"He was their god,
The withered Cromm with many mists...
To him without glory
They would kill their piteous wretched offspring,
With much wailing and peril,
To pour their blood around Cromm Cruaich.
Milk and corn
They would ask from him speedily
In return for a third of their healthy issue,
Great was the horror and fear of him.
To him noble Gaels would prostrate themselves."278
Elsewhere we learn that this sacrifice in return for the gifts of corn and milk from the god took place at Samhain, and that on one occasion the violent prostrations of the worshippers caused three-fourths of them to die. Again, "they beat their palms, they pounded their bodies ... they shed falling showers of tears."279 These are reminiscences of orgiastic rites in which pain and pleasure melt into one. The god must have been a god of fertility; the blood of the victims was poured on the image, the flesh, as in analogous savage rites and folk-survivals, may have been buried in the fields to promote fertility. If so, the victims' flesh was instinct with the power of the divinity, and, though their number is obviously exaggerated, several victims may have taken the place of an earlier slain representative of the god. A mythic Crom Dubh, "Black Crom," whose festival occurs on the first Sunday in August, may be another form of Cromm Cruaich. In one story the name is transferred to S. Patrick's servant, who is asked by the fairies when they will go to Paradise. "Not till the day of judgment," is the answer, and for this they cease to help men in the processes of agriculture. But in a variant Manannan bids Crom ask this question, and the same result follows.280 These tales thus enshrine the idea that Crom and the fairies were ancient gods of growth who ceased to help men when they deserted them for the Christian faith. If the sacrifice was offered at the August festival, or, as the texts suggest, at Samhain, after harvest, it must have been on account of the next year's crop, and the flesh may have been mingled with the seed corn.
Dagda may thus have been a god of growth and fertility. His wife or mistress was the river-goddess, Boand (the Boyne),281 and the children ascribed to him were Oengus, Bodb Dearg, Danu, Brigit, and perhaps Ogma. The euhemerists made him die of Cethlenn's venom, long after the battle of Mag-tured in which he encountered her.282 Irish mythology is remarkably free from obscene and grotesque myths, but some of these cluster round Dagda. We hear of the Gargantuan meal provided for him in sport by the Fomorians, and of which he ate so much that "not easy was it for him to move and unseemly was his apparel," as well as his conduct with a Fomorian beauty. Another amour of his was with Morrigan, the place where it occurred being still known as "The Couple's Bed."283 In another tale Dagda acts as cook to Conaire the great.284
The beautiful and fascinating Oengus is sometimes called Mac Ind Oc, "Son of the Young Ones," i.e. Dagda and Boand, or In Mac Oc, "The Young Son." This name, like the myth of his disinheriting his father, may point to his cult superseding that of Dagda. If so, he may then have been affiliated to the older god, as was frequently done in parallel cases, e.g. in Babylon. Oengus may thus have been the high god of some tribe who assumed supremacy, ousting the high god of another tribe, unless we suppose that Dagda was a pre-Celtic god with functions similar to those of Oengus, and that the Celts adopted his cult but gave that of Oengus a higher place. In one myth the supremacy of Oengus is seen. After the first battle of Mag-tured, Dagda is forced to become the slave of Bres, and is much annoyed by a lampooner who extorts the best pieces of his rations. Following the advice of Oengus, he not only causes the lampooner's death, but triumphs over the Fomorians.285 On insufficient grounds, mainly because he was patron of Diarmaid, beloved of women, and because his kisses became birds which whispered love thoughts to youths and maidens, Oengus has been called the Eros of the Gaels. More probably he was primarily a supreme god of growth, who occasionally suffered eclipse during the time of death in nature, like Tammuz and Adonis, and this may explain his absence from Mag-tured. The beautiful story of his vision of a maiden with whom he fell violently in love contains too many Märchen formulæ to be of any mythological or religious value. His mother Boand caused search to be made for her, but without avail. At last she was discovered to be the daughter of a semi-divine lord of a síd, but only through the help of mortals was the secret of how she could be taken wrung from him. She was a swan-maiden, and on a certain day only would Oengus obtain her. Ultimately she became his wife. The story is interesting because it shows how the gods occasionally required mortal aid.286
Equally influenced by Märchen formulæ is the story of Oengus and Etain. Etain and Fuamnach were wives of Mider, but Fuamnach was jealous of Etain, and transformed her into an insect. In this shape Oengus found her, and placed her in a glass grianan or bower filled with flowers, the perfume of which sustained her. He carried the grianan with him wherever he went, but Fuamnach raised a magic wind which blew Etain away to the roof of Etair, a noble of Ulster. She fell through a smoke-hole into a golden cup of wine, and was swallowed by Etair's wife, of whom she was reborn.287 Professor Rh[^y]s resolves all this into a sun and dawn myth. Oengus is the sun, Etain the dawn, the grianan the expanse of the sky.288 But the dawn does not grow stronger with the sun's influence, as Etain did under that of Oengus. At the sun's appearance the dawn begins
"to faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light and to die."
