Oztological Addenda

Settlement of Oz

How the Irish came to Ireland and how the Tuatha De Danann settled Tir na nOg.

I have seen many versions of this. Today there is a more or less consensus version which you can find on Wikipedia. Something that today's people feel comfortable with.

In the 1700s and 1800s there were many many versions available. Some based on this theory or that, many on chance resemblances of place names. Blavatsky did not invent her version. Every bit of it is part of someone's favorite story. When she said she had it from authentic Irish tradition she was telling the truth. Lots of Irish traditions. Herewith greatly abbreviated and paraphrased...

The Celts originally lived north of the Black Sea and were primarily herders. As the area dried out various of them traveled southwest where the grass was greener and became the Greeks. Later more moved southwest again and were encouraged by their kin to keep on moving and became the Trojans. Still later the clan Gael of the Celts moved southwest and were encouraged to keep moving by the Greeks and then the Trojans and finally settled in the coastal grass lands of Canaan which was then part of the Egyptian empire.

There they became known as the Philistines. Inland of them were herders known as the Hebrews who were also part of the Egyptian empire.

Egypt had been originally settled by herders who flourished in the Nile delta which was very good grass land but quite unsuitable for farming. Some of them eventually moved south onto the river banks and gave up herding for farming as that land was great for farming but lousy for herding. They formed two different kingdoms each considering the other to be unclean and taboo. The northern herders were initially far stronger than the southern farmers but as time passed the southerners increased until they outnumbered the northerners more than ten to one. Subsequently the south kingdom conquered the north and relegated the northern herding priesthood to a subservient, low prestige, untouchable level. They also redefined the northerners Spirit of Herds to the position of a sort of evil spirit and general ne'er do well.

When a widespread drought hit the area for many years, famine in the south caused chaos in the Egyptian empire and the northerners were able to seize control of the delta and the northern half of the river area. They invited a coalition with the Gaelic Philistines and the Hebrews whose grazing lands were suffering from the drought and most of them moved to the delta where the grass continued to be lush.

While they were there the three nations pooled their knowledge of the secret laws of nature to create two alphabets of power in order to rule the elements and nurture the people, their herds and their land. The alphabet called Ogham for the Gael which is an alphabet of Recursion, and the Aleph bet for the Hebrews which is an alphabet of Recusion.

Eventually the drought ceased and the southern kingdom regained control of the north and turned the Gael and the Hebrews into unpaid servants.

The Gael and the Hebrews weren't about to take that so they left to go back home. While they had been gone from Canaan various people had moved in and taken up subsistence farming. The Gael moved back into their previous area without much trouble but the Hebrews did not have the man power to kick the newcomers out of their old area so they temporarily settled in the oasis grasslands of the Sinai. After a number of years they made a new covenant with their Spirit of Herds and went into their old area and with the aid of the Gael kicked butt.

For a time the Gael and the Hebrews lived in peace but the Gael demanded tribute from the Hebrews for their aid in their return. Eventually it came to war and the Gael won. They captured the holy ark of the Hebrews and shared it and its contents among their six cities. Subsequently they were struck by a plague of hemorrhoids and deciding that that was a result of breaking taboo they returned the ark but not the contents to the Hebrews. Later when King David of the Hebrews moved the ark to Jerusalem he discovered that it was empty but by that time it was too late to do anything about it.

The Gael had decided the grass situation was not going to get any better and picked up stakes and moved west and kept on going. With them they took the two tablets of the law bound together with an iron band which they called the Stone of Fate. The staff of Aaron which they called the Spear of the Law. The staff of Moses which they called the Sword of Decision and the bowl of manna which they called the Cauldron of Plenty, later called the Holy Grail.

They finally settled in Spain which at that time was heavily forested and had tolerable grass. While there they heard that there was an island to the west of Britain that was mostly uninhabited and had great grass, so many of them picked up stakes again and moved there. Turns out it wasn't quite so uninhabited as they had been told so they had to fight the local aborigines in order to stay. At this time they called themselves the "People" or "Dadanan". About the time they were settling in another group of Gael who had stayed in Spain came to Ireland and beat the Dadanan in a war to see who would rule who.

The later group called the Milesians or Warriors became the Irish and the Dadanan, who lost, became the Sidhe. The Sidhe were restricted to a few settlement areas which were insufficient for them, so by means of the Ogham alphabet they opened up the way to the Island of Eternal Youth, Tir na nOg, and they settled for a time in that beautiful land. Eventually that land proved to be too small for them as well and the majority moved on to the great western mountain leaving only a few behind.