#meiche

Okay, so a while ago I came across this weird story: 

From The Metrical Dindshenchas, poem 13

“Berba

The Barrow, enduring its silence, that flows through the folk of old Ailbe; a labour it is to learn the cause whence is called Barrow, flower of all famous names. No motion in it made the ashes of Mechi the strongly smitten: the stream made sodden and silent past recovery  the fell filth of the old serpent. Three turns the serpent made; it sought out the soldier to consume him; it would have wasted by its nature all the kine of the indolent hosts of ancient Erin. Therefore Diancecht slew it: there was rude reason for clean destroying it, for preventing it for ever from wasting above every resort, from consuming utterly. Known to me is its grave where he cast it, a tomb without walls or roof-tree; its evil ashes,–no ornament to the region found silent burial in noble Barrow.”

And from this, was quoted a different version: 

“Into this river were flung the three snakes that were (found) in the heart of the Morrìgan's son Méiche after he was slain by Diancécht on Magh Méichi: which plain's name at the first was Magh Fertaige. The three hearts that were in Méiche bore the shape of three serpents' heads and, had not the killing of him come to pass, those snakes would have grown in his belly and eventually left no animals alive in Ireland. When he had slain Méiche Dian Cécht burned the snakes and their ashes he committed to that current, with the effect that it seethed and digested (i.e. boiled to rags) all living things that therein were.

Méiche’s hearts, hard the wound Have been drowned in the Barrow; Their ashes, after being burnt by you, Mac Cécht, slayer of a hundred, cast in.”

So this is all very weird, because a) the Morrigan has a son? and b) where on earth did this end-of-the-world thing come from? Irish myth doesn’t really have the sense of future doom as say, Norse mythology does. And it’s just...a cool little story here with the doctor-hero fighting a guy made of snakes. And it’s been driving me crazy because I don’t know quite what to make of it. 

Same paper quoted above (which tries to do the weird all myths-are-connected-look-at-these-far-fetched-connections thing) points out the discrepancy between whether it’s Dian Cécht or his son who kills Méiche, but Dian Cécht is more likely. It then goes on to talk about the Morrigan (Morrígu), Méiche’s mother, essentially distilling her name to “Ghost Queen” (note: I’ve also seen her name described as “Great Queen” so take that with a grain of salt) and linking her with destruction and the underworld (referencing her prophesy after the second battle of Moytura, meeting the Dagda on Samain, etc...). 

For the record, the Morrigan’s prophecy about the end of the world in Cath Maige Tuired, the Second Battle of Moytura, is given after she announces that there will be peace. So it really feels like something spoken about the future, implying that the peace at the end of the battle is only temporary, and will be broken again:

"I shall not see a world Which will be dear to me: Summer without blossoms, Cattle will be without milk, Women without modesty, Men without valor. Conquests without a king . . . Woods without mast. Sea without produce. . . . False judgements of old men. False precedents of lawyers, Every man a betrayer. Every son a reaver. The son will go to the bed of his father, The father will go to the bed of his son. Each his brother's brother-in-law. He will not seek any woman outside his house. . . . An evil time, Son will deceive his father, Daughter will deceive . . ."

Still no mention of any evil world-destroying snake sons, though. 

From the texts we’ve got that Mechi/Méiche was killed by probably Dian Cécht and thrown into the river, and he’s associated with serpents (either is a serpent or has three hearts containing serpents). Dude also seems to have been likely to destroy everything alive in Ireland, so it’s probably good he’s dead. 

What I’m interested in, though, is where this Méiche-destroying-eveyrthing comes from. He’s not mentioned in other texts, outside of a few different versions of the same story. And there’s really never much mention of world-destroying anyway, so why is he here? 

Most of what I’ve found so far however, isn’t about Crom himself, but more his statue and Saint Patrick destroying it. Something I didn’t expect to find was his connection with the land, fertility, and a possible association with the sun. He was apparently given offerings to promote a good harvest (whether or not those offerings were human in nature, there is no evidence one way or the other, but personally I’d take any mentions of human sacrifice, written by Christians hundreds of years removed from those who practiced the religion, with a huge grain of salt). This leads me to believe he may have been more of a  Harvest deity than anything, a John Barleycorn type figure. 

Nowadays he can be equated with Meiche MacMorrigan, who we know nothing about except that he’s Morrigan’s son who had three snakes in his hearts and was killed by Dain Cecht, who’s notorious for killing sons and himself has harvest associations. AND if Meiche and Crom Cruach are indeed the same figure (which I personally hold to) it would make sense. He’s the the son of the Morrigan, who herself is a a sovereignty goddess with associations of life, death, and rebirth, so it would make sense that her son would have some connection with the land and also have some of these associations. But in a very different way, I think.

Snakes, serpents, are often seen as symbols of life, death, and rebirth so I’m getting two sides here, the harvest god in early autumn sunlight, and the serpent god, curled in a dark cave until spring. With all the associations that come with that. Maybe he’s one of these gods who was killed or sacrificed annually with the harvest and came back to life in the spring with the planting?

Honestly, I expected to get a Jormangandr type vibe from him, aside from the giant snake aspect of him, there’s not much else similar, imo. Even the giant snake vibe is different.