P, pin, a chip of stone for filling crevices in a wall; a dwarf

elder. The letter “p” was not found in pre-Christian Ogham.

Words beginning with this letter are derived from other
languages.

PADRUIG, PARUIG,per form PARA, OIr. Patrice, said from

Latin Patricius, a patrician, Saint Patrick. nickname Para
for Gillephadruig, MG. Gillapadruig, Ir. Pádraig,
Gillaphátraice, OIr. Patrice, Lat. Patricius, a patrician.
Hence Mac-phatrick, Fitz-patrick, Paterson.

Not a handsome man, Saint Patrick was probably not a

single individual, but the sum of several early Christian
missionaries. It is said that he was born in the Severn
district of western Britain in 390 A.D., the son of a Roman
administrative official, hence his nickname "the patrician."
The "plebes" of Britain associated all of their rulers with
"frogs" from their propensity to be always "croaking" about
matters of little interest or importance.

When Patrick was sixteen he was taken as hostage in

a raid by the Irish king Niall of the Nine Hostages, who sold
him to a farmer named Milcho. After six years of slavery, he
escaped to the Continent. There he learned passable Latin,
became an ordained priest and was ultimately named bishop
to the Irish. In 432 he returned there with twenty-four
companions, landing on the Wicklow coast, where
missionaries had already been repulsed. Received with the
same courtesy Patrick retaliated by magically converting
King Nathy's domain into a salt marsh. His party then
cruised up the coast, finally landing at Strangford Lough,
County Down.

The local chieftain at that place, one named Dichu was

as antagonistic, but when he lifted his sword, Patrick
"pointed him out," and he found his arm suddenly paralyzed,
and quickly reconsidered adopting the Christian faith. At
that Patrick restored him to full health and the prince
presented him with a barn and property which the young
priest turned into his first church. Patrick understood that
he could not dominate the people if he failed to convince
their lords, so he travelled next to Tara to meet with
Laoghaire ard-righ, the successor to Niall of the Nine
Hostages. To reach Tara, the missionaries passed into the
mouth of the river Boyne and walked to the green valleys of
Meath, places rich in associations with the old gods. The
river itself was considered a personification of Boann, wife
of the ancient god Dagda. At Newgrange he passed the burial
mounds of the three sons of Dagda.

Knowing something of the pagan religion he timed his

arrival near Tara for the eve of Beltane, which the
Christians reckoned as Holy Saturday (the day before Easter
on that particular year). On the Beltane Eve it was
traditional that all fire be extinguished so that "new fire"
could be ritually created. On that very night, Patrick and
his men set a blaze of their own at Slaine, on the left bank
of the Boyne.

Seeing the fire from his court, Laoghaire demanded to

know what individual had defied tradition. His frightened
druids were forced to consider that this person might be the
ultimate enemy of their faith. This man, they said, is very
dangerous, "and unless the fire on that hill is extinguished
this very night, then its fire will outshine all the fires we
light, and his kingdom will overrule our kingdom."

A splendidly determined pagan, the king instructed his

troops to extinguish the fire, but these men were repulsed
by magic and unable to carry out this demand. The druids,
themselves, lay in ambush at dawn, but as the missionaries
walked in orderly procession towards Tara, Patrick led
them in the chanting of the faed fiada (which see) which
made them appear to their foes as a stag leading a bevy of
does. In an attempt to awe the foreigners,

Laoghaire called his court into full session, but

Patrick made such a remarkable entry that Dubthach, the
king's chief poet, rose in respect, as did a young noble
named Erc (later converted and made Bishop Erc). The
druids immediately attempted to subjugate Patrick by
throwing down their staffs, which reformed themselves
into attacking snakes, but Patrick threw his own staff to
the floor and it became a huge snake which voraciously
gobbled up the others. Impressed, if not inwardly swayed,
Loaghaire promised tolerance for Patrick's mission and this
opened the way for conversions throughout Meath.

Patrick made a great point of appearing at the known

sites of pagan worship, daring the early gods to do their
worst. This adversarial approach to religious matters
drew large crowds of people seeking entertainment. On the
circuit in western Ireland, Patrick was opposed by druids
who drew down a cloud of fog over the land, but he waved it
aside noting, "they know how to gather darkness, but have
not the means to spread light!"

