Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/75

 The European Sky- God. 47

with Prof. Brown that the Knight of Valour was none other than the Gilla Backer, or ' Slothful Gillie,' himself, who in turn was described as one form of Avartach, a dweller in the realm of Manannan. By parity of reason- ing we may conclude that the hospitable host and the giant herdsman in the Anglo-Norman romance were but diverse forms of the same personage, presumably the human and the superhuman aspects of the Otherworld king. We have here to deal with a somewhat perplexing multiplicity of characters, viz. the hospitable host, the defender of the fountain, and the club-bearing giant, who all in a sense represent the Otherworld king. It may be surmised that, in the original Celtic source of the story, the hospitable host was the actual human monarch, living in his dun and characterised by that liberality which the Celts invariably ascribed to their ideal king,^ while the champion of the tree and fountain undertook the wood- land duties of his tabu-bound majesty, being related to him precisely as the king of the Fianna appears to have been related to the king of all Ireland.^ As to the club- bearing giant or black man, whose dusky hue has in The Lady of the Fountain been extended to the woodland champion also, the analogy that I have already^ traced between the black club-bearing giant (the Gilla Backer) in The Slothful Gillie, who came from Lochlann, and the black club-bearing giant (Searbhan) in The Pursuit of Diannuid and Grainne, who bore the surname Loch- lannach, makes it highly probable that we should here detect a trace of Scandinavian influence. The black- handed club-bearing giant slain by Cod, prince of Nor- way, was a similar Scandinavian figure.^ And in Bonald MacPhie's version of Manns the Athach, another such monstrous giant, is sent by the king of Lochlann to

'^Folk-lore xvii. 37 f., 46 f., 51 f., 167 f. "^ Supra p. 6f. ^ Supra p. 39 f. * Supra p. 28 f.