Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



have a Keltic namesake and parallel in Fion 

 of Ireland, whose troops were the Fianna or 

 Fenians. If the latter are not given the hairy 

 legs and horns of the Pans, Panisci, Fauni, 

 they were nevertheless creatures of the woods 

 who lived all summer in the open and only 

 quartered themselves in winter on the country 

 folk. 



The variation of P into F, of F into V or 

 /F, is a matter of little moment ; these names 

 are the same, though they appear so far apart 

 and in so many differing tongues. What was 

 formerly called Finntraighe in Ireland is now 

 Ventry. The island of Ventotene, west of 

 Naples, is the ancient Pandataria. The name 

 of Pan was Phan in one part of Greece ; and 

 we may safely interpret the name of the bird 

 phoenix, and the name given by the Greeks to 

 the sea-faring inhabitants of Canaan, the Phoe- 

 nicians, as at root the same as the name of the 

 Arcadian god. The ideas of brightness and 

 redness we may hold to be of later invention, 

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