BRESH
A half-Fomorian king briefly imposed on the Tuatha Dé Danann, deposed for his stinginess, who returns leading a Fomorian invasion.
Bres is made king of the Tuatha Dé Danann as a peace gesture after Nuada loses his arm and, with it by law, his fitness to rule. Half Fomorian through his father, Bres proves a disastrous king — miserly, humiliating his nobles with menial tasks, and starving even the land's hospitality — until a poet's satire against him becomes, by tradition, the first satire ever composed in Ireland, and it costs him the throne.
Deposed and stripped of authority, Bres flees to his father's people and returns leading a Fomorian invasion to reclaim the kingship by force, setting up the Second Battle of Moytired in which the Tuatha Dé Danann, now led by Lugh, defeat him.
Bres's name is said to mean "beautiful", and he is described as so handsome that anything beautiful in Ireland was compared to him. This is part of the irony of his story, because his kingship is the opposite: the Tuatha Dé Danann are forced to do menial labour for him, with the Dagda made to build a fort and Ogma to carry firewood, and the hospitality the nobles expect from their king is withheld. The poet Coirpre is given a cramped, bare room and three dry cakes, and his satire is the one that brings Bres down.
The end of his story is more unexpected. After the battle he is captured by Lugh, and in return for his life he offers to make the cows of Ireland always give milk, and then to give advice on when to plough, sow and reap. Lugh accepts the second offer, and the mixture of villainy and agricultural lore is typical of the way the Fomorians are shown. Bres's wife is Brigit, the daughter of the Dagda, and their son Ruadán is killed by the smith Goibniu, after which Brigit's grief is said to have been the first keening in Ireland.
As a name: Bres is still given to children today. See its meaning, pronunciation and popularity on NameCipher →
| Cycle | Entries here | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| The Mythological Cycle | 21 | The oldest of the four cycles, telling of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the successive invasions of Ireland. |
| The Fenian Cycle | 7 | Tales of Fionn mac Cumhaill and his band of warriors, the Fianna, set generations after the Ulster Cycle in a world of hunting, romance, and roaming adventure. |
| The Ulster Cycle | 12 | The heroic tales of Conchobar mac Nessa's court at Emain Macha, centered on Cú Chulainn and the great cattle raid of the Táin Bó Cúailnge. |
| The Historical Cycle | 1 | Also the Cycle of the Kings — legendary and semi-legendary tales of Ireland's High Kings, treated by medieval scribes as genuine national history. |
Bres is a king of the Tuatha Dé Danann of mixed parentage — his father was a Fomorian, his mother of the Tuatha Dé Danann — chosen as ruler partly to secure peace between the two peoples.
Bres proved a stingy, humiliating ruler, most famously failing to offer proper hospitality to the poet Coirpre, who satirized him so effectively that the shame forced Bres from the throne — one of Irish mythology's clearest examples of a poet's satire as a real political weapon.
He fled to his father's people, the Fomorians, and helped raise the army that fought the Tuatha Dé Danann at the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, where the Fomorians were ultimately defeated.