Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/159

Rh Llaw Ereint, or "Silver-Hand." A Triad represents Gweir, Mabon, and Llyr as three notable prisoners of Britain; but in Kulhwch these are Greit, Mabon, and Lludd, father of Cordeha.$21$ Are Llyr and Lludd identical, and is an Irish Alloit, sometimes called father of Manannan, the equivalent of Lludd? All this is uncertain. Rhŷs and Loth are tempted to correct Lludd into Nudd, an earlier Nodens Lāmargentios ("Nudd Silver-Hand") having been changed to Lodens (Lludd) Lāmargentios by alliteration, and to equate him with the Irish Nuada Argetlam ("Silver-Hand"); but the possibility of such an alliterative change has been denied. Nuada is identified with the British god Nodons; but though Llyr was a sea-god, there is no proof that Nuada or Nodons was such, though some symbols in the remains of the temple of Nodons on the Severn have been thought to suggest this.$22$ These, however, are not decisive, and it is equally possible that the god was equated with Mars rather than with Neptune.

Manawyddan, whose name is derived from Welsh Manaw, the Isle of Man, is much more humanized in Welsh story than the divine Manannan of the Voyage of Bran; yet he has magic powers and great superiority as a craftsman. He is associated with Arthur in a poem and is praised for his wise counsels, while Pryderi was instructed by him in various crafts and aided by him, just as the Irish Diarmaid was nurtured and taught by Manannan. Rhiannon may have been introduced accidentally into the story—"a mere invention of the narrator in order to give sequence to the narrative";$23$ but possibly she is Manawyddan's real consort, not one given him by her son. If so, Pryderi would be Manawyddan's son, not Pwyll's, and his deliverance of Rhiannon and Pryderi from his magician foe would be significant.$24$ Rhiannon appears magically, like Irish goddesses of Elysium, and she may thus have been associated with Manawyddan In Elysium, who with Pryderi is Lord of Annwfn in a Taliesin poem—