84: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Belgium, and GaoL Sucli names as Lng, Esus, and Xuada ('• light," ^ 

 ■'strength," and "wealth" perhaps) were themselves elusire, and as little 

 personal names as the corresponding nse of the first twcin oar own worship. 

 So perhaps " Lngus," while it appears in many place-names, like Lngodunum 

 and LugubaUimn, and personal names, like Lugobelinus (Llewellyn), 

 Lngueslis, Lnguadex (Lagaid), Lngviri (Lngaii), Lugotorix, and Lagnselva, 

 never occurs on votive tablets, save the vague plural deities Lugoc^s, in Spain 

 and Switzerland. Professor MacCulloch shows that many local gods of 

 agriculture were (like Lug) identified with Mercury.- To ignore this vitiates 

 all mythological research. 



As to the difference of character, we have shown that, in at least one 

 ancient source, Crom abounded in charity and good works, and in others that 

 Lug was thought of as revengeful and cruel. He was the object of excessive 

 human sacrifice on Puy de Dome, and so akin to the stone god, " Cenn 

 CJruaeh," of Magh Slecht. Perhaps, as harvest god, the blameless boy, so 

 nearly sacrificed at Tara to ensure a good harvest, was to be offered to Lug at 

 his shrine " Cro Loga" there.^ 



Sun gods and harvest gods have usually this horrible side to their 

 character, and it muse have called out horror in their worshippers and 

 coloured their myths. Even Apollo appears (in the first bundled lines of 

 Greek literature), coming on like the night, avenging his priest's tears with 

 his arrows, and making a vast slaughter-heap of men, mtiles, and dogs, as he 

 had slain the mouse, the wolf, and the python. The more barbarous Lug 

 probably presided over less deserved and more deliberate slaughter at Puy 

 de Dome, if not at Magh Slecht or at Tara, and could well have been identified 

 with the " Head of the Mountain " at Pennocrucion or (Jroaghpatrick.' 



Not only as a chief god of the Grauls, British and Irish, was Lug likely to 

 " absorb " local gods. He was ancestor of the later princes of Munster, and, 

 as an archaic myth asserted, helped to free by his counsel that pro%"ince from 

 the oppression of the Fomoiian god Bress.* Among the Ernai his advance 

 may have been slower. 



The " official " Dergthenian pedigi-ee shows, embedded in its later strata, 



' Lncdnnmn, i.e. " Mons lacidns " (Hericns, "Vita S. Gtennani). "Longus" is said 

 to mean '"' raven " in Gaulish (Psendo Plutarch, ed. Didot, vi, p. 14) ; more probably the 

 god's attendant ravens bore his name, as the scald crows in Ireland bore that of their 

 goddesses, Badb and Tethra. 



- "Religion of Ancient Celts," p. 24. 



5 Echtra Airt CEriu, IH, p. 149), for Cto Loga, see " Second Battle of Mag Tnra." 



* Lug gives his name to Slieve Lowe (Sliab Lnga], in Co. Sligo, so far as I know the 

 only mountain bearing his name. 



' Metr. Dind. S. (Todd Lect. Ser., s), p. 119. 



