Feinius Farsaidh

Feinius Farsaidh , also Fénius Farsaid , Phoeniusa , Phenius , Féinius and Farsa , is a legendary figure from the Lebor Gabála Érenn ("The Book of the Conquest of Ireland") in the Celtic mythology of Ireland .

mythology

Feinius Farsaidh is said to have been a mythical king from Scythia . According to a version of Lebor Gabála Érenn, he travels to the Tower of Babel with his son Nél because he wants to study the new languages ​​that have emerged there. In another version he was already involved in building the tower and fled to Scythia because of the confusion of languages. Nél is considered to be the husband of the Pharaoh's daughter Scota , her son is Goidel Glas .

According to the Auraicept na nÉces (“Guide for the learned poet”) it is a group of 72 (mythological number) scholars who accompany him to the Tower of Babel together with Goídel Glas . Feinius sends the scholars out to conduct language studies among the scattered peoples. He waits ten years by the tower until everyone is back. Then he wrote the work In Bérla tóbaide (“The selected language”), where he combined the best of all languages ​​and named this creation after Goídel Glas Goidelic . From this the Irish ( Gaeilge ), Scottish Gaelic ( Gàidhlig ) and Manx ( Gaelg ) develop . He also invented the Hebrew , Greek and Latin script and finally the Beithe-luis-nuin ( Ogham ) as the last and best of all the scripts he created.

See also

• List of Celtic gods and legendary figures
• Myths and legends from Ireland
• Agnomain

literature

• James MacKillop: A dictionary of Celtic mythology . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-860967-1 , pp. 331 (English).