The rituals and beliefs pertaining to the most important male personage in early and medieval society are most in evidence in Irish rather than in other Celtic traditions. The English word ‘king’ is an inadequate translation of the Old Irish rí (cf. Latin rex), which denotes the leader of a tuath, the basic territorial unit of early Irish society. Neither Ireland nor any Celtic nation was a nation-state as England became in 1485; thus the Irish rí is sometimes more accurately translated as ‘petty king’. The Irish ard rí [high king], inaugurated at the feis temhra at Tara, was not a national sovereign. The notion of a ruler of the whole island, often attested to in early literature, seems to have been propagated by native historians and learned commentators partisan to the great Uí Néill dynasty, claimed descendants of Niall Noígiallach [of the Nine Hostages]. Many other Celtic words for ‘king’, Scottish Gaelic r‘gh, Manx ree, Cornish myghtern, Breton roue, are likely to denote either a foreign or a fictional monarch; only Welsh brenin denotes a native ruler. The Irish instances, however, posit the existence of a kingship from pre-Christian times.
Often in Celtic contexts, a reference to kingship implies a lamented but unrecoverable past. Gaulish kingship was in dissolution at the time of Caesar's conquest, and the decline of kingship in Ireland coincided with the atrophy of the Gaelic social system before English encroachment, culminating in the 17th century. The longing for a monarch to deliver the country from the misery of foreign domination, so characteristic of 18th-century Irish poetry and subsequent oral tradition, does not find antecedents in earliest Irish traditions.
A king could be selected from a family group of four generations, the derbfhine, and he must pass a ritual test. Any member of the derbfhine might serve, not only the eldest son of the previous ruler. A first set of rituals tested a candidate's fitness, e.g. a royal chariot ride in which he must prove a worthy passenger; a royal mantle that must be the right size; two stones, a hand's distance apart, must open sufficiently wide to give passage to the candidate; and, lastly, the stone of Fál must voice its assent. The second means of selection was the bull feast or bull sleep [Irish tarbfheis] in which a bull was killed and a selected man ate its flesh and drank its broth; he then lay down to sleep, while four druids chanted an incantation over him, which would allow him to envision whoever was destined to be king. These two methods of selection are most associated with the kingship of Tara, but informed opinion asserts they were also employed elsewhere.
Celtic sacral kings were often insulated from the perils of the profane world and often found their conduct severely regulated by binding prohibitions (cf. Irish geis). Why the king should be so bound is not clear; it may be that he was being forced to avoid circumstances and behaviours that were thought harmful to previous kings, but some taboos appear somewhat capricious. The king of Ulster, for example, was forbidden to drink the waters of Lough Swilly while the sun was setting, or to go into the plain of Mag Coba (Co. Down) in the month of March. The proscriptions appear to support his sacral status, as do comparable restrictions placed upon the Roman priest of Jupiter known as flamen Dialis; to violate them brings a clear portent of the end both of the kingship and of the king's life.
The qualities of a rightful king ensure peace, prosperity, and security of the kingdom's borders. As such these qualities are not simply admirable but necessary. In Old Irish these qualities were listed as fir flaithemhan [Irish, truth of the ruler]. At the same time, kings found to be deficient in character or conduct bring misfortune to their people; thus the illiberal Bres is deposed in Cath Maige Tuired. Even the otherwise admirable Nuadu abdicated after losing his arm in battle, a physical impairment that implied a great inadequacy to his followers. Worse than the deficient king is the usurper, whose reign is thought to bring famine and drought. Usurpation causes the rapid impoverishment of Dyfed in the Manawydan portion of the Welsh Mabinogi. These Irish and Welsh instances are antecedent, some Arthurian commentators believe, to the maimed Fisher King in the Grail Legend.
According to custom a sacral king is a young husband and his kingdom is his bride. A king's inauguration was known as the banais ríghe [wedding feast of kingship], during which the king is ritually united with the sovereignty over the territory he will rule. At Tara this ritual was known as feis temrach. The ceremony appears to have comprised two main elements: (a) the libation offered by the bride to her husband, and (b) the coition. Whatever the exact nature of this ceremony, the elements of intoxication and sexuality are unmistakably present. In reporting the inauguration of a king it was said that he was wedded to (literally ‘slept with’) his kingdom. Both elements are present in the characterization of one of the most powerful queens of Old Irish literature, Medb [she who intoxicates]. The power of the king to bring his barren kingdom to fruitfulness is thought to parallel, according to many commentators, the transformation of the sovereignty goddess from an ugly old hag into a beautiful, nubile maiden. See Proinsias MacCana, ‘Aspects of the Theme of the King and the Goddess in Irish Literature’, Études Celtiques, 7 (1955–6), 76–114, 356–413; ‘Aspects of the Theme of the King and the Goddess’, Études Celtiques, 8 (1958–9), 59–65; D. A. Binchy, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Kingship (Oxford, 1970); F. J. Byrne, Irish Kings and High Kings (London, 1973); Marjorie O. Anderson, Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland (Edinburgh, 1980); T. M. Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh Kinship (Oxford, 1991); Nerys T. Patterson, Cattle-Lords and Clansmen: Kingship and Rank in Early Ireland (New York, 1992).