Perhaps at this time he is said to have magically

toppled the gold statue of Crom Cruach, burying his circle of
stone followers to their necks in the earth. In County Mayo
he is supposed to have driven the "poisonous reptiles" from
all of Ireland, but in fac the island never harboured any of
these species after glaciation, being completely cut off
from other places by the sea.

In his circuit he was careful to befriend people in all

of society and understood the advantages of patronage,
giving generous gifts to his closest allies. Patrick thought
that his role as bishop of the Church demanded that he
travel regally in order to attract the notice of men in
power. His generous life-style was looked on askance by
the Continental clergy, but his methods created churches in
every part of the land, his own See, being put down at
Armagh, at the old trysting place of the powerful goddess
Macha.

Patrick died in 460 A.D. and his biographers claim

that during the twelve days of his wake "there was no night
in Maigh Inis, but only light from an angelic radiance. This
light persisted a whole year after Patrick's death." Of his
retinue it was said" "There was a demon at the butt of every
blade of grass in Erin before they came; but at those same
butts, there stand now, angels of the Lord."

PARTHANAN. A wraith from the Otherworld who, at the end

of harvest, reaped and threshed any grain left standing in
the fields. It has been suggested that this creature is a
folk-memory of Partholon. A very exact counterpart is,
however, found in Nordic myth: AS the winds blew fiercest
in autumn and winter, Odin was supposed to prefer hunting
during that season, especially during the time between
Christmas and Twelfthnight, and the peasants were always
careful to leave the last sheaf in the field, or the last
measure of grain, out in the fields to serve as food for his
horse.”

PARTHOLÓN, later PARLAN, the Latin Bartholomaeus or

Partholomaeus. a personage represented as the first human
to arrive in Ireland, 278 years after the World Flood. Hence
the clan M'Pharlain or Macfarlane. The next arrivals were
followers of Parlan, in the early Irish Partholón. The
Romans spoke of these people in the latter days as the off-
spring or Bartholomœus. There has been a suggestion that
the name relates to the Celto-Spanish Bar-Tolmen, and
Professor Rhys thought that they came from this land.

All that is really clear is the fact that the name is

non-Gael and probably pre-Celtic, since it has the forbidden
“p” at the beginning of the word. The Celts Clann Pharlain
by substituting an “f” for the “p,” thus we have Clan
Farlane or Farland, the source of the M’Pharlain, known to
English-speakers as the Macfarlands. Gaelic historians say
that the new arrivals came precisely 278 years after the
Great Flood. If the flood occurred about the time of the
Valders Re-advance as some scientists suspect, this puts
their arrival at something before the year 10, 000 B.C. This
man was a descendant of Magog and Japhet, (sons of Adam).
It must be understood that the transcribers of unwritten
tradition were Christians, who wished to give the
Hibernians the best possible genealogy. Whatever his
background, Partholonan followed the example of the
Biblical Cain and murdered his father Sera, hoping to inherit
his kingdom.

This is very reminiscent of the killing of the

Oolathair by his sons and this portion of the tale may be a
reinterpretation of that myth as Sera appears to be a form
of the Gaelic siar or iar, the “west.” Note that none of the
murderers inherited their fathers holdings but were all
forced into exile. It was thus that Partholon and a number
of close friends set sail upon the ocean and finally settled
in Munster, Ireland, arriving significantly on the first day of
May, which is to say beulteinne. It was sometimes claimed
that this hero came from Spain, but it will be recalled that
the Gaelic for this place is more correctly understood as a
synonym for the “dead-lands,” which were understood to be
placed in the western Atlantic. Some biographers insisted
that Sera had a kingdom in Scythia but our ballad-sheet
has Tul-tunna, the survivor of the flood sing these words:

When Partholan came to the island

From Greece in the Eastern Land,
I welcomed him gaily to my land
And feasted the whole of his band.

We think that this early Munster-man did not come

from the west and have T.W. Rolleston for support. He says:
“The Celts as we have learned from Caesar, believed they
were descended from the God of the Underworld, the God of
the Dead. Partholan is said to have come from the West,
where beyond the un-sailed Atlantic, the Irish
Fairyland...the Land of the Happy Dead, was placed. His
father’s name was Sera (the West?). He came with his
queen Dealgnaid and twenty-four men and an equal number
of female companions.

