The Irish also have a one-legged one-eyed race in their past: the Fomoire or Fomorians. In some legendary histories they seem to be the very oldest inhabitants of the island, but still they come from elsewhere, either "from the sea" (but "sea" is probably a false etymology for their name, fomorian); or else they invaded Ireland from Africa. In some tales the Fomorians live under the sea (like Chinese dragons) or else more prosaically on Tory Island. Sometimes they are giants, and moreover they can appear as one-eyed one-footed giants. Sometimes they appear to be a race of wizards, "human" enough to inter-marry with the Tuatha de Danaan (who, however, aren't all that human themselves). In fact the half-breed King Bres, who causes war between the two races10 is described as the most beautiful youth in Ireland -- even though the Fomoire are usually depicted as ugly, low, hideous, deformed, etc. One gets the impression that the Fomorians represent a pre-Celtic Irish race, and that we are seeing them through the texts of the Celts, who invaded their land and subdued them, and now wish to present them as villains, boors, snake-worshippers, or even nonhuman monsters. This is a universal theme in folklore, which often seems to harbor memories of an archaic "us/them" situation. Ultimately it may lead us back to the emergence of agricultural peoples and their "conquest" and enslavement of hunter/gatherer tribes -- i.e., back to the very beginnings of civilization and history. The Fomorians, who are connected with the megaliths by folklore, and who survive to play roles as ogres and giants in Irish fairy tales, may have been remnants of the great Atlantic Megalithic peoples, who created the culture of New Grange and Stonehenge long before the Celts arrived in Europe. The marginalized "race" or "caste" survives as tinkers (primitive metallurgists, perennial outsiders), minstrels, vagabonds, fortune-tellers, herbalists, servants, grooms, prostitutes, wizards. Much later in history the Celts will undergo the same marginalization by new "invading races"--the Fomorization of the Celts, as it were.

What interests us here, however, is not the fate of the Fomorians but their special role as one-eyed shade-foots -- i.e., their role in folklore. Whatever their other qualities in history, myth, or legend, they are clearly "Arimaspeans", and hence are to be suspected of kinship with mushrooms. And if hazelnuts, or red berries, are used to "mask" the mushroom in Irish tradition, we should look for Fomorians lurking somewhere in the underbrush near the sacred tree.

Just such a conjunction occurs in the saga of Dermat and Grania, which in turn forms part of the Finnian Cycle. [11] The hero and heroine are fleeing from the jealous wrath of Finn himself. Their flight takes them all over Scotland and Ireland, where many dolmens are still called "beds" of Dermat and Grania. At one point they come to the Forest of Dooros (a name containing the Celtic word for "oak" and thus identifiable as a druid grove) in the district of HyFicra of the Moy (later known as the barony of Tireagh, in Sligo). At this time the forest was guarded by Sharvan the Surly, a giant of Lochlann.

"Now this is the history of Sharvan the Surly, of Lochlann. On a certain occasion, a game of hurley was played by the Dedannans against the Fena, on the plain beside the Lake of Lein of the Crooked Teeth. They played for three days and three nights, neither side being able to win a single goal from the other during the whole time. And when Dedannans found that they could not overcome the Fena, they suddenly withdrew from the contest, and departed from the lake, journeying in a body northwards.

The Dedannans had for food during the game, and for their journey afterwards, crimson nuts and arbutus apples and scarlet quicken berries, which they had brought from the Land of Promise. These fruits were gifted with many secret virtues; and the Dedannans were careful that neither apple nor nut nor berry should touch the soil of Erin. But as they passed through the Wood of Dooros, in Hy Ficra of the Moy, one of the scarlet quicken berries dropped on the earth; and the Dedannans passed on, not heeding. From this berry a great quicken tree sprang up, which had the virtues of the quicken trees that grow in Fairyland. For its berries had the taste of honey, and those who ate of them felt a cheerful flow of spirits, as if they had drunk of wine or old mead; and if a man were even a hundred years old, he returned to the age of thirty, as soon as he had eaten three of them.

Now when the Dedannans heard of this tree, and knew of its many virtues, they would not that any one should eat of the berries but themselves; and they sent a Fomor of their own people to guard it, namely Sharvan the Surly, of Lochlann; so that no man dared even to approach it. For this Sharvan was a giant of the race of the wicked Cain, burly and strong; with heavy bones, large thick nose, crooked teeth, and one broad, red, fiery eye in the middle of his black forehead. And he had a great club tied by a chain to an iron girdle which was round his body. He was, moreover, so skilled in magic that fire could not burn him, water could not drown him, and weapons could not wound him; and there was no way to kill him but by giving him three blows of his own club. By day he sat at the foot of the tree, watching; and at night he slept in a hut he had made for himself, high up among the branches"

Dermat makes a peace-pact with Sharvan the Surly: refuge in the Forest, so long as Dermat keeps his hands off the quicken berries. For a while all goes well. Meanwhile, Finn receives an offer of fealty from two former enemies, the sons of Morna. Before he forgives them, however, he demands an erc, or blood-price: either "the head of a warrior, or the full of my hand of the berries of a quicken tree."