The whole story is built up on the well-known Mãrchen formulæ of the "True Bride" and the "Two Brothers," but accommodated to well-known mythic personages, and the grianan is the Celtic equivalent of various objects in stories of the "Cinderella" type, in which the heroine conceals herself, the object being bought by the hero and kept in his room.289 Thus the tale reveals nothing of Etain's divine functions, but it illustrates the method of the "mythological" school in discovering sun-heroes and dawn-maidens in any incident, mythical or not.
Oengus appears in the Fionn cycle as the fosterer and protector of Diarmaid.290 With Mider, Bodb, and Morrigan, he expels the Fomorians when they destroy the corn, fruit, and milk of the Tuatha Dé Danann.291 This may point to his functions as a god of fertility.
Although Mider appears mainly as a king of the síde and ruler of the brug of Bri Léith, he is also connected with the Tuatha Déa.292 Learning that Etain had been reborn and was now married to King Eochaid, he recovered her from him, but lost her again when Eochaid attacked his brug. He was ultimately avenged in the series of tragic events which led to the death of Eochaid's descendant Conaire. Though his síd is located in Ireland, it has so much resemblance to Elysium that Mider must be regarded as one of its lords. Hence he appears as ruler of the Isle of Falga, i.e. the Isle of Man regarded as Elysium. Thence his daughter Bláthnat, his magical cows and cauldron, were stolen by Cúchulainn and Curoi, and his three cranes from Bri Léith by Aitherne293—perhaps distorted versions of the myths which told how various animals and gifts came from the god's land. Mider may be the Irish equivalent of a local Gaulish god, Medros, depicted on bas-reliefs with a cow or bull.294
The victory of the Tuatha Déa at the first battle of Mag-tured, in June, their victory followed, however, by the deaths of many of them at the second battle in November, may point to old myths dramatising the phenomena of nature, and connected with the ritual of summer and winter festivals. The powers of light and growth are in the ascendant in summer; they seem to die in winter. Christian euhemerists made use of these myths, but regarded the gods as warriors who were slain, not as those who die and revive again. At the second battle, Nuada loses his life; at the first, though his forces are victorious, his hand was cut off by the Fomorian Sreng, for even when victorious the gods must suffer. A silver hand was made for him by Diancecht, and hence he was called Nuada Argetlám, "of the silver hand." Professor Rh[^y]s regards him as a Celtic Zeus, partly because he is king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, partly because he, like Zeus or Tyr, who lost tendons or a hand through the wiles of evil gods, is also maimed.295 Similarly in the Rig-Veda the Açvins substitute a leg of iron for the leg of Vispala, cut off in battle, and the sun is called "golden-handed" because Savitri cut off his hand and the priests replaced it by one of gold. The myth of Nuada's hand may have arisen from primitive attempts at replacing lopped-off limbs, as well as from the fact that no Irish king must have any bodily defect, or possibly because an image of Nuada may have lacked a hand or possessed one of silver. Images were often maimed or given artificial limbs, and myths then arose to explain the custom.296 Nuada appears to be a god of life and growth, but he is not a sun-god. His Welsh equivalent is Llûd Llawereint, or "silver-handed," who delivers his people from various scourges. His daughter Creidylad is to be wedded to Gwythur, but is kidnapped by Gwyn. Arthur decides that they must fight for her yearly on 1st May until the day of judgment, when the victor would gain her hand.297 Professor Rh[^y]s regards Creidylad as a Persephone, wedded alternately to light and dark divinities.298 But the story may rather be explanatory of such ritual acts as are found in folk-survivals in the form of fights between summer and winter, in which a Queen of May figures, and intended to assist the conflict of the gods of growth with those of blight.299 Creidylad is daughter of a probable god of growth, nor is it impossible that the story of the battle of Mag-tured is based on mythic explanations of such ritual combats.
