Seal of City of Glasgow, 1647-1793, showing Tree, Bird, Salmon, and Bell
That the Glasgow saint took the place of a Druid,170 so that the people might say "Kentigern is my Druid" as St. Columba said "Christ is my Druid", is suggested by his intimate connection, as shown in his seal, with the sacred tree of the "King of the Elements", the oracular bird (the thunder bird), the salmon form of the deity, and the power-conferring ring. As the Druids produced sacred fire from wood, so did St. Kentigern. It is told that when a youth his rivals extinguished the sacred fire under his care. Kentigern went outside the monastery and obtained "a bough of growing hazel and prayed to the 'Father of Lights'". Then he made the sign of the cross, blessed the bough, and breathed on it.
"A wonderful and remarkable thing followed. Straightway fire coming forth from heaven, seizing the bough, as if the boy had exhaled flames for breath, sent forth fire, vomiting rays, and banished all the surrounding darkness.... God therefore sent forth His light, and led him and brought him into the monastery.... That hazel from which the little branch was taken received a blessing from St. Kentigern, and afterwards began to grow into a wood. If from that grove of hazel, as the country folks say, even the greenest branch is taken, even at the present day, it catches fire like the driest material at the touch of fire...."
A red-breast, which was kept as a pet at the monastery, was hunted by boys, who tore off its head. Kentigern restored the bird to life. The robin was hunted down in some districts as was the wren in other districts. An old rhyme runs:
A robin and a wren
Are God's cock and hen.
In Pagan times the oracular bird connected with the holy tree was sacrificed annually. The robin represented the god and the wren (Kitty or Jenny Wren) the goddess in some areas. In Gaelic, Spanish, Italian, and Greek the wren is "the little King" or "the King of Birds". A Gaelic folk-tale tells that the wren flew highest in a competition held by the birds for the kingship, by concealing itself on an eagle's back. When the eagle reached its highest possible altitude, the wren rose above it and claimed the honour of kingship. In the Isle of Man the wren used to be hunted on St. Stephen's Day. Elsewhere it was hunted on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. The dead bird was carried on a pole at the head of a procession and buried with ceremony in a churchyard.
In Scotland the shrew mouse was hunted in like manner, and buried under an apple tree. A standing stone in Perthshire is called in Gaelic "stone of my little mouse". As there were mouse feasts in ancient Scotland, it would appear that a mouse god like Smintheus (Mouse-Apollo) was worshipped in ancient times. Mouse cures were at one time prevalent. The liver of the mouse171 was given to children who were believed to be on the point of death. They rallied quickly after swallowing it. Roasted mouse was in England and Scotland a cure for whooping-cough and smallpox. The Boers in South Africa are perpetuating this ancient folk-cure.172 In Gaelic folk-lore the mouse deity is remembered as lucha sith ("the supernatural mouse").
There still survive traces of the worship of a goddess who is remembered as Bride in England and Scotland, and as Brigit in Ireland. A good deal of the lore connected with her has been attached to the memory of St. Brigit of Ireland.
February 1st (old style) was known as Bride's Day. Her birds were the wood linnet, which in Gaelic is called "Bird of Bride", and the oyster catcher called "Page of Bride", while her plant was the dandelion (am bearnan brìde), the "milk" of which was the salvation of the early lamb. On Bride's Day the serpent awoke from its winter sleep and crept from its hole. This serpent is called in Gaelic "daughter of Ivor", an ribhinn ("the damsel"), &c.
The white serpent was, like the salmon, a source of wisdom and magical power. It was evidently a form of the goddess. Brigit was the goddess of the Brigantes, a tribe whose territory extended from the Firth of Forth to the midlands of England.173 The Brigantes took possession of a part of Ireland where Brigit had three forms as the goddess of healing, the goddess of smith-work, and the goddess of poetry, and therefore of metrical magical charms. Some think her name signifies "fiery arrow". She was the source of fire, and was connected with different trees in different areas. The Bride-wells were taken over by Saint Bride.
