Macamstru — Tcmair Brett : Remains and Traditions of Tara. 310 



in that entitled Boanerges, it is established that in primitive Aryan belief, and 

 also in other primitive systems of belief that in our present knowledge we 

 must consider remote from Aryan, thunder is regarded as being produced by 

 a bird, which is usually the woodpecker. This bhunder-bird in time becomes a 

 thunder-god, the ornithomorpb developing with advancing civilization into an 

 anthropomorph — though the bird is not often wholly forgotten. The thunder- 

 god becomes the parent of one or both of a pair of twins — Castor and Pollux 

 is the best known of a long series of such pairs, of which Dr. Harris has 

 collected the particulars. These twins are habitually clothed in red, or by 

 some other association with the colour red betray the secret of their fiery 

 origin. Dr. Harris has been able to bring forward quite a striking number of 

 examples of this sequence. 



The Fir Bolg list gives us a new example of the same sequence, in the 

 reverse order. It is one more indication that Slainge is to be treated as an 

 interpolation, that the sequence begins with and explains the otherwise 

 obscure name Eudraige, where we see a recollection of the red of the twins' 

 robes (ruad = "red"). Next come the twins themselves, Gann and Genann, 

 with assonantal names, as is usual. Then comes the parent of the twins, 

 Sen-gann, whom we have on quite independent grounds already identified 

 with the thunder-god. We next come to Fiachu. It is impossible that the 

 name Fiachu (< * veikos) should represent Picus directly, nor does Fiachu 

 mean " woodpecker." In fact, I can find no Celtic word for the woodpecker 

 cognate with picus. But fiach means "raven"; and this suggests that 

 the myth embodying the J woodpecker — thunder-god — twins — red colour! 

 sequence is not Celtic tradition, of native growth, but imported from with- 

 out ; and that for the unfamiliar name of the woodpecker the name of 

 another bird resembling it in sound has been substituted, in the course of the 

 transference. 



Be that as it may, we have the thunder-god associated with a raven on the 

 well-known Sarrebourg altar.' This monument represents a god with his 

 attendant goddess, called respectively, in the associated inscription, Sucellos 

 and Nantosvelta. Beneath their figures is the bas-relief of a raven. That 

 Sucellos is a thunder-god is indicated by the great mallet which he is 

 carrying. - 



1 See Reinach, Cidtes, Mythes, et Religions, i, p. 217 If. 



2 The well-known and curious passage in Pseudo-Plutarch (which M. Reinach duly 

 quotes), informing us that " Loiigos is the Celtic for a raven," is probably an ignorant 

 confusion between (a) the sun-god, (/)) the thunder-god, and (<•) the ornithomorphic 

 representation of the latter. It is no more worthy of credence than the Btories 

 which well-meaning but ill-informed journalists have recently been setting before us, 

 regarding the significance attached by the Nviians to the name of General Allenby. The 

 worst Arabic ever written has appeared in some of these ingenuous concoctions. 



R.I.A, PKOC, VOL. XXXIV, SECT. C, I I 