The Brythons worshipped Nuada as Nodons in Romano-British times. The remains of his temple exist near the mouth of the Severn, and the god may have been equated with Mars, though certain symbols seem to connect him with the waters as a kind of Neptune.300 An Irish mythic poet Nuada Necht may be the Nechtan who owned a magic well whence issued the Boyne, and was perhaps a water-god. If such a water-god was associated with Nuada, he and Nodons might be a Celtic Neptune.301 But the relationship and functions of these various personages are obscure, nor is it certain that Nodons was equated with Neptune or that Nuada was a water-god. His name may be cognate with words meaning "growth," "possession," "harvest," and this supports the view taken here of his functions.302 The Welsh Nudd Hael, or "the Generous," who possessed a herd of 21,000 milch kine, may be a memory of this god, and it is possible that, as a god of growth, Nuada had human incarnations called by his name.303
Ler, whose name means "sea," and who was a god of the sea, is father of Manannan as well as of the personages of the beautiful story called The Children of Lir, from which we learn practically all that is known of him. He resented not being made ruler of the Tuatha Déa, but was later reconciled when the daughter of Bodb Dearg was given to him as his wife. On her death, he married her sister, who transformed her step-children into swans.304 Ler is the equivalent of the Brythonic Llyr, later immortalised by Shakespeare as King Lear.
The greatness of Manannan mac Lir, "son of the sea," is proved by the fact that he appears in many of the heroic tales, and is still remembered in tradition and folk-tale. He is a sea-god who has become more prominent than the older god of the sea, and though not a supreme god, he must have had a far-spreading cult. With Bodb Dearg he was elected king of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He made the gods invisible and immortal, gave them magical food, and assisted Oengus in driving out Elemar from his síd. Later tradition spoke of four Manannans, probably local forms of the god, as is suggested by the fact that the true name of one of them is said to be Orbsen, son of Allot. Another, the son of Ler, is described as a renowned trader who dwelt in the Isle of Man, the best of pilots, weather-wise, and able to transform himself as he pleased. The Cóir Anmann adds that the Britons and the men of Erin deemed him god of the sea.305 That position is plainly seen in many tales, e.g. in the magnificent passage of The Voyage of Bran, where he suddenly sweeps into sight, riding in a chariot across the waves from the Land of Promise; or in the tale of Cúchulainn's Sickness, where his wife Fand sees him, "the horseman of the crested sea," coming across the waves. In the Agallamh na Senorach he appears as a cavalier breasting the waves. "For the space of nine waves he would be submerged in the sea, but would rise on the crest of the tenth without wetting chest or breast."306 In one archaic tale he is identified with a great sea wave which swept away Tuag, while the waves are sometimes called "the son of Lir's horses"—a name still current in Ireland, or, again, "the locks of Manannan's wife."307 His position as god of the sea may have given rise to the belief that he was ruler of the oversea Elysium, and, later, of the other-world as a magical domain coterminous with this earth. He is still remembered in the Isle of Man, which may owe its name to him, and which, like many another island, was regarded by the Goidels as the island Elysium under its name of Isle of Falga. He is also the Manawyddan of Welsh story.
