1910), s.v. 'Cassin Cloenta.' 27. E.g. TLS 10.292-6. 28. ZCP 8.120. 29. De sancto Meloro martire, in Nova Legenda Anglie, ed. Carl Horstmann (Oxford, 1901), 2.183-4.

G. H. Doble (Saint Melor, Shipton-on-Stour 1927, 3) argues that the account was 're-written some time in the 11th or 12th century (?) at Amesbury.'

30. A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (Denbigh, 1823), s.v. Ilygad. An example is Llygadcleddy, a spring in Pembrokeshire (Rhestr o Enwau Lleoed4 ed. Elwyn Davies, Caerdydd, 1958, s.v.).

31. E.g. Knott lines 345-6, RC 12.198, ITS 49.13.458. Cf. the idea in later material that the salmon of wisdom has only one eye: Anecdota 1.24-39; Celtic Review 10.138-43; Folktales of Ireland trans. Sean O'Sullivan (London, 1966), 17-8,260-1.

32. Anecdota 5.22-8. 33. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, ed. Finnur J6nsson (Copenhagen, 1931), 85.

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