Finn's son Oisin takes pity on the sons of Morna and explains the situation to them; nevertheless they undertake the quest and set out for the Forest of Dooros. Dermat easily overcomes them. Meanwhile Grania has developed an overwhelming obsession with the berries: she must taste them, or perish. Reluctantly Dermat sets out to find Sharvan, taking the sons of Morna along as witnesses. The giant is asleep; Dermat whacks him on the head and rouses him. The hero asks for berries, the Fomor refuses. They fight a ferocious duel, and Sharvan is slain by three blows of his own club (just as the soma was sacrificed by pressing or "wounding" the plant). Dermat orders the sons of Morna to bury the corpse while he goes to fetch Grania. Dermat then satisfies Grania's desire, and also gives berries to the sons of Morna, who thank him profusely for sparing their lives, and set off to return to Finn. Dermat and Grania take over Sharvan's tree-house high in the branches of the fairy-quicken, and settle down in bliss again.

Finn explodes with fury, rouses his loyal and not-so-loyal followers, and sets out to capture Dermat and Grania in their lair. They arrive at the Forest and find the tree, but no sign of the lovers. They gorge on fruit, and then settle down to wait. Finn and Oisin play chess beneath the tree. Time passes. Finn tells Oisin that he can win in one move, but Oisin can't see the move. He ponders endlessly. Suddenly a quicken-fruit falls ripely onto the chessboard, as if to show Oisin the correct move; he makes it and wins. They play again, and the same thing happens: wisdom falls from the tree as fruit: Oisin wins. And a third time!

Finn finally realizes what's up. He calls up into the tree, and Dermat answers from the treehouse. In a fury, Finn orders his men to surround the tree -- then offers a huge reward for the head of Dermat O'Dyna. At this point nine men, all called Garva (and all hailing from various mountains around Ireland) attempt the coup against Dermat, but they all fail. The love-god Angus -- deus ex megalitha -- has flown invisibly from Newgrange to save his worshippers, Dermat and Grania. As each Garva climbs the tree, Angus casts a spell over him so that he appears to be Dermat. Each Garva is then pushed from the tree by the real Dermat, falls to the ground, is mistaken for the enemy, and at once beheaded. The Garvas might be related to the Ghandarvas, who appropriated soma from the gods and became its guardians. [12]

Angus then wraps Grania in his cloak of invisibility and flies off with her to Bruga of the Boyne. Dermat decides to stay behind, do the honorable thing and fight his way out. He makes a speech in in self-defense, and the great hero Oscar is converted to sympathy with him. Oscar offers his life as surety for Dermat's, but to one dares to fight him. Dermat leaps lightly out of the tree, lands on his two spear shafts, pole-vaults over the heads of Finn's circle, and escapes with Oscar. He and Grania wll live to flee Finn again and again -- and eventually die at his hands.

On the assumption that the fairy-fruit of the quicken-tree is indeed soma, and that as soma it must be associated with a ritual, with a sacrifice (of itself), and with transcendence (either ritual or pharmacological), this charming tale would appear to function as a "mask" for just such a ritual. The berry is constantly equated with the head. The Celts were head-hunters, very much like the Dyaks of Borneo, the Guarani of Paraguay, etc. All wisdom and power are in the head. Because Dermat has taken on (or stolen) the wisdom of Sharvan by "dashing out his brains" (no doubt beheading him), Dermat acquires insight. In this heightened state, he plays the near-magic trick with the fruit and the chess-board, thrice-repeated. This foreshadows the thrice three heads of the Garvas, which will also (in a sense) fall ripely from the tree.

The one-legged one-eyed Fomor loses his head like a berry. Dermat should be the next sacrifice (like Gawain after the Green knight) but a substitution is made "at the last moment" (as usual). Nine mountain-men's heads are sacrificed -- nine more berries, as it were -- in Dermat's place. In the original tale, Dermat (like Grania) would no doubt have ascended the tree and escaped into the "other world"; instead another substitution (or "rationalization") is made, the acrobatic spear-leap. The point is, Dermat flies. He goes above. He transcends. He has shamanic powers, gained (or reinforced) by his overcoming and absorption of Fomorian/Fairy magic.

The tale of Sharvan the Surly is just that, a tale, not the text of a ritual. Nevertheless folktales have been known to "mask" myths, which in turn may serve as aetiological legends for certain rites, which in turn may derive in part from earlier myth, ritual, or lore. This particular tale seems to contain such ritual elements. The structure of the tale and many of its details might well pre-date its inclusion in the Finnian Cycle; any hero might experience such an adventure. And the Finnian Cycle itself seems to have roots in a past so distant that agriculture has not yet appeared, a world of pastoralism and hunting/gathering. Finn and his "merrymen" are anachronisms, free forest guerrillas held by only a slender link of reciprocity with settled society, and perilously close to that taboo realm of sorcery and alien otherness, the Forest. The world of Sharvan the Surly seems an archaic one indeed, ancient enough to contain traces of the soma ritual once common to all Indo-European people, as well as to the Semites, the Siberians and the New World Indians, etc.

That's my hypothesis. I wouldn't even begin to argue that we have "detected" an Irish soma. What we have here is a mere suspicion, not a case. I'm looking for support and/or refutation. A number of queries must be directed to specialists. From philologists we need exhaustive comparisons of mushroom and soma/haoma vocabulary from all the relevant languages, such as that which Allegro carried out for the Semitic languages in The Mushroom and the Cross. Celtic, Persian, and Sanskrit should be the main candidates for word-sleuthing. The Vedic soma ritual needs to be compared in detail with all texts and fragments from Celtic sources relevant to magic substances.