Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/60

 32 The European Sky -God.

between Avartach and Avallac, the Welsh name both for the Other World and for the King of the Other World, were it not that the phonetic change of Welsh // to Irish rt is contrary to rule. The two names, however, as pro- nounced, would sound very nearly alike.'

The identification of the Gilla Backer with Avartach^ which is certain, and the identification of both with the Knight of Valour, which in some sense or other is highly probable, have an important bearing on our main thesis. The Gilla Backer gave himself out to be a Fomor of Lochlann.^ In that respect he resembles Searbhan Lochlannach.'^ And further investigation confirms the substantial similarity of the two figures. Both are hideous black giants armed with an iron club. Searbhan defends a sacred quicken-tree ; and the Gilla Backer, in so far as he is one with the Knight of Valour, has a great fruit- tree in his domain, defended by the Knight of the Fountain, who with a golden crown on his head is usurping the post of king. Again, the Gilla Backer is expressly identified with Avartach^ owner of a mansion in the realm of Man- annan. If Prof Brown is right in equating Avartach with Avallach (and we have ere now seen a yet stranger distortion of the latter word^), Avartach was lord of the Otherworld apple-tree, and derived his name from that fact.* Thus Searbhan of the quicken-tree was strictly analogous to Avartach of the apple-tree. May we not suppose that, as the name Avartach meant in its original form ' He of the Apple-tree,' so the name Searbhan meant originally fact *Sorbanus from sorba, 'a quicken-tree'.^ However that may be, the Gilla Backer, being one with Avartach, was likewise lord of an Otherworld apple-tree, so that we are enabled to offer a fair conjecture as to the species of the great fruit-tree guarded by the Knight of the Fountain.
 * He of the Quicken-tree ' {sorbiis aticupai'ia L.), being in

^ Supra p. 27. -Folk-lore xvii. 439, 453.

^ Folk-lore xvii. 308 n. 2. ^ lb. 308 n. 3.