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III. THE CULTURE HERO.
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tung's daughter: the draught was otherwise called the Dwarfs' Cup, the Dwarfs' Ship, and other curious names symbolic of thought, wisdom, and especially the inspiration of poetry.

3. Gwydion obtained the boons which he conferred on man mostly by force or by craft from the powers terrene, with whom he dealt in an utterly unscrupulous fashion.

Woden procured the precious draught which was to be a gift and joy for men by wiliness, Ulysses-like patience, and even perjury, as when he became the guileful lover of Gundfled, daughter of Suptung the giant, who owned the holy drink, in order to steal the latter, which he did successfully.[1]

From these and similar items of agreement between their stories, together with the close kinship of their names, one seems to be fully warranted in regarding Gwydion and Woden respectively as Celtic and Teutonic representatives of one and the same hero, belonging to a time anterior to the separation of the Celts and the Teutons. It has already been hinted how Gwydion as Ogmios was both Heracles and Hermes when translated into a classical form; while Vigfusson and Powell have suggested comparisons between Woden and both Ulysses and Prometheus,[2] and they are undoubtedly well warranted in so doing. Prometheus, on the one hand, gets fire for the comfort of man; while, on the other, Gwydion procures certain breeds of animals for his use, as well as the gift of poetry and wisdom for the benefit of his mind; and Woden undergoes indescribable danger and hardship

  1. Corpus Poet. Boreale, i. 23.
  2. Ib. i. civ, ij. 460.