Manannan appears in the Cúchulainn and Fionn cycles, usually as a ruler of the Other-world. His wife Fand was Cúchulainn's mistress, Diarmaid was his pupil in fairyland, and Cormac was his guest there. Even in Christian times surviving pagan beliefs caused legend to be busy with his name. King Fiachna was fighting the Scots and in great danger, when a stranger appeared to his wife and announced that he would save her husband's life if she would consent to abandon herself to him. She reluctantly agreed, and the child of the amour was the seventh-century King Mongan, of whom the annalist says, "every one knows that his real father was Manannan."308 Mongan was also believed to be a rebirth of Fionn. Manannan is still remembered in folk-tradition, and in the Isle of Man, where his grave is to be seen, some of his ritual survived until lately, bundles of rushes being placed for him on midsummer eve on two hills.309 Barintus, who steers Arthur to the fortunate isles, and S. Barri, who crossed the sea on horseback, may have been legendary forms of a local sea-god akin to Manannan, or of Manannan himself.310 His steed was Enbarr, "water foam or hair," and Manannan was "the horseman of the manéd sea." "Barintus," perhaps connected with barr find, "white-topped," would thus be a surname of the god who rode on Enbarr, the foaming wave, or who was himself the wave, while his mythic sea-riding was transferred to the legend of S. Barri, if such a person ever existed.
Various magical possessions were ascribed to Manannan—his armour and sword, the one making the wearer invulnerable, the other terrifying all who beheld it; his horse and canoe; his swine, which came to life again when killed; his magic cloak; his cup which broke when a lie was spoken; his tablecloth, which, when waved, produced food. Many of these are found everywhere in Märchen, and there is nothing peculiarly Celtic in them. We need not, therefore, with the mythologists, see in his armour the vapoury clouds or in his sword lightning or the sun's rays. But their magical nature as well as the fact that so much wizardry is attributed to Manannan, points to a copious mythology clustering round the god, now for ever lost.
The parentage of Lug is differently stated, but that account which makes him son of Cian and of Ethne, daughter of Balor, is best attested.311 Folk-tradition still recalls the relation of Lug and Balor. Balor, a robber living in Tory Island, had a daughter whose son was to kill her father. He therefore shut her up in an inaccessible place, but in revenge for Balor's stealing MacIneely's cow, the latter gained access to her, with the result that Ethne bore three sons, whom Balor cast into the sea. One of them, Lug, was recovered by MacIneely and fostered by his brother Gavida. Balor now slew MacIneely, but was himself slain by Lug, who pierced his single eye with a red-hot iron.312 In another version, Kian takes MacIneely's place and is aided by Manannan, in accordance with older legends.313 But Lug's birth-story has been influenced in these tales by the Märchen formula of the girl hidden away because it has been foretold that she will have a son who will slay her father.
Lug is associated with Manannan, from whose land he comes to assist the Tuatha Déa against the Fomorians. His appearance was that of the sun, and by this brilliant warrior's prowess the hosts were utterly defeated.314 This version, found in The Children of Tuirenn, differs from the account in the story of Mag-tured. Here Lug arrives at the gates of Tara and offers his services as a craftsman. Each offer is refused, until he proclaims himself "the man of each and every art," or samildánach, "possessing many arts." Nuada resigns his throne to him for thirteen days, and Lug passes in review the various craftsmen (i.e. the gods), and though they try to prevent such a marvellous person risking himself in fight, he escapes, heads the warriors, and sings his war-song. Balor, the evil-eyed, he slays with a sling-stone, and his death decided the day against the Fomorians. In this account Lug samildánach is a patron of the divine patrons of crafts; in other words, he is superior to a whole group of gods. He was also inventor of draughts, ball-play, and horsemanship. But, as M. D'Arbois shows, samildánach is the equivalent of "inventor of all arts," applied by Cæsar to the Gallo-Roman Mercury, who is thus an equivalent of Lug.315 This is attested on other grounds. As Lug's name appears in Irish Louth (Lug-magh) and in British Lugu-vallum, near Hadrian's Wall, so in Gaul the names Lugudunum (Lyons), Lugudiacus, and Lugselva ("devoted to Lugus") show that a god Lugus was worshipped there. A Gaulish feast of Lugus in August—the month of Lug's festival in Ireland—was perhaps superseded by one in honour of Augustus. No dedication to Lugus has yet been found, but images of and inscriptions to Mercury abound at Lugudunum Convenarum.316 As there were three Brigits, so there may have been several forms of Lugus, and two dedications to the Lugoves have been found in Spain and Switzerland, one of them inscribed by the shoemakers of Uxama.317 Thus the Lugoves may have been multiplied forms of Lugus or Lugovos, "a hero," the meaning given to "Lug" by O'Davoren.318 Shoe-making was not one of the arts professed by Lug, but Professor Rh[^y]s recalls the fact that the Welsh Lleu, whom he equates with Lug, disguised himself as a shoemaker.319 Lugus, besides being a mighty hero, was a great Celtic culture-god, superior to all other culture divinities.
