Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/153

Rh Gyffes. Now she refused to arm him, but once more disguised, Gwydion with Lieu caused an enchanted fleet to appear; and she armed both, only to be taunted with the stratagem. Again she said that Lieu would never have a wife of the people of this earth, but Math and Gwydion made him a bride out of flowers and called her Blodeuwedd. She was unfaithful to Lieu, however, and advised by her lover, Gronw Pebyr, she discovered that a javelin wrought for a year during Mass on Sundays would kill him when standing with one foot on a buck and the other on a bath curiously prepared by the bank of a river. Gronw made the javelin, and when Lieu, prevailed on by Blodeuwedd, showed her the fatal position, he was struck by Gronw and flew off as an eagle. Soon after, Gwydion found a pig eating worms which fell from a wasted eagle on a tree; and as he sang three verses, at each the eagle came nearer. When he struck it with a magic rod, it became Lieu, who now turned Blodeuwedd into an owl; while Gronw had to submit to a blow from a javelin which penetrated the flat stone placed by him against his body and killed him. Lieu now recovered his lands and ruled them happily.

These personages are associated with a dim figure called Don, who is probably not male, but female, and is mother of Gwydion, Gilvæthwy, Govannon, Amsethon, and Arianrhod, who was herself mother of Dylan and Lieu. Math is Dôn's brother. Superficially this group is equivalent to the Tuatha Dé Danann, and Don is parallel to Danu, while Govannon (gôf, "smith") is the equivalent of Goibniu, the Irish smithgod. Lieu, the reading of whose name as Llew ("Lion") may be abandoned, has been equated with Lug, and both names are said to mean "light." "Light," however, has no sense in the name-giving incident, and possibly, as Loth suggests,$7$ there is a connexion with Irish lu, "little." The other names of the group have no parallels among the Tuatha Dé Danann. Mythological traits are the magic powers of Math and Gwydion, their shape-shifting, and the introduction of the swine.