Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

144 ^^^ Irish Religions.
was killed by Lug. He is sometimes called the son of the
bull-faced god. Lug and he may be compared with
Bellerophon and the ChimcTera. A doublet of Balar is seen
in Tigernmas.
Cuchulainn, the son of Lug, was a deified hero. His
remarkable adventurer formed the
subject of many bardic
songs. Labraid, of the sivift hand on tJie sivord, was then
King of Hades, the Irish Pluto. Being assisted against
his foes by the mighty Cuchulainn, he presented the hero
with his sister-in-law, Fand, for a wife ;
and she returned
with the warrior from Hades. But Cuchulainn paid other
visits to the world of spirits, with a view of rescuing friends
from Hades, and returning to P>in. He had the deity Lug
for his father, and the goddess Dechtere for his mother. As
an Apollo, he was beardless ;
yet, when re-born, he appeared
with long hair (rays). He released a maiden changed into
a swan, being the goddess of Dawn. N. O'Kearney, translator
of the Conn-eda story, found that the Irish hero was
so beloved, that people would not " swear an oath
either by the sun, stars, or elements, except by the head
of Conneda."
Nuada, the Welsh Nudd or Lludd, must not be confounded
with Net, god of war. He is declared by Rhys
" of the non-Celtic race in both Britain and Ireland ;
for
an old inscription in the county of Kerry gives the name
without a case-ending, and so marks it as a probably
non- Celtic word." In his Celtic Britons the same writer
notes another deity ;
speaking of " the sea god Nodcns, who
was of sufficient importance during the Roman occupation
to have a temple built for him at Lydney, on the western
side of the Severn, while the Irish formerly called the
goddess of the Boyne his wife."
The Feast of Goibniu, which assured immortality to the
Tuatha, consisted principally of beer, a more common