Goídel Glas

Ancestor of the Milesians. Goídel Glas was the son of Niúl son of Fénius Farsaid and Scota, daughter of the Egyptian pharaoh. (See genealogy of the Pre-Milesians.)

The account about the ancestors of Míl as told in Lebor Gabála (or Book of Invasions) is mixed with the Bible with Genesis and Exodus. According to this account, Goídel Glas' paternal grandfather Fénius Farsaid was the son of Japheth and the grandson of Noah. Fénius lived through the separation of languages, during the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). Fénius migrated to the Russian Steppes, in the region of the Scythia, where he became king. They also made Fénius a contemporary of Moses (which would make him ridiculously older than anyone in the Bible!)

Fénius' son migrated to Egypt, where he married the pharaoh's daughter Scota (not to be confused with another Scota who married Míl). They became parents of Goídel.

When Goídel was still an infant, he almost died from poison from a snakebite. It was Moses who saved and cured Goídel by touching the baby with his staff. It was Moses who gave Goídel's epithet Glas, meaning "green", because the poisonous bite had left a green mark on the baby. Moses also foretold that Goídel's descendants would one day live in the land where there were no serpents (obviously a reference to Ireland).

From the instruction of his grandfather, Goídel was responsible for creating the Goidelic or Gaelic languages, including Irish, Scottish and Manx.