The white serpent, referred to in the legends associated with Farquhar, the physician, and Michael Scott, sometimes travelled very swiftly by forming itself into a ring with its tail in its mouth. This looks like the old Celtic solar serpent. If the serpent were cut in two, the parts wriggled towards a stream and united as soon as they touched water. If the head were not smashed, it would become a beithis, the biggest and most poisonous variety of serpent.174 The "Deathless snake" of Egypt, referred to in an ancient folk-tale, was similarly able to unite its severed body. Bride's serpent links with the serpent dragons of the Far East, which sleep all winter and emerge in spring, when they cause thunder and send rain, spit pearls, &c. Dr. Alexander Carmichael translates the following Gaelic serpent-charm:
To-day is the day of Bride,
The serpent shall come from his hole;
I will not molest the serpent
And the serpent will not molest me.
De Visser175 quotes the following from a Chinese text referring to the dragons:
If we offer a deprecatory service to them,
They will leave their abodes;
If we do not seek the dragons
They will also not seek us.
The serpent, known in Scotland as nathair challtuinn ("snake of the hazel grove"), had evidently a mythological significance. Leviathan is represented by the Gaelic cirein cròin (sea-serpent), also called mial mhòr a chuain ("the great beast of the sea") and cuairtag mhòr a chuain ("the great whirlpool of the sea"); a sea-snake was supposed to be located in Corryvreckan whirlpool. Kelpies and water horses and water bulls are forms assumed by the Scottish dragon. There are Far Eastern horse-and bull-dragons.
In ancient British lore there are references to souls in serpent form. A serpent might be a "double" like the Egyptian "Ka". It was believed in Wales that snake-souls were concealed in every farm-house. When one crept out from its hiding-place and died, the farmer or his wife died soon afterwards. Lizards were supposed to be forms assumed by women after death.176 The otter, called in Scottish Gaelic Dobhar-chù ("water dog") and Righ nàn Dobhran ("king of the water" or "river"), appears to have been a soul form. When one was killed a man or a woman died. The king otter was supposed to have a jewel in its head like the Indian nāga (serpent deity), the Chinese dragon, the toad, &c. The king otter was invulnerable except on one white spot below its chin. Those who wore a piece of its skin as a charm were supposed to be protected against injury in battle. Evidently, therefore, the otter was originally a god like the boar, the image of which, as Tacitus records, was worn for protection by the Baltic amber searchers of Celtic speech. The biasd na srogaig ("the beast of the lowering horn") was a Hebridean loch dragon with a single horn on its head; this unicorn was tall and clumsy.
The "double" or external soul might also exist in a tree. Both in England and Scotland there are stories of trees withering when some one dies, or of some one dying when trees are felled. Aubrey tells that when the Earl of Winchelsea began to cut down an oak grove near his seat at Eastwell in Kent, the Countess died suddenly, and then his eldest son, Lord Maidstone, was killed at sea. Allan Ramsay, the Scottish poet, tells that the Edgewell tree near Dalhousie Castle was fatal to the family from which he was descended, and Sir Walter Scott refers to it in his "Journal", under the date 13th May, 1829. When a branch fell from it in July, 1874, an old forester exclaimed "The laird's deed noo!" and word was received not long afterwards of the death of the eleventh Earl of Dalhousie. Souls of giants were supposed to be hidden in thorns, eggs, fish, swans, &c. At Fasnacloich, in Argyllshire, the visit of swans to a small loch is supposed to herald the death of a Stewart.
