Editing Dian Cecht (section)

==Boiling of the River Barrow==
It was Dian Cecht who once saved Ireland, and was indirectly the cause of the name of the [[River Barrow]].{{sfnp|Shaw|2006|pp=161–164}}<ref name="squire">{{cite book|last=Squire |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Squire |title=Celtic Myth and Legend: The Gaelic Gods |chapter=V. The Gods of the Gaels |url=https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cml/cml09.htm}}</ref> The [[Morrigan|Morrígú]], the Dagda's fierce wife, had borne a son of such terrible aspect that the physician of the gods, foreseeing danger, counselled that he should be destroyed in his infancy.<ref name="squire"/>

When this was done, Dian Cecht opened the infant's heart, and found within it three serpents, capable, when they grew to full size, of depopulating Ireland.<ref name="squire"/> He lost no time in destroying these serpents also, and burning them into ashes, to avoid the evil which even their dead bodies might do.<ref name="squire"/> More than this, he flung the ashes into the nearest river, for he feared that there might be danger even in them. So venomous were they that the river boiled up and slew every living creature in it, and therefore it has been called the River Barrow, the ‘Boiling’ ever since.<ref name="squire"/>

According to the Metrical [[Dindsenchas]]:
<blockquote><poem>
No motion it made
The ashes of Meichi the strongly smitten:
The stream made sodden and silent past recovery
The fell filth of the old serpent.

Three turns the serpent made;
It sought the soldier to consume him;
It would have wasted by its doing the kine;
The fell filth of the old serpent.

Therefore Diancecht slew it;
There rude reason for clean destroying it,
For preventing it from wasting
Worse than any wolf pack, from consuming utterly.

Known to me is the grave where he cast it,
A tomb without walls or roof-tree;
Its ashes, evil without loveliness or innocence
Found silent burial in noble Barrow.{{sfnp|Shaw|2006|pp=162–163}}
</poem></blockquote>

This tale in the [[Dindsenchas]] indicates that the being slain by Diancecht was a serpent named Meichi. Elsewhere the figure named as the slayer of Meichi is [[Mac Cecht]].{{sfnp|Shaw|2006|pp=162, 164}}