Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/571

Rh give references in point from Irish literature; but we meet with the crimson nuts elsewhere mentioned as forming part of the food of the gods of the ancient Goidel, the Tuatha Dé Danann, and they were probably believed to account for the surpassing wisdom and cleverness ascribed to those gods. With the salmon that lay in wait for the crimson nuts may be compared in passing the Salmon of Llyn Llyw, connected by the story of Kulhwch with the Severn, and stated to have been the first animal created, his memory being made to go back in the matter of Mabon's history (p. 29) further than all the other ancients of the brute creation, which, arranged in the order of the lengths of their ages, were the Eagle of Gwernabwy, the Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd, the Stag of Rhedynvre, and the Blackbird of Kilgwri. It is not very clear whether Erinn was supposed to have but one sacred and secret well of the kind described, bearing various names and mysteriously connected with all the chief rivers of that country, or else several such wells severally connected with them. But we read of the sacred well in connection with the Shannon and with