The figures beneath each entry give reference numbers for the Bibliography
According to Plutarch, Briareus was the hundred-handed giant set to guard Cronos in Ogygia, a mystical island in the Atlantic Ocean.
# 256 - 454
(bric'ryoo nev'hyenga)
# 562: Ulster Lord; causes strife between CuChulain and Red Branch heroes as to Championship of Ireland; summons aid of demon named The Terrible. For the sake of the strife which he loved, he suggested that the warriors of Ulster and Connacht should compare their principal deeds of arms, and give the carving of the boar of mac Datho to him who seemed to have done best in the border-fighting which was always going on between the provinces. It was won by neither party.
# 454: Satirist and mischief-maker at Conchobar's court. He incited rivalry between the heroes CuChulain, Conall and Loegaire by assigning the 'hero's portion' of the feast to the best warrior. The champions' three wives were driven to contend for the place of honour. The dispute was settled by Cu Roi mac Daire who offered the heroes a chance of playing the beheading game; only CuChulain would play it and so won the contest. Bricriu was surnamed Nemthenga or Poison-Tongue.
# 166 - 266 - 454 - 562
# 166: BRICRIU'S FEAST is one of the longest narratives of the Ulster cycle. It exists in several versions, the oldest of which is based on an original composed probably as early as the eighth century. Though somewhat marred by repetitions and contradictions, the story, taken as a whole, is one of the best in early Irish literature. It consists of a series of episodes describing various tests of valor which the three bravest warriors of Ulster - CuChulain, Conall, and Loegaire undergo in order to determine who is most worthy to receive the choicest portion of a feast prepared by Bricriu of the Poison Tongue, the Thersites of the cycle. The antiquity of the motif around which the narrative centers is vouched for by a Greek writer who relates that at ancient Celtic feasts the choicest titbit, or 'Champion's portion,' was assigned to the bravest warrior present, whose preeminence was sometimes established by a fight on the spot. Cu Roi, who figures in several episodes, is a semi-supernatural being who probably belonged originally, not to the Ulster cycle, but to the legendary history of the south of Ireland.
# 236: 'Bricriu's Feast', perhaps the most characteristic Ulster Cycle story, has just about everything: a mythic subtext, a heroic competition, visits to and from the otherworld, elements of humour and parody and a rambling, patchwork structure. The mythic subtext comprises the beheading sequence known to English literature from SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT; but there, even though the tale is of later date, the regeneration theme is clearer because the ritual slaying takes place at New Year (the English equivalent of Samuin) and because the earth-goddess figure (the Green Knight's wife) is present. Irish tradition frequently presents otherworld judges as large, ugly churls in rough, drab clothing; one might also compare Cu Rui's appearance with that of Arawn at the outset of 'Pwyll Lord of Dyved'. As for the Green Knight's colour, which had led some to identify him as a vegetation figure, grey and green are not always clearly distinguished in Irish - the word GLASS, for example, might signify either colour.
The actual text, or theme, of 'Bricriu's Feast' is much simpler: the contest among Loegure Buadach, Conall Cernach and CuChulain for the champion's portion - that is, for the biggest and best serving at feasts and for the privilege of sitting at Conchubar's right. The competition takes the folktale form wherein each of the three brothers attempts a feat (CuChulain, of course, is the youngest). Bricriu, whose sobriquet Nemthenga means 'poison tongue', is a mischief-maker, an Irish Loki; yet he seldom perpetrates any permanent or serious damage (such as the death of Baldur). 'Bricriu's Feast' is, in fact, comic as well as heroic. Although Bricriu threatens to turn the Ulaid against one another, to set father against son and mother against daughter, it is not until he threatens to set the breasts of each Ulaid women beating against each other that the chieftains agree to attend his feast. The risibility of Fedelm, Lendabair and Emer racing each other to the drinking house, their suspicions raised as high as their skirts, cannot have escaped the storyteller; neither can the spectacle of Bricriu's beautiful house left lopsided, nor that of Bricriu himself thrown down on to the garbage heap and reappearing at the door so filthy with dirt and mud that the Ulaid do not recognize him. The structure of 'Bricriu's Feast' leaves something to be desired. Doubtless the storyteller has stretched his material (and his host's hospitality), and perhaps he has tried to reconcile conflicting traditions; still, the resultant repetitions and duplications must have sounded better in a chieftain's banquet hall than they look in print, and it is also fair to presume some degree of deterioration in both transmission and transcription. 'Bricriu's Feast' is the ultimate source for Yeats's play THE GREEN HELMET.
