Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/555

Rh who had a hand in the slaying of Cúchulainn, as corresponding closely enough in his character of a quasi Mars to Höᵭr. The avenger of Cúchulainn was his foster-brother Conall Cernach, or C. the Victorious, who, according to different stories, slew both Lugaid and Erc, and carried away their heads. In Conall we have, as already hinted, another personification of the sun; for he was the son of the sister of Cúchulainn's mother; and her name Finnchoem, meaning white and lovely, would seem to point to her as a dawn or gloaming goddess: she was Cúchulainn's foster-mother as well as the mother of Conall. Further, the latter's name is Cynwal in Welsh, which is more conservative of consonants, and this represents an early Celtic form Cuno-valos or Cuno-walo-s, the genitive of which occurs as on an old inscribed stone in the neighbourhood of Penzance in Cornwall. The correspondence between Conall and the slayer of Höᵭr suggests the inference that in the latter's name Vali we have the remains of a full name answering to Cuno-valos reduced and modified in a way not uncommon in old Norse. Moreover, as the Anses caught Loki in the waterfall of Franang, so Conall overtook Lugaid bathing in the Liffey and beheaded him, leaving his body, with the exception of the venomous head, for others to bury beneath the notorious Three Flags of Lugaid's court (p. 483). It is needless to point out how this recalls the three stones of torture on which Loki was laid in bonds of iron.

One might at first sight be tempted to regard Lugaid