He is recorded as having three legitimate sons, the

eldest named Eber (the same name as one of the sons of
Mil), and one “a hireling.” His other sons were Rudraihe
(Roderick) and Laighhlinne (Lochlann), and an unnamed by
referred to as “the hireling.” When Rudhraidhe died his was
buried by his father in a place which erupted water from the
grave-site, and this flood continued creating the modern
Loch Rudraidhe. The first record of fornication in Ireland
was followed by a second. The queen was “ignored” by her
husband and while he was away on a journey she had an
affair with a household servant named Todga. When the
leader returned he forgave his mate, noting that he was not
blameless and had been wrong in leaving her without
company.

When the Partholonians arrived in ancient Eiru it was

a wilderness embracing three huge lakes and nine rivers on
a single plain. The persistence of these numbers in druid
magic dates from these early observations. The new men on
the land are said to have hunted the plain, set up the first
hostels, and cleared the land for agriculture. The old tales
insist that the Farlanders had two ploughmen in their
retinue and that these men were equipped with four working
oxen and ploughs with iron blades.

These men were not long in place before they met the
sea-roving Fomorians led by Cichol Grinchenghos (the
Footless). This race emerges again and again in the Book of
Invasions and they are hardly ever represented as a
“civilized race,”an epitaph which Donnelly gives them in his
book Atlantis the Antediluvian World. They did come with
“sixty ships and a strong army” as this writer suggested,
but they did not kill Partholon and they failed to defeat his
people as he suggests. Some of the Irish claim descent
from the sea-folk of the underwater kingdoms, and perhaps
Ignatius Donnelly is one of these!

A greater number of Irish have taken the other court,

e.g. Katherine Scherman: “In Partholan’s time these savages
lived on costal islands, and fought against Partholan’s race
although equipped with but “one foot, one hand and one eye.”
Some men said that these intruders were shape-changers,
cannibals often observed to have the heads of animals
(probably because they wore the hides of their totem
animals), Strangers always have an uncanny appearance!
This historian thought that the Fomors were probably some
faint racial memory of Mesolithic man, a stone-bearing
creature “who crept round the edges of the country catching
what food he could with his rude weapons and eking out a
static existence...presenting his infelicitous countenance
and his paltry resistance to more progressive successors.”

The Fomorians were not all that ineffectual although

Partholon did meet and defeat these hordes who were led by
Cichol Grinchenghos. The Farlanders actually fell prey to the
first plague in Ireland after they had gathered for some
unstated purpose near the Old Plain called Senmag.
Tallaght, on the west slope of Dublin mountain. This place is
notorious as the traditional site of the death of nine
thousand men and women, the descendants of the original
settlers. It is claimed that they all expired within a week
and those who survived gave them a mass burial. One can
see tumuli on the hillside which seem to support this myth.
In the year 774 A.D. the king of Leinster gave this place to
Christian monks for a monastery, but even less remains of
their monastery. This place was much too close to a very
good harbour, which the viking Norse preferred when they
came to establish a settlement at Dublin.

This leaves only the telling of the tale of Tuan which

was preserved in The Book of the Dun Cow a manuscript
from about the year 1100 A.D. This Farlander was the son
of Starn who was the son of Sera and the brother to
Partholon. After the great pestilence this sole survivor
wandered about from one vacant settlement to the next, but
saw nothing except wolves. For twenty-two years it is said
that he lived without comfort or company, until at last he
fell “into the decrepitude of old age.” He was apparently
unaware of the presence of a parallel character, the flood
survivor Finntann. Speaking of the Partholons this
character says, in the 1913 ballad:

Again, when death seized on these

strangers
I roamed the land merry and free,
Both careless and fearless of dangers
Til Blithe Nemid came over the sea.

They were successful in battle against the sea-giants,

but Partholón himself was not as lucky in love. While he
was away from his settlement his wife had an affair with a
servant named Todga, but he excused her noting that it was
his fault for ignoring her. His eldest son was Eber, the
others Rudraidhe and Laighlinne. It was said that he
introduced agriculture to Ireland and among his folk there
were two professional ploughmen were equipped two iron
ploughs and four trained oxen. The Partholonians set up the
first hostels in Ireland.

PATHADH NA CAORACH, "the thirst of the sheep." A curse, a

malediction intended to wish bad luck on another.

