Faery Places

Sen Magh Ealta (Old Plain) Magh Sen (Plain of Ages) Magh-n-Elta (Plain of the Flocks)

Without hap or mishap we came at last to the domain of the King of Senlabor. Baun went to sing for the King’s foster-daughters, & Deelish went to work at the little loom in the King’s chamber. Two youths came there from the court of the King of Ireland – Dermott: The Healer & Downal were their names. There was a famous sword-smith with the King of Senlabor & these two came to learn the trade from him. And my two foster-sisters fell so deeply in love with the two youths that every night the pillow on each side of me was wet with their tears.

The King had a dish of such fine earthware with beautiful patterns upon it. “It may be,’ he said, “ that these two youths will bring what my Queen longs for – a berry from the Fairy Rowan Tree that is guarded by the Giant Crom Duv: Dark Bent One.“ (147)

(pron. SHAWN MOY) Beginnings and wisdom. The place where the fowl of Eri used to bask in the sun. Edair: Oak located at Clontarf. Four years after the eruption of Brena, the death of Parthalon took place. In Sen Magh Ealta he was buried. The reason, moreover, why that is called Sen Magh is because no tree ever grew there. – Chronicon Scotorum [Parthalón means ‘Shapely Woman’]
The Race of Partholon. Its head and leader came – as all gods and men came, according to Celtic ideas –from the Other World, and landed in Ireland with a retinue of 24 males and 24 females upon the first of May, the day called Beltaine, sacred to Bilé, the god of death. At this remote time, Ireland consisted of only 1 treeless, grassless plain, watered by 3 lakes and 9 rivers. But, as the race of Partholon increased, the land stretched, or widened, under them – some said miraculously, and others, by the labours of Partholon’s people. At any rate, during the 300 hundred years they dwelt there, it grew from 1 plain to 4, and acquired 7 new lakes; which was fortunate, for the race of Partholon increased from 48 members to 5000. ...Then--upon the same fatal first of May – there began a mysterious epidemic, which lasted a week, and destroyed them all. In premonition of their end, they foregathered upon the original, first-created plain – then called Sen Mag, or the Old Plain,--so that those who survived might the more easily bury those that died. Their funeral-place is still marked by a mound near Dublin, called Tallaght in the maps, but formerly known as Tamlecht Muintre Partholain, the Plague-grave of Partholon’s People. This would seem to have been a development of the very oldest form of the legend--which knew nothing of a plague, but merely represented the people of Partholon as having returned, after their sojourn in Ireland, to the other world, whence they came--and is probably due to the gradual euhemerization of the ancient gods into ancient men, – Charles Squire (133, 189, 251, 275).[Worlds List]