h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Plenty of cartoons, novels, stories, comics and everything else have drawn upon Irish mythology. I was having a flick through Lady Gregory's translations today, and I think a bit of revisionism's in order. I'm convinced the Fomori have got a raw deal. Generally, they are portrayed as swarthy, ugly bad guys who pick on the poor Tuatha Dé Danaan (who are all golden, shiny and shimmery and generally wonderful).

But I have my doubts. Firstly, the Fomori co-existed perfectly well with the Fir Bolg - which they wouldn't have if they were such scoundrels and vagabonds.

Secondly, the Tuatha Dé Danaan were a dodgy bunch. They have a perfectly reasonable king (as kings go). But he gets his hand cut off in a battle fought to win them a place to live, and all of a sudden it's "Ohhhh nooooooo, you have a physical imperfection. We won't accept any king with a physical blemish!"

So then they get Bres as a king, who's all shimmering and shiny, but also cruel, inhospitable, rack-renting and a tax addict, to boot. Now, is this the fault of the Tuatha Dé for being so superficial, ungrateful and, well, eugenicist about their former leader? Ohhhh no, it's all the fault of the Fomori, because Bres is half Fomorian.

Nah, I don't buy it. I'm guessing the Tuatha Dé Danaan just had better spin doctors.

So you're saying those Tuatha Dé Danaan were sort of like Hollywood people?

"a tax addict"??

Who knows, Dmitri. It's said that they were later defeated by another crew and went to live underground. Maybe they really high-tailed it to California to look for gold.

Ah. That explains it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8fnJZI9Pg8

There's an awful tv show over here called 'Destination Truth'. The intrepid ghost hunters rack up frequent-flyer miles running all over the globe pretending to look for yetis, etc. They gasp a lot (always just before the commercial), and fall down and get dirty, but...

[SPOILER ALERT]...

...they NEVER find anything. Not even Hitler's ghost. I think they looked for Robin Hood once, and nobody bothered telling them he was a legend...

Recently, these eejits ran over to County Claire, where some cute pubkeeper has a wolpertinger skeleton he claims is a leprechaun (the guy in the biology lab said it looked like sheep bones to him).

The professor in Dublin told them solemnly and on-camera that the more Guinness they drank, the more likely they were to see a leprechaun. People sold them a lot of kitsch, which they proudly carried around with them. (Why is there not a law against selling those ceramic things? They are worse than the dreaded garden gnomes.)

Then they got out in the woods looking for the Tuatha, picked up bewildered cows on their perimeter equipment, and fell down into a ravine and got wet.

They should have stayed home in Burbank - but no, they were off to the Amazon looking for a rainforest demon...