PEALLAIDH, peirid, a ferret, a Scot. peerie, or “little

hillman, a fairy; the species of sithe seen in the Shetlands.
the chief of clann urusig at Breadalbane, Scotland. His name
is still seen in Obar Peallaidh, which has been anglicized as
Aberfeldy. His footprints are preserved in stone upon a rock
at Glenlyon, and the burn of Inbhir inneoin, near the foot of
this glen was his favourite haunt. There is also a cataract
on the river which is called Eas Pheallaidh. See urusig.

PEALARACH, PEALDREACH, the stormy petrel, a harbinger of

weather.

PEIGHINN PISICH, a “lucky penny.” A coin turned three times

in the pocket to avert the “evil eye” or bring good luck.
Always turned at the first glimpse of the new moon,
preferably silver, often an heirloom. See piseach.

PEITHIR, BEITHIR, a beast, forester, messenger boy,

thunderbolt, a mythic use of the word. The gods were
thought to take their rest in trees struck by lightning. The
chief of this kind was the lightning good Tor, who the Norse
called Thor.

PISEACH, prosperity, luck, Fate, a kitten, a young cat,

sorcery, witchcraft, divination; MIr. pisoc, charm; Confers
with Ir. piseog, witchcraft, Manx pishag, charm, Cor pystry.
witchcraft, Br. pistri, a medicine box, a poisoner. Confers
with pixie and the Gaelic piseag, a kitten and the Eng. pussy.
See Peallaidh, above. Note also cat and urusig.

PISEAGAICHE, enchanter, wizard, a superstitious person.

Pisearlach, juggling, conjuring,, superstition.

PISREAG, obs. sorcery, superstition.

PISEAR ARD-RIGH. In the third year of imrama on behalf of

the god Lugh, the Tuireens approached the “Land of the Hot-
Spear,” a possession of Pisear ard-righ. Again they
appeared as poets and asked for the spear as a return for
their praise-song. This king was less gracious than the last
and fell into a rage, during which fighting broke out. This
time, Brian hurled the Apples of the Sun at the king and
shattered his skull. The boys then fought their way to the
ice-house where the spear was kept, tore it from the block
and used it in their escape.

PISEOG, BISEOG, pios+eug, “cup of death,” witchcraft, a

pussy. Eug, the Lat. nex, death, Skr. nac, to perish. The
baobhe were noted for their knowledge and use of poisons.
The cat-folk of Britain were the Silurs of south-western
England. Their chief symbol, a cat’s head, appears on stones
at Caerleon in Ireland. There we find reference to “Cairbre
Cat-head,” “a divine ancestor of the Erainn.” In Irish
tradition, the flesh of the pussy was used by those
responsible for divination and prognostication. Cormac
notes that in the rite of himbas forosnai, the flesh of a red
pig was chewed along with that of a cat or dog. An
incantation was said over the masticated mass and it was
then offered up to “the idol gods.” The use of cats is also
mentioned in bringing about rain and in the context of the
Scottish taighairm. In one of the Irish “voyages” a catt bec,
or “little cat” was encountered as the guardian of valuable
treasures. He leaped at a potential thief, and flames up,
reducing the man to ashes.. In “The Adventures of St.
Columba’s Clerics,” two men landed on an island inhabited
by men with cat’s heads (Fomors).”

PIT, a hollow or pit, from Pictish language perhaps through

the AS. pyt. Used in Gaelic as a prefix in farm and township
names, thus “a farm portion.”

PLAIDE, a blanket, Ir. ploid, Eng. plaid, Scot. plaiden, coarse

woolen cloth, very like flannel in texture but of a twilled
weave. Confers with G. peallaid, a sheepskin.

PLEOISG, PLODHAISG, a booby, a simpleton, an idiot, cf. Cy.

bloesg, a person who stutters and stammers, Skr. mlecchati,
one who murders language, a person who talks in barbarous
fashion, mleccha, an outlander, Lat. blaesus. A quarter-day
victim, an outlander.

PLUR NA M’BAN. The “Flower of Women.” The daughter of

Oisinn and the goddess Niamh, the latter a daughter of
Mannan mac Ler.

