In the case of Mis it is sexual union with Dubh Ruis, as well as his harping, that restores her to sanity. He is described in the possibly older poetic component of the tale as a warrior, sage, poet, and prince.⁹¹ King figures, such as Cormac Mac Airt, seem to have strong connections to spiritual practice⁹² as the divine king,⁹³ and Mac Cana has suggested that Dubh Ruis in the earlier tales may have been the son of a king. Musicians and music, particularly that of the harp,⁹⁴ often also have magical associations.⁹⁵

If Dubh Ruis is a spiritually powerful figure, his ability to restore Mis to sanity might be seen as that of the initiated shaman training the newly called shaman. He would have shown her how to handle her new level of spiritual power. Spiritual power, specifically the "mystical heat" of shamanism, can also sometimes be equated with sexual energy, as in tantra.⁹⁶ Thus, Dubh Ruis having intercourse with her might represent a dissipation of this energy, with which she is seemingly overloaded. In the text, the banter between them is also quite bawdy, and the exchange serves to distract her from mourning her father.⁹⁷

Initially the music Dubh Ruis plays on her harp attracts her to him. It has a soothing effect. There is, of course, a strong relationship between shamanic practice and the use of music to alter consciousness.⁹⁸ Interestingly, there is also a connection here again to the method of return of the Wurajeri medicine men I spoke of in the last section. Having sprouted feathers and learnt to fly, he subsequently "sang off his wings" and returned to this world and the camp, to discuss his experience.⁹⁹

After Mis and Dubh Ruis sleep together, Dubh Ruis is hungry, so she catches a deer. Dubh Ruis kills, skins, and cooks the deer, using a cooking pit dug in the earth filled with water and hot stones. Dubh Ruis has also brought bread with him. She says that she remembers bread, and associates it with memories of her father.¹⁰⁰ Part of the Kwakiutl way of returning the hamatsa to a normal state is that he is made to eat food in a civilised manner.¹⁰¹

After the food, Dubh Ruis puts her into the pit with the broth of the deer and bathes her.¹⁰² This ritual bath seems particularly significant for several reasons. First, an immersion in fluid in the form of a bath or baptism rite is significant in many spiritual traditions. It represents a rebirth. For example, the hamatsa is bathed in waters infused with special herbs heated with stones as part of his return to society.

Giraldus Cambrensis speaks of the king being inaugurated in Ireland in part by being bathed in the broth of a sacrificed white mare.¹⁰³ There are also references to people such as Ceithern being put in a tub of the marrow of cattle to rejuvenate them.¹⁰⁴

Another example of a bath being used to return a person to society in the Celtic tradition is in one of Cú Chulainn's boyhood deeds. After killing his first men, he arrives back at Emain Macha with their heads and live swans and stags, tied to his chariot. As he comes, Conchobar says, "if measures be not taken to receive him prudently, the best of the Ulstermen must fall by his hand."¹⁰⁵ Here we have the idea that the spiritual power, and its physical manifestation in the battle prowess of Cú Chulainn, must be moderated in some way, so it is not harmful to the community.

All of Emain Macha's women are sent out with bared bosoms. Cú Chulainn turned away in modesty. He was then seized, and dumped in a vat of cold water. The first vat burst, the second boiled over, and the third was still hot, but by then, he had been restored to his normal state.¹⁰⁶

This bears a relationship with the hamatsa ceremony, which I have been comparing to the story of Mis. When the hamatsa comes back from the wilderness crazed with a desire for human flesh, a naked singing woman holding a corpse lures him into the longhouse.¹⁰⁷ This woman must dance in a lascivious manner and must be a relative of the hamatsa. Since Cú Chulainn is Conchobar's nephew, it is probable that some of the women of Ulster are relatives. So here we have both a sexual component, although the young Cú Chulainn is depicted as embarrassed rather than aroused, and the bathing to cool down his potentially destructive power.

In the case of Mis, and the hamatsa, however, the bath is a warm one, making her experience different from that of Cú Chulainn, who is being cooled, but similar to the Kwakiutl hamatsa who is also bathed in specially prepared water heated by hot stones dropped in it.¹⁰⁸

This seems to be about making the power useful to the community, rather than "cooling" it perhaps this can be seen as "cooking" it, rather than having it be in a "raw" state. Levi-Strauss has written in detail about the significance of cooking as a metaphor for civilising.¹⁰⁹ For example, various Californian tribes put pubescent girls into ovens, hollowed into the ground. "After being covered with mats and hot stones, they were conscientiously 'cooked.' "¹¹⁰ He goes on to say,

"...the individuals who are "cooked" are those deeply involved in a physiological process: the newborn child, the woman who has just given birth, or the pubescent girl. The conjunction of a member of the social group with nature must be mediated through the intervention of cooking fire, whose normal function is to mediate the conjunction of the raw product and the human consumer, and whose operation thus has the effect of making sure that a natural creature is at one and the same time cooked and socialized..."¹¹¹

Besides this "cooking," Mis is also scrubbed with great vigour.

...gabhas cuige sgraith an fhiadh gur chimil 7 gur chómhshuaith snadhmanna a cuirp 7 a cnámha go huile, 7 gabhas ag_ sgrios, ag_ sgrabh, 7 ag_ sleamhuin-slíobadh le geir an fhiadh 7 leis an anbhruigh nó gur ghlan mórán í, 7 gur bhain srotháin allais aiste amhlaidh san...¹¹² Do bhí amhlaidh san iona fochair air an sliabhb [bsliadhbh] air feadh dhá mhíos, 7 a g[c]eann na haimsire sin do thuit an clúmh go hiomshlán di, óna síorsgrios 7 óna glana amhuil adubh-ramair, 7 fós go ttáinig a ciall 7 a cuimhne...

He took a piece of deer hide and rubbed (violently) the joints of her body and bones all over, and he proceeded to scrape and scratch her, and to buff her smooth with the tallow of the deer and with the broth until he cleaned her for the most part, and until he brought rivulets of sweat out of her in that manner ... He was in that way in her company for a span of two months on the mountain, and at the end of that time the feathers fell from her completely, as a result of her protracted scraping and cleaning as we have described and moreover (until) her sense and memory returned... ¹¹³

91 Mac Cana, 1955-56, pp. 376-377
92 Ó Cathasaigh, 1977, p. 3
93 Markale, 1994, pp. 145-148
94 Rees and Rees, 1990, p. 35
95 Rees and Rees, 1990, p. 137
96 Eliade, 1974, p. 437
97 Ó Cuív, 1954, p. 330, lines 64-70, and p. 327
98 Eliade, 1974, pp. 175, 179-180
99 Harner, 1980, p. 59
100 Ó Cuív, 1954, p. 330, lines 79-80, p. 333
101 Walens, 1981, p. 161
102 Ó Cuív, 1954, p. 333
103 Markale, 1994, p. 153
104 Jackson, 1971, p. 41
105 Cross and Slover, 1969, pp.150-151
106 Cross and Slover, 1969, p. 150
107 Walens, 1981, p. 145
108 Walens, 1981, p. 160
109 Claude Levi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology: 1, (London: Jonathan Cope, 1970)
110 Levi-Strauss, 1970, pp. 335-336
111 Levi-Strauss, 1970, p. 336
112 Ó Cuív, 1954, p. 331, lines 115-119, author's translation
113 Ó Cu&oiacute;v, 1954, p. 332, lines 134-137, author's translation
114 Eliade, 1974, pp. 108, 130
115 Harner, 1980, pp. 25-29