The euhemerists assigned a definite date to Lug's death, but side by side with this the memory of his divinity prevailed, and he appears as the father and helper of Cúchulainn, who was possibly a rebirth of the god.320 His high position appears in the fact that the Gaulish assembly at Lugudunum was held in his honour, like the festival of Lugnasad in Ireland. Craftsmen brought their wares to sell at this festival of the god of crafts, while it may also have been a harvest festival.321 Whether it was a strictly solar feast is doubtful, though Professor Rh[^y]s and others insist that Lug is a sun-god. The name of the Welsh Lleu, "light," is equated with Lug, and the same meaning assigned to the latter.322 This equation has been contested and is doubtful, Lugus probably meaning "hero."323 Still the sun-like traits ascribed to Lug before Mag-tured suggest that he was a sun-god, and solar gods elsewhere, e.g. the Polynesian Maui, are culture-gods as well. But it should be remembered that Lug is not associated with the true solar festivals of Beltane and Midsummer.
While our knowledge of the Tuatha Dé Danann is based upon a series of mythic tales and other records, that of the gods of the continental Celts, apart from a few notices in classical authors and elsewhere, comes from inscriptions. But as far as can be judged, though the names of the two groups seldom coincide, their functions must have been much alike, and their origins certainly the same. The Tuatha Dé Danann were nature divinities of growth, light, agriculture—their symbols and possessions suggesting fertility, e.g. the cauldron. They were divinities of culture and crafts, and of war. There must have been many other gods in Ireland than those described here, while some of those may not have been worshipped all over Ireland. Generally speaking, there were many local gods in Gaul with similar functions but different names, and this may have been true of Ireland. Perhaps the different names given to Dagda, Manannan, and others were simply names of similar local gods, one of whom became prominent, and attracted to himself the names of the others. So, too, the identity of Danu and Brigit might be explained, or the fact that there were three Brigits. We read also in the texts of the god of Connaught, or of Ulster, and these were apparently regional divinities, or of "the god of Druidism"—perhaps a god worshipped specially by Druids.324 The remote origin of some of these divinities may be sought in the primitive cult of the Earth personified as a fertile being, and in that of vegetation and corn-spirits, and the vague spirits of nature in all its aspects. Some of these still continued to be worshipped when the greater gods had been evolved. Though animal worship was not lacking in Ireland, divinities who are anthropomorphic forms of earlier animal-gods are less in evidence than on the Continent. The divinities of culture, crafts, and war, and of departments of nature, must have slowly assumed the definite personality assigned them in Irish religion. But, doubtless, they already possessed that before the Goidels reached Ireland. Strictly speaking, the underground domain assigned later to the Tuatha Dé Danann belongs only to such of them as were associated with fertility. But in course of time most of the group, as underground dwellers, were connected with growth and increase. These could be blighted by their enemies, or they themselves could withhold them when their worshippers offended them.325
Irish mythology points to the early pre-eminence of goddesses. As agriculture and many of the arts were first in the hands of women, goddesses of fertility and culture preceded gods, and still held their place when gods were evolved. Even war-goddesses are prominent in Ireland. Celtic gods and heroes are often called after their mothers, not their fathers, and women loom largely in the tales of Irish colonisation, while in many legends they play a most important part. Goddesses give their name to divine groups, and, even where gods are prominent, their actions are free, their personalities still clearly defined. The supremacy of the divine women of Irish tradition is once more seen in the fact that they themselves woo and win heroes; while their capacity for love, their passion, their eternal youthfulness and beauty are suggestive of their early character as goddesses of ever-springing fertility.326
This supremacy of goddesses is explained by Professor Rh[^y]s as non-Celtic, as borrowed by the Celts from the aborigines.327 But it is too deeply impressed on the fabric of Celtic tradition to be other than native, and we have no reason to suppose that the Celts had not passed through a stage in which such a state of things was normal. Their innate conservatism caused them to preserve it more than other races who had long outgrown such a state of things.
