Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/322

 THE EUROPEAN SKY-GOD. VI. THE CELTS {contmued).

BY ARTHUR BERNARD COOK.

Hitherto we have confined our attention almost exclus- ively to Ireland and the Isle of Man. It may next be shown that partial parallels to the foregoing Irish and Manx beliefs can be traced elsewhere among the Insular Celts.

Corresponding to the Gaelic Bile is the British Beli} whose son Avallach - was called after the apple or the apple-tree.^ This Avallach appears to have given his name to Avallon or the Isle of Avallon,^ which was the British counterpart of the Gaelic Emhain of the Apple- trees. Avallon was early identified with Glastonbury, whose hill (Glastonbury Tor) surrounded by swamps came to be looked upon as an Elysium or Otherworld.^ If Avallach, son of the dark sky-god and king of the Other- world, was thus connected with apples, it can hardly be

'^Folk-lore xvii. 55, 59, 68, 70.

2 Rh^s Arthurian Legend p. 336 cites from cod. Harl. 3859 fol. I93(5 a pedigree ending ' son of Eugein, son of Aballac, son of Amalech, who was the son of Beli the Great, and his mother was Anna, who is said to have been cousin to the Virgin Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus Christ,' and justly observes that Aballac and Amalech are only two forms of the same name, adding that ib. fol. 194a Aballac is made son of Beli and Anna without any allusion to Amalech.

^ Welsh afal, 'apple,' or a/all, 'apple-tree,' which would be in Old Welsh spelling abal and aball respectively. Old Irish aball, ' apple.' See further A. Holder Alt-celiischer Sprachschatz s.v. "^ab-all-os.


 * Rhys Arthtirian Legend, p. 337. ^ Id. ib. p. 328 ff.