Fomorians

Fomorians, Fomoire, Fomóiri, Fomoraig, Fomhóraigh, Fomhoire, Fomorii, Fomor, Fomors, Fomoré, Fo-Muir, Foawr [Manx]. Malevolent euhemerized deities of the Irish Mythological Cycle, known chiefly from two texts, the *Lebor Gabála [Book of Invasions] and Cath Maige Tuired [The (Second) Battle of Mag Tuired], in which their portrayals are not coordinate. Although current scholarship agrees on their divine origin, earlier commentators often portrayed them as demonic pirates, probably reading the element mór- [phantom] as muir [sea]. Early Christian commentators traced the Fomorians to the biblical Ham, son of Noah. Later ecclesiastical storytellers made them either giants or elves, with goat- or horseheads and other misshapen features. While the origins of the Fomorians dates from pre-Christian times, their characterization has been coloured by generations of sea-raiders from the north, first from the Scottish islands and more extensively from the Norse lands; they are often linked to Lochlainn [Scandinavia]. Rejected now is the earlier assumption that the Fomorians were primitive gods of fertility.

When they first appear in the Lebor Gabála, under their ferocious leader Cichol against the beneficient Partholonians, the Fomorians are portrayed as monstrous and fearful, each having only one eye, one arm, and one leg; see the Irish FER CAILLE and the Scottish Gaelic FACHAN. Later in the text they are more anthropomorphic. While the Fomorians do not fit into the invasion sequence, they prey upon each successive invader, the Partholonians and the Nemedians, until they are defeated by the Tuatha Dé Danann. Curiously absent are Fomorian attacks on the invaders between the Nemedians of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Fir Bolg, prompting some commentators to speculate that the two are identical; later commentators reject this assertion. While associated with several locations, the Fomorians never appear to be settlers in Ireland but instead make raids from their fortress on Tory Island, north of Co. Donegal. In general the Fomorians are wantonly cruel bullies, cutting the noses off those who would not pay them tribute. The Nemedians overcome the Fomorians in three battles until they themselves are defeated at Cnámross (distinguish from Fenian battle on the same site). The subsequent humiliations visited upon the Nemedians, especially an exacting annual tribute, cause them to rise up against their Fomorian masters, storming the fortress of Tory Island; they attack Tor Conaind, and the Nemedian champion Fergus Lethderg slays the Fomorian chief Conand. But the Fomorians prevail, and the disappointed Nemedians are scattered around the world.

In Cath Maige Tuired, the portrayal of the Fomorians draws more substantially on their divine origin. They intermarry freely with the Tuatha Dé Danann, the tribe of gods, implying that they are the marine counterparts of the latter. The Fomorian Elatha mac Delbaíth, for example, mates with Ériu of the Tuatha Dé Danann to produce Bres, who inherits the leadership of the Tuatha Dé Danann from Nuadu Airgetlám. The great champion of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Lug Lámfhota, is the grandson of a Fomorian. Although the root of the conflict between the Fomorians and the Tuatha Dé Danann in Cath Maige Tuired is extraordinarily deep, the pre-text within the narrative is the unsuitableness of Bres as king: he insults poets and demands humiliating tributes from the race of the gods made subject. Nuadu returns to power and Lug Lámfhota presents himself in court to aid the cause. The central conflict pits Lug against the Fomorian menace, Balor of the Evil Eye, who is in fact Lug's grandfather. In an unexpected turn of events, Lug's sling stone drives Balor's eye back through his head, directing it towards his Fomorian comrades in arms and thus debilitating them. In the remainder of the story, the Tuatha Dé Danann rout the Fomorians and, amidst much slaughter, drive them back into the sea.

Other often-cited Fomorians include: Ágach, an enemy of the Tuatha Dé Danann; Cailitin, a wizard slain by Cúchulainn; Corb, a tribal deity; Delga, builder of the fortress of Dun Delgan [Dundalk]; Domnu, the mother of them all; Indech, a king killed at Mag Tuired; Lóbais, druid of the Fomorians; Morc, who emigrated from Africa; Néit, the war-god; Searbhán, the one-eyed keeper of rowan berries, who is sometimes a Fomorian; Tethra, a warrior-chief killed at Mag Tuired. The goat-headed Gaborchend may be derived from the Fomorians.

Under different guises, as demonic pirates or as spirits of the earth, as earlier commentators described them, the Fomorians have appealed to the imaginations of several writers in English. W. B. Yeats spoke often of the Fomorians, whose name he spelled either Fomor or Fomoroh. His sorceress Orchil in The Shadowy Waters (1905) and Dhoya (1891), the abandoned giant, are both Fomorians. The Foawr of Manx tradition, initially a local variant of the Fomorians, are stone-throwing giants. See also Alexander H. Krappe, Balor with the Evil Eye (New York, 1927).