Footnote 199:(return)HL 89; Stokes, RC xii. 129. D'Arbois, ii. 125, explains it as "Folk of the god whose mother is called Danu."
Footnote 200:(return)RC xii. 77. The usual Irish word for "god" is dia; other names are Fiadu, Art, Dess.
Footnote 207:(return)IT i. 14, 774; Stokes, TL i. 99, 314, 319. Síd is a fairy hill, the hill itself or the dwelling within it. Hence those who dwell in it are Aes or Fir síde, "men of the mound," or síde, fairy folk. The primitive form is probably sêdos, from sêd, "abode" or "seat"; cf. Greek [Greek: edos] "a temple." Thurneysen suggests a connection with a word equivalent to Lat. sidus, "constellation," or "dwelling of the gods."
Footnote 216:(return)See p. 228. In Scandinavia the dead were called elves, and lived feasting in their barrows or in hills. These became the seat of ancestral cults. The word "elf" also means any divine spirit, later a fairy. "Elf" and síde may thus, like the "elf-howe" and the síd or mound, have a parallel history. See Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poet. Boreale, i. 413 f.
Footnote 217:(return)Tuan MacCairill (LU 166) calls the Tuatha Déa, "dée ocus andée," and gives the meaning as "poets and husbandmen." This phrase, with the same meaning, is used in "Cóir Anmann" (IT iii. 355), but there we find that it occurred in a pagan formula of blessing—"The blessing of gods and not-gods be on thee." But the writer goes on to say—"These were their gods, the magicians, and their non-gods, the husbandmen." This may refer to the position of priest-kings and magicians as gods. Rh[^y]s compares Sanskrit deva and adeva (HL 581). Cf. the phrase in a Welsh poem (Skene, i. 313), "Teulu Oeth et Anoeth," translated by Rh[^y]s as "Household of Power and Not-Power" (CFL ii. 620), but the meaning is obscure. See Loth, i. 197.
Footnote 219:(return)Cormac, 4. Stokes (US 12) derives Anu from (p)an, "to nourish"; cf. Lat. panis.
Footnote 220:(return)Leicester County Folk-lore, 4. The Cóir Anmann says that Anu was worshipped as a goddess of plenty (IT iii. 289).
Footnote 222:(return)Rh[^y]s, ibid. ii. 213. He finds her name in the place-name Bononia and its derivatives.
Footnote 225:(return)Girald. Cambr. Top. Hib. ii. 34 f. Vengeance followed upon rash intrusion. For the breath tabu see Frazer, Early Hist. of the Kingship, 224.
Footnote 231:(return)Fitzgerald, RC iv. 190. Aine has no connection with Anu, nor is she a moon-goddess, as is sometimes supposed.
Footnote 237:(return)LL 11b; Cormac, s.v. Neit; RC iv. 36; Arch. Rev. i. 231; Holder, ii. 714, 738.
Footnote 242:(return)Petrie, Tara, 147; Stokes, US 175; Meyer, Cath Finntrága, Oxford, 1885, 76 f.; RC xvi. 56, 163, xxi. 396.
Footnote 245:(return)RC xxi. 157, 315; Miss Hull, 247. A baobh (a common Gaelic name for "witch") appears to Oscar and prophesies his death in a Fionn ballad (Campbell, The Fians, 33). In Brittany the "night-washers," once water-fairies, are now regarded as revenants (Le Braz, i. 52).
Footnote 246:(return)Joyce, SH i. 261; Miss Hull, 186; Meyer, Cath Finntraga, 6, 13; IT i. 131, 871.
Footnote 250:(return)Cf. the personification of the three strains of Dagda's harp (Leahy, ii. 205).
Footnote 258:(return)RC xii. 89. The name is found in Gaulish Gobannicnos, and in Welsh Abergavenny.
Footnote 264:(return)Connac, 56, and Cóir Anmann (IT iii. 357) divide the name as día-na-cecht and explain it as "god of the powers."
Footnote 265:(return)RC xii. 67. For similar stories of plants springing from graves, see my Childhood of Fiction, 115.
