Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/579

Rh of Creiᵭylad was Llûᵭ, the Celtic Jupiter, so that the story lends itself the more readily to comparison with that, among others, of Persephone, daughter of Zeus, carried away by Pluto, who was, however, able to retain her at his side only for six months in the year. That dusky divinity of the classics forms an apt counterpart to Gwyn ab Nûᵭ, and the Finn who corresponds to him in Irish literature.

Before closing this chapter, the story of the childhood of Amorgen, father of Conall Cernach, deserves to be mentioned. It is to the effect that there was in Ulster a famous smith called Eccet or Eccen, surnamed Sálach, the Dirty or Sooty; he was such a master craftsman that Ulster never boasted a better. Now Eccet had a gorgeously dressed daughter and an infant boy called Amorgen: he was a hideous creature and in every way disgusting, not to mention that he had reached the fourteenth year of his age without uttering a word. It happened one day when Eccet was from home, that Aitherne's man came on an errand to the smith's house, and beheld Eccet's daughter sitting in splendid apparel in a chair, with the hideous Amorgen on the floor hard by. He cast grim looks at Greth, for that was the name of Aitherne's man, and presently asked him if he ate curds and other things which the urchin himself considered dainties. But Greth was frightened at being addressed by an infant that had never spoken before, and, hearing the question repeated, he rushed out of the house and hastened home, where his master was astonished by his frightened looks. Then he told Aitherne all that had happened; but in the mean time the smith had also come home and heard from his daughter that Amorgen had spoken for the first time. He at once