The narrative in the Lebor Gabála Érenn is a mythological account of the origin of the Gaels as the descendants of the Scythian prince Fénius Farsaid, one of seventy-two chieftains who built the Tower of Babel. Goídel Glas was the son of Nel and Scota. Goídel Glas is credited with the creation of Gaelic from the original seventy-two languages that arose at the time of the confusion of tongues. His descendants, the Gaels, undergo a series of trials and tribulations that are clearly modelled on those of the Israelites in the Old Testament. They flourish in Egypt at the time of Moses and leave during the Exodus; they wander the world for 440 years before eventually settling in the Iberian Peninsula. There, Goídel's descendant Breogán founds a city called Brigantia, and builds a tower from the top of which his son Íth glimpses Ireland. Brigantia possibly refers to Bragança, in Portugal, or perhaps Corunna, in Galicia,, whilst Breogán's tower might have been based on the Tower of Hercules, which was built at Corunna by the Romans. An anecdote in the LGE tells how Gaidel Glas, son of Nel, was cured of a serpent's sting when Moses made fervent prayer and touched his rod upon the lad's wound. An inserted verse in an earlier passage says of Gaidel: "green were his arms and his vesture". O'Clery's redaction of the Lebor Gabála adds that the snake bite left a green ring on the boy, from which he earned his nickname of Gaidel Glas. Keating also repeats this quoting a glossarial verse, although he prefaces it with an alternate derivation of the nickname from the word for lock
John of Fordun
A Scottish version of the tale of Goídel Glas and Scota was recorded by John of Fordun. This is apparently not based on the main Irish Lebor Gabála account. Fordun refers to multiple sources, and his version is taken to be an attempt to synthesise these multiple accounts into a single history. In Fordun's version, Gaythelos, as he calls Goídel Glas, is the son of "a certain king of the countries of Greece, Neolus, or Heolaus, by name", who was exiled to Egypt and took service with the Pharaoh, marrying Pharaoh's daughter Scota. Various accounts of how Gaythelos came to be expelled from Egypt—by a revolt following the death of Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, pursuing Moses, or in terror from the Plagues of Egypt, or after an invasion by Ethiopians—are given, but the upshot is that Gaythelos and Scota are exiled together with Greek and Egyptian nobles, and they settle in Hispania after wandering for many years. In the Iberian Peninsula they settle in the land's northwest corner, at a place called Brigancia. Gaythelos was considered the founder of the Portuguese city ofPorto by some old authors. According to them, he landed in the Iberian Peninsula in a harbor that he named "Portus Gaythelos", the town later giving its name to Portugal.