Footnote 271:(return)Irish MSS. Series, i. 46; D'Arbois, ii. 276. In a MS. edited by Dr. Stirn, Oengus was Dagda's son by Elemar's wife, the amour taking place in her husband's absence. This incident is a parallel to the birth-stories of Mongan and Arthur, and has also the Fatherless Child theme, since Oengus goes in tears to Mider because he has been taunted with having no father or mother. In the same MS. it is the Dagda who instructs Oengus how to obtain Elemar's síd. See RC xxvii. 332, xxviii. 330.
Footnote 276:(return)The former is Rh[^y]s's interpretation (HL 201) connecting Cruaich with crúach, "a heap"; the latter is that of D'Arbois (ii. 106), deriving Cruaich from cru, "blood." The idea of the image being bent or crooked may have been due to the fact that it long stood ready to topple over, as a result of S. Patrick's miracle. See p. 286, infra.
Footnote 278:(return)LL 213b. D'Arbois thinks Cromm was a Fomorian, the equivalent of Taranis (ii. 62). But he is worshipped by Gaels. Crin, "withered," probably refers to the idol's position after S. Patrick's miracle, no longer upright but bent like an old man. Dr. Hyde, Lit. Hist. of Ireland, 87, with exaggerated patriotism, thinks the sacrificial details are copied by a Christian scribe from the Old Testament, and are no part of the old ritual.
Footnote 285:(return)RC xii. 65. Elsewhere three supreme "ignorances" are ascribed to Oengus (RL xxvi. 31).
Footnote 287:(return)LL 11c; LU 129; IT i. 130. Cf. the glass house, placed between sky and moon, to which Tristan conducts the queen. Bedier, Tristan et Iseut, 252. In a fragmentary version of the story Oengus is Etain's wooer, but Mider is preferred by her father, and marries her. In the latter half of the story, Oengus does not appear (see p. 363, infra). Mr. Nutt (RC xxvii. 339) suggests that Oengus, not Mider, was the real hero of the story, but that its Christian redactors gave Mider his place in the second part. The fragments are edited by Stirn (ZCP vol. v.).
Footnote 289:(return)See my Childhood of Fiction, 114, 153. The tale has some unique features, as it alone among Western Märchen and saga variants of the "True Bride" describes the malicious woman as the wife of Mider. In other words, the story implies polygamy, rarely found in European folk-tales.
Footnote 294:(return)Cumont, RC xxvi. 47; D'Arbois, RC xxvii. 127, notes the difficulty of explaining the change of e to i in the names.
Footnote 299:(return)Train, Isle of Man, Douglas, 1845, ii. 118; Grimm, Teut. Myth. ii. ch. 24; Frazer, GB2 ii. 99 f.
Footnote 307:(return)Bodley Dindsenchas, No. 10, RC xii. 105; Joyce, SH i. 259; Otia Merseiana, ii. "Song of the Sea."
Footnote 310:(return)Geoffrey, Vita Merlini, 37; Rees, 435. Other saintly legends are derived from myths, e.g. that of S. Barri in his boat meeting S. Scuithne walking on the sea. Scuithne maintains he is walking on a field, and plucks a flower to prove it, while Barri confutes him by pulling a salmon out of the sea. This resembles an episode in the meeting of Bran and Manannan (Stokes, Félire, xxxix.; Nutt-Meyer, i. 39). Saints are often said to assist men just as the gods did. Columcille and Brigit appeared over the hosts of Erin assisting and encouraging them (RC xxiv. 40).
Footnote 315:(return)D'Arbois, vi. 116, Les Celtes, 39, RC xii. 75, 101, 127, xvi. 77. Is the defaced inscription at Geitershof, Deo M ... Sam ... (Holder, ii. 1335), a dedication to Mercury Samildánach? An echo of Lug's story is found in the Life of S. Herve, who found a devil in his monastery in the form of a man who said he was a good carpenter, mason, locksmith, etc., but who could not make the sign of the cross. Albert le Grand, Saints de la Bretagne, 49, RC vii. 231.
Footnote 318:(return)Stokes, TIG 103. Gaidoz contests the identification of the Lugoves and of Lug with Mercury, and to him the Lugoves are grouped divinities like the Matres (RC vi. 489).
Footnote 327:(return)The Welsh People, 61. Professor Rh[^y]s admits that the theory of borrowing "cannot easily be proved."