Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/622

606 the ill-disposed powers comes out very clearly in the story of Llûᵭ, who had to contend with three scourges from which his realm suffered. One of them was the race of the Coranians, who were so knowing that any sound of speech that reached the wind would come to their ears: so it was hard to overcome them. To be rid of them, Llûᵭ was advised to invite them to a feast with his own people, and then to besprinkle all present with water in which a certain insect had been ground: it had the effect of killing the Coranians without harming anybody else. I do not profess to understand the story about the water, and our principal source of information about the Coranians is their name, in Welsh Coraniaid, from a singular Còran, derived from còr, 'a dwarf.' The Coranians were in the first instance dwarfs, corresponding to the diminutive folk called in Irish Luchorpáin, and they survive in Welsh folk-lore as a distinct kind of fairies signalized by their hideousness and mischievous habits. Another scourge which Llûᵭ disposed of, and that by a hand-to-hand fight, was a thieving giant who spread siren music and sleep around him and his operations, which consisted in carrying away Llûᵭ's banquets in a basket or creel that never seemed full. Here we have a Fomor described from the Welsh point of view, unless we should rather call him a Fer Bolg, and regard the Welsh basket as the counterpart of the Irish bag or sack in this instance, which would have the advantage of