"External souls", or souls after death, assumed the forms of cormorants, cuckoos, cranes, eagles, gulls, herons, linnets, magpies, ravens, swans, wrens, &c., or of deer, mice, cats, dogs, &c. Fairies (supernatural beings) appeared as deer or birds. Among the Scottish were-animals are cats, black sheep, mice, hares, gulls, crows, ravens, magpies, foxes, dogs, &c. Children were sometimes transformed by magicians into white dogs, and were restored to human form by striking them with a magic wand or by supplying shirts of bog-cotton. The floating lore regarding were-animals was absorbed in witch-lore after the Continental beliefs regarding witches were imported into this country. In like manner a good deal of floating lore was attached to the devil. In Scotland he is supposed to appear as a goat or pig, as a gentleman with a pig's or horse's foot, or as a black or green man riding a black or green horse followed by black or green dogs. Eels were "devil-fish", and were supposed to originate from the hairs of horses' manes or tails. Men who ate eels became insane, and fought horses.
In Scotland butterflies and bees were not only soul-forms but deities, and there are traces of similar beliefs in England, Wales, and Ireland. Scottish Gaelic names of the butterfly include dealbhan-dé ("image" or "form of God"), dealbh signifying "image", "form", "picture", "idol", or "statue"; dearbadan-dé ("manifestation of God"); eunan-dé ("small bird of God"); teine-dé ("fire of God"); and dealan-dé ("brightness of God"). The word dealan refers to (1) lightning, (2) the brightness of the starry sky, (3) burning coal, (4) the wooden bar of a door, and (5) to a wooden peg fastening a cow-halter round the neck. The bar and peg, which gave security, were evidently connected with the deity.
In addition to meaning butterfly, dealan-dé ("the dealan of God") refers to a burning stick which is shaken to and fro or whirled round about. When "need fires" (new fires) were lit at Beltain festival (1st May)—"Beltain" is supposed to mean "bright fires" or "white fires", that is, luck-bringing or sacred fires—burning brands were carried from them to houses, all domestic fires having previously been extinguished. The "new fire" brought luck, prosperity, health, increase, protection, &c. Until recently Highland boys who perpetuated the custom of lighting bon-fires to celebrate old Celtic festivals were wont to snatch burning sticks from them and run homewards, whirling the dealan-dé round about so as to keep it burning.
Souls took the form of a dealan-dé (butterfly). Lady Wilde relates in Ancient Legends (Vol. I, pp. 66-7) the Irish story of a child who saw the butterfly form of the soul—"a beautiful living creature with four snow-white wings"; it rose from the body of a man who had just died and went "fluttering round his head". The child and others watched the winged soul "until it passed from sight into the clouds". The story continues: "This was the first butterfly that was ever seen in Ireland; and now all men know that the butterflies are the souls of the dead waiting for the moment when they may enter Purgatory, and so pass through torture to purification and peace".
In England and Scotland moths were likewise souls of the dead that entered houses by night or fluttered outside windows, as if attempting to return to former haunts.
The butterfly god or soul-form was known to the Scandinavians. Freyja, the northern goddess, appears to have had a butterfly avatar. At any rate, the butterfly was consecrated to her. In Greece the nymph Psyche, beloved by Cupid, was a beautiful maiden with the wings of a butterfly; her name signifies "the soul". Greek artistes frequently depicted the human soul as a butterfly, and especially the particular species called ψυχη ("the soul"). On an ancient tomb in Italy a butterfly is shown issuing from the open mouth of a death-mask. The Serbians believed that the butterfly souls of witches arose from their mouths when they slept. They died if their butterfly souls did not return.177 Evidence of belief in the butterfly soul has been forthcoming in Burmah, where ceremonies are performed to prevent the baby's butterfly soul following that of a dead mother.178 The pre-Columbian Americans, and especially the Mexicans, believed in butterfly souls and butterfly deities. In China the butterfly soul was carved in jade and associated with the plum tree;179 the sacred butterfly was in Scotland associated apparently with the honeysuckle (deoghalag), a plant containing "life-substance" in the form of honey (lus a mheahl: "honey herb") and milk (another name of the plant being bainne-ghamhnach: "milk of the heifer"). As we have seen, the honeysuckle was supposed to be more powerful than the tree to which it clung; like the ivy and mistletoe, it was the plant of a powerful deity. Its milk and honey names connect it with the Great Mother goddess who was the source of life and nourishment, and provided the milk-and-honey elixir of life.
