The four treasures of Ireland

At a Glance

• Central figures: The Tuatha Dé Danann - the people of the goddess Danu - and their chief figures: Nuada Airgetlám, Lugh Samildánach, the Dagda, and the poet-seer Morfessa, Esras, Semias, and Uiscias, the four masters of the northern cities.
• Setting: The four island cities of the north - Falias, Gorias, Findias, and Murias - and the plains of Ireland before and during the first Battle of Mag Tuired.
• The turn: The Tuatha Dé Danann left the northern cities and sailed to Ireland carrying four objects of power, one from each city, and burned their ships on the shore so there would be no return.
• The outcome: With the four treasures, the Tuatha Dé Danann defeated the Fir Bolg at Mag Tuired and claimed sovereignty over Ireland - though Nuada lost his arm in the fighting and, for a time, lost his kingship with it.
• The legacy: The four treasures remained in Ireland as tokens of rightful rule: the Stone of Fál that cried out beneath a true king, the Sword of Nuada that no enemy could escape, the Spear of Lugh from which no battle was lost, and the Cauldron of the Dagda from which no company went away hungry.

They came out of the north, out of islands no living sailor could find on any sea. Four cities stood there - Falias, Gorias, Findias, Murias - and in each city a master taught the arts that mattered: skill, sight, the working of fire, the shaping of words into power. The Tuatha Dé Danann had studied in those cities until there was nothing left to learn. Then they gathered what they had and left.

They did not leave quietly. They burned their ships on the coast of Ireland so the smoke rose in a dark column that the Fir Bolg, who held the land, mistook for weather. It was not weather. It was a people arriving who had no intention of leaving.

The Four Cities

Each city gave one thing.

From Falias came the Lia Fáil - the Stone of Destiny. Morfessa was its keeper. The stone was rough, waist-high, and when the rightful king of Ireland set his feet on it, the stone screamed. Not a bell-sound, not a chime. A scream, as though the rock itself recognized sovereignty the way a hound recognizes its master - by smell, by something beneath thought. Any man could stand on it. Only the true king made it cry.

From Gorias came the sword of Nuada. Semias had forged it or found it or sung it into being - the sources do not agree, and it does not matter. What matters is this: once drawn, no enemy escaped it, and no one who faced it in battle could resist. It cut what it was aimed at. Nuada carried it the way a king carries his right to rule - not hidden, not displayed, simply there.

From Findias came the spear of Lugh. Uiscias kept it. The spear was alive in a way that made even the Tuatha Dé Danann careful. Its point had to be kept submerged in a cauldron of poppy-water to keep it sleeping, because otherwise it burned. Left to itself it would fight on its own. No battle was ever lost by the man who held it - but holding it was its own kind of difficulty.

From Murias came the cauldron of the Dagda, and its keeper was Esras. The cauldron was enormous, black, heavy enough that moving it required intention. No company ever went away from it unsatisfied. It fed without emptying. The Dagda loved the thing, and the thing seemed to know it - or at least it worked best when he was near, ladle in his fist, feeding whoever came to him hungry.

The Burning of the Ships

The Tuatha Dé Danann landed on the western coast and the smoke from the burning fleet hung over the shore for three days. The Fir Bolg sent scouts. The scouts came back and said there was an army on the beach that had appeared out of the fog, that they had no ships, and that they did not seem concerned about it.

The Fir Bolg were not fools. They had held Ireland and held it well. Their king, Eochaid mac Eirc, sent an ambassador - a man named Sreng - to meet the newcomers. The Tuatha Dé Danann sent their own man, Bres. The two met between the camps, showed each other their weapons, and talked. Sreng looked at the slim, sharp spears and bright swords the Tuatha Dé carried. Bres looked at the heavy, broad-pointed javelins of the Fir Bolg. Neither man thought the other’s weapons were inferior. They understood each other perfectly.

Bres offered to split Ireland in half. The Fir Bolg refused.

The First Battle of Mag Tuired

They fought on the plain of pillars - Mag Tuired - and the fighting lasted four days. The four treasures were there. The sword cut. The spear burned. The cauldron fed the warriors between the days of killing. The Stone of Fál stood where it had been set and waited.

On the fourth day Nuada met Sreng in single combat. Sreng was the stronger man that afternoon. He swung his heavy blade and took Nuada’s right arm off at the shoulder. Nuada did not fall, not immediately - but the arm was gone and with it, under the old law, his kingship. A blemished king could not rule. A king with one arm was blemished.

The Tuatha Dé Danann won the battle. The Fir Bolg broke and scattered to the edges of Ireland - to Aran, to the western islands, to the stony places. Eochaid mac Eirc was killed. Ireland belonged now to the people who had come out of the smoke.

But their king could not be king. Nuada, who had carried the sword from Gorias, who had led the march from the burning ships, stood among his people with one arm and no crown. The Lia Fáil was silent under his feet. The law was the law, and not even the treasures could bend it.

The Silver Arm and What Followed

Dian Cécht the physician made Nuada a new arm of silver - every joint worked, every finger bent. They called him Nuada Airgetlám after that: Nuada of the Silver Arm. But the arm was not flesh. The blemish remained in the eyes of the law, and for a time the kingship passed to Bres - half-Fomorian, beautiful, and cruel - whose reign was so miserly that the poets composed the first satire in Ireland against him.

That is another story. The treasures stayed.

The Stone of Fál was set on the Hill of Tara and it screamed for every true king until the age of heroes ended. The sword passed from hand to hand among the lords of the Tuatha Dé. The spear slept in its poppy-water until Lugh took it up at the second battle and killed his grandfather Balor with a slingstone through the eye - but the spear was there, waiting, if the stone had missed. The cauldron fed whoever came, and the Dagda stood beside it, enormous and unhurried, and no one who reached him went hungry.

The Tuatha Dé Danann were themselves eventually driven beneath the hills by the Milesians, the sons of Míl, the last invaders. They became the aos sí, the people of the mounds. But the treasures did not go underground with them. The treasures stayed in the world - or at least the memory of them did, which in Ireland has always been the same thing.