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20 the sketch of Ogmios as the old man Heracles of the Gauls, whose talk and ready wit charmed his hearers. Lucian's picture enables one to portray to oneself the wrinkled, sun-burnt face of the travelled old man, who poured forth the stream of his irresistible eloquence, while his eye flashed with delight and kindly interest. Lucian says that he turned towards his willing captives with a smiling face, and we have the same touch preserved in the Irish legend, when it calls the hero Ogma Grianainech, or Ogma of the Shining Countenance. The combining of the attributes of Heracles and Hermes in one personage, which puzzled the Greek traveller, was no passing whim of the Gauls. The view taken of the god by the Celts was even more comprehensive, for we find him in Ireland wearing not only the character of inventor of the Ogam alphabet, but also that of champion of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

This god is placed before us by Caesar simply in the character of a repeller of diseases—Appollinem morbos depellere—and not in that of the sun-god he was believed by the Greeks to be. Nevertheless, it will be seen as we proceed that some of the Gaulish divinities, equated with him on certain of the monuments of Gaul and other parts of the Celtic world, appear to lay a just claim to be regarded as forms of the sun-god. But to come to the monuments themselves, an altar found at a place near Annecy in Haute Savoie testifies to the worship of a