Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/138

122 equated with Tiu and Zeus: in other words, Nuada may safely be regarded as a Celtic Zeus or Jupiter.

Add to this that in case a god has several names, their existence tends to lead him to be regarded as so many distinct divinities, and this tendency can beyond doubt be proved in the history of Nuada: for besides the Nuada to whom my remarks were thus far intended to apply, Irish legendary history had other Nuadas to show, such as Nuada Derg, or the Red; but what proves his virtual identity with the Celtic Mars-Jupiter, is the fact, that the sun hero Eogan Mór (p. 91) is called Mog Nuadat, 'Nuada's Slave.' Then there was also a Nuada Finnfáil and a Nuada Necht. Now Nuada of the Silver Hand is said to have landed in Erinn A.M. 3303, while Nuada Finnfáil is made to begin his reign A.M. 4199, and Nuada Necht is connected with Leinster in A.M. 5089. So disposed, they would seem to have been placed at a safe distance from one another; but the artificial nature of the arrangement betrays itself in various ways: thus it can hardly be an accident that the king who superseded Nuada of the Silver Hand, when he lost his natural hand, should have borne the same unusual name Bres, as the one who succeeded Nuada Finnfáil some 900 years later. But let us try to force the vocables Finnfáil and Necht to disclose their history. The latter looks as if it had a derivative in the well-known name Nechta or Nechtan, borne, among others, by a remarkable king of the Picts of Scotland at the beginning of the 8th century, and by the mythic owner of