Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/170

 158 The European Sky -God.

time coming closer than before. The druid exclaimed : ' It is the wounding of a king indeed, whoever shoots at Conn in Tara,' At this the strange horseman desisted and welcomed Conn to his house. The house was a kingly ratli standing in a beautiful plain. At its door was a golden tree. The roof-tree of the house itself was of white metal. In the house they found a damsel wear- ing a crown of gold, with a vat full of red ale, a golden ladle and a golden cup before her. The unknown champion seated himself on a king's throne and spoke as follows: 'I am not a champion indeed, and I reveal to thee part of my mystery and of my renown. It is after death I have come, and I am of the race of Adam. Lug, son of Edlenn ^ son of Tighernmas, is my name. What I have come for is to reveal to thee the life of thine own sovereignty and of every sovereign that shall be in Tara.' He further declared that the crowned maiden was the sovereignty of Erin for ever. She there- upon presented Conn with a gigantic ox-rib and the rib of a boar. She likewise gave him the silver pail and the golden ladle and cup. The cup she filled time after time with red ale, once for every monarch whose name and destined reign were pronounced by Lug.

Lug here presides over an Elysian palace with a golden tree, which can hardly be separated from the silver tree with golden gleams in the tale of Cuchulain^ the silver apple-tree in the tale of Branf the great sheltering apple- tree with golden apples in the tale of Tadg^ and the trees with golden apples in the tale of Mael-Didn^ But Lug is beyond question a sun-god.'^ It would seem, then, that these Elysian appie-trees are so many variations of

^ D'Arbois Cycle mythologiqzie p. 112 n. i argues that this is a mistake for ' Lug, son of Ethne daughter of Tighernmas. '

"^ Supra p. 149. ^ Supra p. 144. ^ Supra p. 154. ^^ Supra p. 156.

^ Rhys Hibbei't Lectures p. 383 ff. , Squire Mythology of the British Islands p. 62.