12 Chapter Twelve: Cahir Castle
Cahir Castle
- 3rd century – earthen Dun Iascaigh, one of the seats of the Kings of Munster
- 793 – Landing of Vikings
- 1169 – Anglo-Norman Invasion
- 1192 – the area around Cahir granted to Philip Worcester by John, Lord of Ireland, who later became King John.
- 1375 – the barony of Cahir granted to James, third Earl of Ormond, and to Elizabeth, his wife. James was the head of the great Anglo-Norman family of the Butlers.
- 1556 – Elizabethan plantation of Ireland began.
- 1599 – Siege of Cahir Castle by Earl of Essex
- 1650 – Cromwell threatened to attack Cahir Castle.
- 1690 – Battle of the Boyne / Flight of the Earls
Arthur/Artaius (a Celtic deity)
“Riding forth in search of some chivalric deed, Owain, a knight of Arthur’s Court, came to a splendid castle. The lord of the castle bade him take the road up the valley and through a forest till he came to a glade with a mound in the midst of it. On the mound he would see a black man of huge stature with one foot and one eye, bearing a mighty iron club. He was wood-ward of the forest, and would have thousands of wild animals feeding around him. . . . The black man directed him to where he should find a fountain under a great tree; by the side of it would be a silver bowl on a slab of marble. Owain was to take the bowl and throw a bowlful of water on the slab. A terrific storm of hail and thunder would follow, and then would appear a knight in black armour riding on a coal-black horse, with a black pennon upon his lance. During a joust, Owain wounds the Black Knight and follows him across a drawbridge. The outer portcullis falls as the Black Knight
passes it. But so close to his heels is Owain that the portcullis falls behind him, cutting his horse in two behind the saddle, and he is imprisoned between the outer gate of the drawbridge and the inner. A maiden gives him a ring; with the stone reversed, he becomes invisible.”
Morgan le Fay by Frederick Sandys (1864)
“Here she stands in front of a loom on which she has woven an enchanted robe, designed to consume the body of King Arthur by fire. Her appearance with her loose hair, abandoned gestures and draped leopard skin suggests a dangerous and bestial female sexuality.”
Compare to The Morrigan