Bee-souls figure in Scottish folk-stories. Hugh Miller relates a story of a sleeping man from whose mouth the soul issued in the form of the bee.180 Another of like character is related by a clergyman.181 Both are located in the north of Scotland, where, as in the south of England, the custom was prevalent of "telling the bees" when a death took place, and of placing crape on hives. The bee-mandible symbol appears on Scottish sculptured stones. Both the bee and the butterfly were connected with the goddess Artemis. Milk-yielding fig trees were fertilized by bees or wasps, and the goddess, especially in her form as Diana of the Ephesians, was connected with the fig tree, the figs being "teats".
Little is known regarding the Hebridean sea-god Seonaidh (pronounced "shony"), who may have been a form of the sea-god known to the Irish as Lir and to the Welsh as Llyr. His name connects him with the word seonadh, signifying "augury", "sorcery", "druidism". According to Martin, the inhabitants of Lewis contributed the malt from which ale was brewed for an offering to the gods. At night a man waded into the sea up to his middle and cried out, "Seonaidh! I give thee this cup of ale, hoping that thou wilt be so good as to send us plenty of sea-ware for enriching our ground during the coming year." He then poured the ale into the sea. The people afterwards gathered in the church of St. Mulway, and stood still for a time before the altar on which a candle was burning. When a certain signal was given the candle was extinguished. The people then made merry in the fields, drinking ale.
CHAPTER XVI
Ancient Pagan Deities
Deities as Birds—Triads of Gaelic Goddesses—Shape-shifting Goddesses—Black Annis of Leicestershire—The Scottish Black Annis—Black Kali and Black Demeter—Cat Goddess and Witches—A Scottish Artemis—Celtic Adonis Myth—The Cup of Healing—Myths of Gaelic Calendar—Irish and Scottish Mythologies Different—Scottish Pork Taboo—Eel tabooed in Scotland but not in England—Ancient English Food Taboos—Irish Danann Deities—Ancient Deities of England and Wales—The Apple Cult—English Wassailling Custom—The Magic Cauldron—The Holy Grail—Cauldron a Goddess Symbol—Pearls and Cows of the Cauldron—Goddess—Romano-British Deities—Grouped Goddesses—The Star Goddess—Sky and Sea Spirits.
Many of the old British and Irish deities had bird forms, and might appear as doves, swallows, swans, cranes, cormorants, scald crows, ravens, &c. The cormorant, for instance, is still in some districts called the Cailleach dubh ("the black old wife"). Some deities, like Brigit and Morrigan, had triple forms, and appeared as three old hags or as three beautiful girls, or assumed the forms of women known to those they visited. In the Cuchullin stories the Morrigan appears with a supernatural cow, the milk of which heals wounds and prolongs life. When in conflict with Cuchullin, she takes alternately the forms of an eel, a grey wolf, and a white cow with red ears. On one occasion she changes from human form to that of a dark bird. An old west of England goddess was remembered until recently in Leicestershire as "Black Annis", "Black Anny", or "Cat Anna". She frequented a cave on the Dane Hills,182 above which grew an oak tree. In the branches of the tree she concealed herself, so that she might pounce unawares on human beings. Shepherds attributed to her the loss of lambs, and mothers their loss of children. The supernatural monster had one eye in her blue face, and talons instead of hands. Round her waist she wore a girdle of human skins.
