Land of myth and legend: sorcerers, seers and saints

Strange things happen every day and, sometimes, there is only one explanation–a touch of magic. In the last of three articles, Amy Jeffs recalls the stories of Merlin, the Holy Grail and a miraculous salmon

- Amy Jeffs

A PREHISTORIC ring barrow stands in Co Armagh. It began as a wooden frame, which was then filled with thousands of stones, burned and covered with soil, leaving a gigantic mound. It is now known as Navan Fort or, in Old Irish, Emain Macha. By the Middle Ages, it was the legendary palace of the Kings of Ulster (or Ulaidh). In Lady Augusta Gregory’s early-20th-century retelling of the Ulster Cycle, a princess called Dechtire swallows a mayfly in her wine and falls asleep. As she sleeps, Lugh of the Long Hand appears to her, claiming to have been the mayfly. He transforms Dechtire and her 50 handmaidens into birds and steals them away to Brú na Bóinne, a Stone Age passage tomb in Co Meath. A year later, Dechtire is found giving birth to the hero Cúchulainn.

As mysterious sentinels in the landscape, it makes sense that prehistoric barrows inspired stories of the supernatural, but stories are everywhere, if one knows where to look. Barry Island in Wales is famous for the earthy TV sitcom Gavin & Stacey, but it’s also the setting for the story of the 5th/6thcentury St Cadog and a miraculous salmon, written down in the 12th century. Cadog— King Arthur’s contemporary—is returning from Flat Holm island to Barry when he realises his followers have left behind his precious handbook. He commands two of them to retrieve it and, seemingly impossibly, never to come back. On the return journey, their boat capsizes and the two men are drowned. Cadog’s remaining followers, fishing for dinner, discover the book unscathed in the belly of a salmon.