POLL, a pool, a hole, a nostril, mud, said to be from L.Lat.

padulus, a pool. Magical powers were attributed not only to
the deep-water wells but to certain river embayments,
notably those near fords or bridges, especially places
“where both the dead and the living pass.” Thus water from
places near burial grounds was collected and used against
the “evil-eye.” Such water had to be taken in absolute
silence from the backwater of the current, and care was
taken that its container should not touch the earth on the
trip home. In use a wooden ladle was dipped into the water
and silver was placed in it. The victim was given three sips
of this “silvered” water and the rest was sprinkled over and
around him. The water of rivers flowing southward “to meet
the sun” were always preferred as were waters flowing
with uniform speed. A bargain made over water was
considered legal and irrefutable. Lovers wishing to engage
in informal marriage simply clasped their hands over a pool,
thus plighting their troth. Water placed on the thumbs of
lovers could also be pressed together in a similar binding
rite. The insane used to be carried to the Holy Pool, of St.
Fillan, near Tyndrum in Perthshire, Scotland. Here the
current sweeps about a high projecting rock forming two
pools Poll nam Ban, the “Women’s Pool” and Poll nam Fear,
the “Men’s Pool.” The patient was led three times around
the appropriate body of water, in the name of the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost. This over he was laid on his back in St.
Fillan’s churchyard and ingeniously bound to two sticks on
either side. If he managed to get free of this restraint
before dawn it was observed that he invariably recovered
from his mental debility. See also tobar.

PONACH, a boy, a lad, cf. Cy. ponnair. A dialectic form of

bonach. Bonnanach, a stapling fellow, bonnanaich, active
young men (Skye).

PRAT, a trick; pratail, tricky. protaig, from Scand. prattick,

a trick, stratagem, AS. prætig, trickery. ON. prettr, a trick,
Eng. pretty. All god-given assets.

PISERALAS ORRA, the forked stick, piseach, prosperity, good

luck; orra, a charm. Ir. piseog. superstition, witchcraft,
Manx pishag, charm, Cor. pystry, witchcraft, Br. pistri, a
poisoner. Similar to Latin pyxis, medicine box and the
English pixie. See piseach, piseog.

PREACHAN, a crow, a kite, the moor-bittern, Ir. preachan,

same + the osprey (varying with adjective applied), MIr.
prechan, a crow or raven. Perhaps allied with breeachd,
seizing. Note also preachan, a great orator, the Ir.
preachoine, a crier (in the wilderness).

PRIOBAID, a trifle, priobair, the “high-trifler,” a worthless

fellow, related to Scot. bribour, a mean beggar, a low
fellow, MEng. bribour, a rascal or thief, from OFrench.
bribeur, a vagabond briber or beggar, related to G. breab, a
kick.

PUC, push or jostle, related to Scot. powk, to thrust or dig,

MEng. pukken, poken, to thrust forward, Eng. poke, Germ.
poken, to knock, based on the field-spirit known as puca,
which can be related to the old god Lugh. From this word we
have the G. fuc which is the Eng. fuck. See puca.

PUCA, PUCCA, the phooka, "wicked-minded, black-looking,

bad things, that would come in the form of wild colts with
chains hanging about them; poca, a bag, pocket (a
diminutive), pocan, he-goat, from Scand. pock, AS poca, ON,
poki, the English spirit known as the puck, the lowland
Scottish pawky. These relate to G. puc, to push or jostle,
Scand. powk, to thrust or dig, ME. pukken, pouken, pòken, to
thrust or poke, Ger. poken, to knock, dialectic fùc, fùcadh,
the fulling of cloth, the Eng. fuck, a rude word for sexual
congress, G. pucaid, a pimple. See boc and related words.

PUIRT ROINNEANT, PORT, a satirical burlesque put to music

or song, port, a tune; roin, a horse-hair (played on the
"hairs.")

PUIRT-A-BEUL, mouth music, port, tune; beul, mouth.

Humming with magical intent in imitation of the sound of
pipes or bagpipes.

PUIRT NA DELIG, the “Haven of the Pin,” on Torry Island, off

Northwestern Ireland. It was predicted that Balor of the
Fomors would be killed by his own grandson, thus he
sequestered his daughter. Nevertheless, she was made
pregnant by a Tuathan. In due course Ethlinn gave birth to
three sons, and Balor reacted by commanding that they be
drowned in a nearby whirlpool. The henchman who was
given the deed of murder tied the new-borns in a sheet, but
on the way to the coast, one of the thorn stay-pins came
loose and one child tumbled out on the ground at a place
still called Puirt na Delig, the “Haven of the Pin.” The other
two were killed and the servant reported his mission
complete. The child who escaped became the sun-king named
Lugh.
PUTHAR, power, from the English word power. The aim of
the old Gaels was the accumulation of power in the interest
of becoming as god-like as possible.