A Scottish deity called "Yellow Muilearteach" was similarly one-eyed and blue-faced, and had tusks protruding from her mouth. An apple dangled from her waist girdle. The Indian goddess Black Kali is depicted as a ferocious being of like character, with a forehead eye, in addition to ordinary eyes, and a waist girdle of human heads. Greece had its Black Demeter with animal-head (a horse's or pig's), and snakes in her hair. She haunted a cave in Phigalia. The Egyptian goddess Hathor in her cat form (Bast) was kindly, and in her Sekhet form was a fierce slayer of mankind.183
Witches assume cat forms in Scottish witch lore,184 and appear on the riggings and masts of ships doomed to destruction. There are references, too, to cat roasting, so as to compel the "Big Cat" to appear. The "Big Cat" is evidently the deity. In northern India dogs are tortured to compel the "Big Dog" (the god Indra) to send rain. "Lapus Cati" (the cat stone) is referred to in early Christian records. As a mouse was buried under an apple tree to make it fruitful, a cat was buried under a pear tree.
The Scottish "Yellow Muilearteach" revels in the slaughter of human beings, and folk poems, describing a battle waged against her, have been collected. In the end she is slain, and her consort comes from the sea to lament her death. A similar hag is remembered as the Cailleach ("the old wife"). She had a "blue-black face" and one eye "on the flat of her forehead", and she carried a magic hammer. During the period of "the little sun" (the winter season) she held sway over the world. Her blanket was washed in the whirlpool of Corryvreckan, which kept boiling vigorously for several days. Ben Nevis was her chief dwelling-place, and in a cave in that mountain she kept as a prisoner all winter a beautiful maiden who was given the task of washing a brown fleece until it became white. When wandering among the mountains or along the sea-shore she is followed, like Artemis, by herds of deer, goats, swine, &c. The venomous black boar is in some of the stories under her special protection. Apparently this animal was her symbol as it was that of the Baltic amber traders. The hero who hunts and slays the boar is himself killed by it, as was the Syrian god Adonis by the boar form of Ares (Mars). In Gaul the boar-god Moccus was identified by the Romans with Mars.
In Gaelic stories the hero who hunts and slays the boar is remembered as Diarmid, the eponymous ancestor of the Campbell clan. Apparently the goddess was the ugly hag to whom he once gave shelter. She transformed herself into a beautiful maiden who touched his forehead and left on it a "love spot".185
When she vanished he followed her to the "Land-Under-Waves". There he finds her as a beautiful girl who is suffering from a wasting disease. To cure her he goes on a long journey to obtain a draught of water from a healing well. This water he carries in the "Cup of Healing".
The winter hag has a son who falls in love with the beautiful maiden of Ben Nevis. When he elopes with her, his mother raises storms in the early spring season to keep the couple apart and prevent the grass growing. These storms are named in the Gaelic Calendar as "the Pecker", "the Whistle", "the Sweeper", "the Complaint", &c. In the end her son pursues her on horseback, until she transforms herself into a moist grey stone "looking over the sea". The story tells that the son's horse leapt over arms of the sea. On Loch Etiveside a place-name "Horseshoes" is attached to marks on a rock supposed to have been caused by his great steed. In the Isle of Man the place of the giant son is taken by St. Patrick. He rides from Ireland on horseback like the ancient sea god. He cursed a monster, which was turned into solid rock. St. Patrick's steed left the marks of its hoofs on the cliffs.186
In Arthurian romance King Arthur pursues Morgan le Fay, who likewise transforms herself into a stone. A Welsh folk story tells that Arthur's steed leapt across the Bristol Channel, and left the marks of its hoofs on a rock.
It appears that Morgan le Fay is the same deity as the Irish Morrigan. Both appear to link with Anu, or Danu, the Irish mother goddess, and with Black Anna or Annis of Leicestershire. The Irish Danann deities wage war against the Fomorians, who are referred to in one instance as the gods of the Fir Domnann (Dumnonii), the mineral workers or "diggers" of Cornwall and Devon, of the south-western and central lowlands of Scotland, and central and south-western Ireland. In Scotland the Fomorians are numerous; they are hill and cave giants like the giants of Cornwall. But there are no Scottish Dananns and no "war of the gods". The Fomorians of Scotland wage war against the fairies (as in Wester Ross) or engage in duels, throwing great boulders at one another.