# 166 - 236
The Bridge of Leaps was very narrow and very high, and it crossed a gorge where far below swung the tides of a boiling sea, in which ravenous monsters could be seen swimming. 'Not one of us has crossed that bridge,' said Ferdia to CuChulain, 'for there are two feats that Skatha teaches last, and one is the leap across that bridge. For if a man step upon one end of the bridge, the middle straightway rises up and flings him back, and if he leap upon it he may chance to miss his footing and fall into the gulf, where the sea-monsters are waiting for him.' But CuChulain waited till evening, when he had recovered his strenght from his long journey, and then essayed the crossing of the bridge. Three times he ran towards it from a distance, gathering all his powers together, and strove to leap upon the middle, but three times it rose against him and flung him back, while his companions jeered at him bacause he would not wait for the help of Skatha. But at the fourth leap he lit fairly on the centre of the bridge, and with one leap more he was across it, and stood before the strong fortress of Skatha; and she wondered at his courage and vigour, and admitted him to be her pupil.
# 562
Titular goddess of the Brigantes, of the West Riding in Yorkshire. A dedication and bas-relief at Birrens depicts her with the victorious attributes of Minerva and wearing the mural crown of Cybele, which shows how the Romans adopted her into their own mythos. Natively, she was a goddess of water and of pastoral activities. She may be equated with the Irish Brigit.
# 454 - 523
# 562: Irish Goddess identical with Dana and Brigindo, &c; She is daughter of the god Dagda "The Good"; Ecne, grandson of Brigit. (pronouncing: Brigit g as in "get" and Bride (breed))
# 454: In her triple aspect she was patroness of poets, healers and smiths. Her son by Bres, Ruadan, was slain by Goibnui. For him she made the first keening that was ever heard in Ireland. She was subsumed in the cult and person of Saint Brigit of Kildare (450-523) who founded the first female religious community after Christianity had been established in Ireland. The sanctuary of the nunnery at Kildare had a perpetual fire, tended by the sisterhood, which was not extinguished until the Reformation. Saint Brigit is the secondary patron saint of Ireland. Within Scottish tradition Brigid (the saint and the goddess) is associated with the lambing season and the coming of spring, when she ousts the winter reign of the Cailleach Bheur. The saint is further known as the 'Mary of the Gael' and is credited with being the midwife to the Virgin. A folk-story tells how she played the fool by lighting a crown of candles and wearing it on her head to distract Herod's soldiers from the Holy Infant. Traces of Brigit can be discerned in Brigantia.
# 628: LADY OF BRIGHT INSPIRATION. BRIGHID, Gaelic goddess of smithcraft and metalwork, poetic inspiration and therapy. The ancient FILID or bards were under her direct inspiration, and in folk tradition she is said to have been the midwife and foster-mother of Jesus. Her primal function is that of fire and illumination; in Romano-Celtic temples she was frequently amalgamated with the goddess Minerva. It was she who first made the whistle for calling one to another through the night. And the one side of her face was ugly, but the other side was very comely. And the meaning of her name was Breosaighit, a fiery arrow.
# 136 - 166 - 267 - 415 - 454 - 562 - 628 p 66
Equivalents, Brigit and "Brigantia".
# 562
When King Pelles wanted Lancelot to sleep with his daughter Elaine so that Galahad would be conceived, Brisen was the one who arranged this on two occasions. (Lancelot was under the misapprehension that Elaine was Guinevere.)
# 156
A surprising number of foreigners use these words interchangeably. This is incorrect and frequently offensive to the British themselves. England is one of three countries that share the island of Great Britain. It is the southernmost and largest of the three. Great Britain (frequently just called Britain) is the largest of the British Isles. It comprises England, Scotland and Wales. The British Isles comprise Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. The United Kingdom is the kingdom of the British Isles, and comprises Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. Officially the name is United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. (Between 1801 and 1922 it included all of Ireland.) Thus English pertains to England and its people. British, on the other hand, pertains to Great Britain, and by extension to the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth of Nations. It is easy for foreigners, especially Americans to forget that the English were relative latecomers to England. Long before the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded what is now England in the fifth century, the Celts and the Picts (surviving as Scots, Welsh, and Irish) had lived there under Roman rule. Their languages (Gaelic, Welsh, Manx, etc.) were totally different from those of either their Roman or Germanic conquerors. Their separate cultural identities and their pride in them are still very real. Many a Scot has no hesitation in pointing out that England's greatest deeds wer performed by Scots.
# 118 p 35
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