The intruding people who in Ireland formulated the Danann mythology do not appear to have reached Scotland before the Christian period.
An outstanding difference between Scottish and Irish beliefs and practices is brought out by the treatment of the pig in both countries. Like the Continental Celts, the Irish Celts, who formed a military aristocracy over the Firbolgs, the Fir Domnann, and the Fir Gailian (Gauls), kept pigs and ate pork. In Scotland the pig was a demon as in ancient Egypt, and pork was tabooed over wide areas. The prejudice against pork in Scotland is not yet extinct. It is referred to by Sir Walter Scott in a footnote in The Fortunes of Nigel, which states:
"The Scots (Lowlanders), till within the last generation, disliked swine's flesh as an article of food as much as the Highlanders do at present. Ben Jonson, in drawing James's character,187 says he loved no part of a swine."188
Dr. Johnson wrote in his A Journey to the Western Highlands in 1773:
"Of their eels I can give no account, having never tasted them, for I believe they are not considered as wholesome food.... The vulgar inhabitants of Skye, I know not whether of the other islands, have not only eels, but pork and bacon in abhorrence; and, accordingly, I never saw a hog in the Hebrides, except one at Dunvegan."
"In the year 1691 a question was put, 'Why do Scotchmen hate swine's flesh?' and", says J. G. Dalyell,189 "unsatisfactorily answered, 'They might borrow it of the Jews'." As the early Christians of England and Ireland did not abhor pork, the prejudice could not have been of Christian origin. It was based on superstition, and as the superstitions of to-day were the religious beliefs of yesterday, the prejudice appears to be a survival from pagan times. An ancient religious cult, which may have originally been small, became influential in Scotland, and the taboo spread even after its original significance was forgotten. The Scottish prejudice against pork existed chiefly among "the common people", as Dr. Johnson found when in Skye. Proprietors of alien origin and monks ate pork, but the old taboo persisted. Pig-dealers, &c., in the Highlands in the nineteenth century refused to eat pork. They exported their pigs.190
Traces of ancient food taboos, which were connected evidently with religious beliefs, have been obtained by archæologists in England. In some districts pork appears to have been more favoured than the beef or mutton or goat flesh preferred in other districts. Evidence has been forthcoming that horse flesh was eaten in ancient England. A reference in the Life of St. Columba to a relapsing Christian returning to horse flesh suggests that it was a favoured food of a Pagan cult.
As the devil is called in Scottish Gaelic the "Big Black Pig" and in Wales is associated with the "Black Sow of All Hallows", it may be that the Welsh had once their pig taboo too. The association of the pig with Hallowe'en is of special interest.
In Scotland the eel is still tabooed, although it is eaten freely in England. The reason may be that an ancient goddess, remembered longest in Scotland, had an eel form. Julius Cæsar tells that the ancient Britons with whom he came into contact did not regard it lawful to eat the hare, the domestic fowl, or the goose. In Scotland and England the goose was, until recently, eaten only once a year at a festival. The tabooed pig was eaten once a year in Egypt. It was sacrificed to Osiris and the moon. An annual sacrificial pig feast may have been observed in ancient Scotland. It is of special interest to find in this connection that in the Statistical Account of Scotland (1793) the writer on the parishes of Sandwick and Stromness, Orkney, says: "Every family that has a herd of swine, kills a sow on the 17th day of December, and thence it is called 'Sow-day'." Orkney retains the name of the Orcs (Boars), a Pictish tribe.
There are still people in the Highlands who detest "feathered flesh" or "white flesh" (birds), and refuse to eat hare and rabbit. Fish taboos have likewise persisted in the north of Scotland, where mackerel, ling,191 and skate are disliked in some areas, while in some even the wholesome haddock is not eaten in the winter or spring, and is supposed not to be fit for food until it gets three drinks of May water—that is, after the first three May tides have ebbed and flowed.
The Danann deities of Ireland were the children of descendants of the goddess Danu, whose name is also given as Ana or Anu. She was the source of abundance and the nourisher of gods and men. As "Buanann" she was "nurse of heroes". As Aynia, a "fairy"192 queen, she is still remembered in Ulster, while as Aine, a Munster "fairy", she was formerly honoured on St. John's Eve, when villagers, circulating a mound, carried straw torches which were afterwards waved over cattle and crops to give protection and increase.
A prominent Danann god was Dagda, whose name is translated as "the good god", "the good hand", by some, and as "the fire god" or "fire of god" by others. He appears to have been associated with the oak. By playing his harp, he caused the seasons to follow one another in their proper order. One of his special possessions was a cauldron called "The Undry", from which an inexhaustible food supply could be obtained. He fed heavily on porridge, and was a cook (supplier of food) as well as a king. In some respects he resembles Thor, and, like him, he was a giant slayer. His wife was the goddess Boann, whose name clings to the River Boyne, which was supposed to have had its origin from an overflowing well. Above this well were nine hazel trees; the red nuts of these fell into the well to be devoured by salmon and especially by the "salmon of knowledge". Here again we meet with the tree and well myth. Brigit was a member of the Dagda's family. Another was Angus, the god of love.
Diancecht was the Danann god of healing. His grandson Lugh (pronounced loo) has been called the "Gaelic Apollo". Goibniu was a Gaelic Vulcan.
Neit, whose wife was Nemon,193 was a Fomorian god of battle. The sea god was Manannán mac Lir. He was known to the Welsh as Manawydan ab Llyr, who was not only a sea god but "lord of headlands" and a patron of traders. Llyr has come down as the legendary King Lear, and his name survives in Leicester, originally Llyr-cestre of Cær-Llyr (walled city of Llyr). His famous and gigantic son Bran became, in the process of time, the "Blessed Bran" who introduced Christianity into Britain.
Another group of Welsh gods, known as "the children of Don", resemble somewhat the Danann deities of Ireland. The closest link is Govannon, the smith, who appears to be identical with the Irish Goibniu. As Irish pirates invaded and settled in Wales between the second and fifth centuries of our era, it may be that the process of "culture mixing" which resulted can be traced in the mythological elements embedded in folk and manuscript stories. The Welsh deities, however, were connected with certain constellations and may have been "intruders" from the Continent. Cassiopea's chair was Llys Don (the court of the goddess Don). Arianrod (silver circle), a goddess and wife of Govannon, had for her castle the Northern Crown (Corona Borealis). She is, in Arthurian romance, the sister of Arthur. Her brother Gwydion had for his castle the "Milky Way", which in Irish Gaelic is "the chain of Lugh". The Irish Danann god Nuada has been identified with the British Nudd whose children formed the group of "the children of Nudd".
There were three groups of Welsh deities, the others being "the children of Lyr" and "the children of Don". Professor Rhys has identified Nudd with Lud, the god whose name survives in London (originally Cær Lud) and in Ludgate, which may, as has been suggested, have originally been "the way of Lud", leading to his holy place now occupied by St. Paul's Cathedral. Lud had a sanctuary at Lidney in Gloucestershire, where he was worshipped in Roman times as is indicated by inscriptions. A bronze plaque shows a youthful god, with solar rays round his head, standing in a four-horsed chariot. Two winged genii and two Tritons accompany him. Apparently he was identified with Apollo. The Arthurian Lot or Loth was Lud or Ludd. His name lingers in "Lothian".
Gwydion, the son of Don, was a prominent British deity and has been compared to Odin. He was the father of the god Lleu, whose mother was Arianrod. The rainbow was "Lleu's rod-sling". Dwynwen, the so-called British Venus, was Christianized as "the blessed Dwyn" and the patron saint of the church of Llanddwyn in Anglesey. The magic cauldron was possessed by the Welsh goddess Kerridwen.